One of Those Nights.

I'm in the final stages of my Master's degree. All that's left now is to make some corrections to my thesis, submit it, and then go for and pass the viva. I'm thankful that I've somehow made it this far. This seemed a long, long way off at this point last year.

Naturally, once you see the end of a chapter in sight, you start to think about what's coming next. To be honest, it's something I've thought about for a while now, but day by day, the need to make a decision becomes more and more pertinent. People ask what I'm going to do once I graduate, and, as often as that happens, it's still not as much as I ask myself that same question.

At the moment, there are only two things that I definitely want to commit to in 2019. The first is my role as Sponsorship Officer in the latest entity I've volunteered for, the Charisma Movement. The other is my journey into the world of the Deaf, as I will resume sign language classes in February.

The big question that still needs answering, of course, is of whether I'll be studying, working or both next year. I'm currently leaning towards going straight into a PhD, but only if the terms and conditions (particularly how much I'll be paid) of the scholarship that I'll supposedly be offered are right. Even if they are, I'm thinking I should probably get a part-time job somewhere to make a little extra and get some experience, probably at a bookstore somewhere.

I don't have big ambitions for my career. There was a point several years ago when I wanted to be rich, but then somewhere along the way I realized that money alone was not enough of a driver for me. It would be nice to have enough money to never worry about finances again, but that in itself couldn't give me enough of a push. There are other things that I value more in my life, namely my relationships with the people I care about.

To not be stuck in a job that keeps me away from home all day, every day means that I get to spend time with my friends and family. I get to watch my siblings grow, spend time with my grandmother, and be a calm, listening comfort to my overly stressed friends. The way I see it, you can always go out and get money, but time that has gone can never be replaced.

How long will this last? God only knows. He has put me into these circumstances for reasons only He is privy to, and I can only trust His plan. There are pros and cons, sure, but there's no such thing as a completely perfect situation. All we can do is be thankful for the good stuff and be patient in facing the bad.

I don't know what's compelled me to write this: yet another poorly-structured collection of thoughts that will barely benefit anyone who isn't interested in my life. I'm gonna read this back months, maybe years, from now, and wonder what on earth I was going through at the time. Well, future Ammar, the answer is simply that it was one of those nights. It wasn't too much of a dark time, but not much of a bright one either. It was in that area in between, where your thoughts and emotions are all mixed together like an experimental soup, and there's no one available at the moment to express them to. You'll probably remember that those nights were quite frequent, and the number of messy blog posts you've gotten out of them is only a tiny taste of how much actually went on.

Well, future Ammar, hopefully you're in a good place. Maybe you've finally figured out what you want to do with your life. Maybe you've finally found that person you want to spend the rest of your days with. Or maybe you've achieved something you've always wanted to do. Whatever it is, hopefully you're happier. And hopefully, 'one of those nights' is now a thing of the past.

Postcards.

A friend of mine recently went to Turkey for a post-graduation trip. I half-jokingly asked for a postcard, not expecting I would actually receive one, but receive one I (eventually) did. I was grateful for it, and it got me thinking about just how great postcards really are as souvenirs.

When someone sends you a postcard, especially in this day and age, it says a lot. A postcard says "Hey, here's a personalized message I wrote just for you, while thinking about you. I'm out here enjoying myself in this faraway land, but I took the time to pick out this postcard in a design I think you'd appreciate, pay money for it, think about what to write to you, write (as opposed to typing) it out in my hopefully legible handwriting, and then locate and make my way to a local post office to then pay more money to get it posted all the way to where you are. Also, I know where you live."

Unless, of course, the message on the postcard is something boring and generic like "Wish you were here!" Something like that indicates that the sender obviously doesn't actually wish you were there with them, because if they really cared enough about you to want you to be there they would have been bothered to write a little bit more than what sounds like something a bunch of marketing executives hurriedly and indifferently came up with during a 5.15 pm meeting. The postcard sender would still know where you live, though.

A regular souvenir, on the other hand - like, say, a keychain - is thus pretty dull in comparison. Someone will come home after a week away on vacation and come back with a bag full of keychains. "Here you go, take one," they'll say. "I just bought these in a rush on my last day so that people won't get all bitter about me not bringing anything back for them. And by 'people' I mean all of you in general; I wasn't thinking about each of your individual tastes and preferences when I got these because I was too busy enjoying myself to cater to each and every one of you," is what they'll think, but won't say.

I'm only joking, of course. I appreciate any sort of souvenir, but I just wanted to highlight just how superior postcards are in that particular gift category. And it's kinda sad how postcards are dying out (this is based on actual statistics as well as common sense).

When I went to France in 2016, I sent postcards to three of my friends back home. The first friend had asked for one, just because of that one song by The Band Perry. The second friend knew nothing about hers until it reached her mailbox - she'd never traveled in her life and I thought it would be a nice surprise that might possibly inspire her to go on a trip of her own someday. And the third friend, well, I don't really remember if I'd offered to send it or if it had been asked for.

So after having sent out postcards of my own, it was nice to receive one (even if it wasn't from one of the friends I'd previously sent a postcard to). I have to admit, though, I probably like sending them more than I do receiving them. I suppose that could just be because I have my own idea of what a good postcard looks like, and it's a different idea from what other people have. Regardless, I want to send more postcards in the future. How many I end up sending is obviously dependent on how much traveling I end up doing, so I guess I should save up.

Upon reflection, saving up money to travel just so I can send postcards to people does sound like something I would do. Which means that I want to do it even more now.

A Thing I Have to Do.

I miss writing.

More specifically, I miss writing about what I want to write about.

To be fair, there are a lot of things that I'd like to write about, and there simply aren't enough hours in the day to write about all of them while also carrying out basic bodily functions. The main reason this is the case, of course, is because much of my time is spent worrying about the one thing I don't really want to write, but really have to: my Master's thesis.

I could be doing better. I should be doing better. I know. If I'd just kept my head down and focused on nothing else, I would've been done with it ages ago, and I'd now be free to do all these other things I want to do, including writing about all these other things I'd really like to write about. Unfortunately, I didn't, and I'm not. And here we are.

The last-minute habit is a difficult one to break, especially when you've been doing it all your life. I do recall overcoming it somewhat back in Manipal, but I was pretty motivated back then. I'm not quite as motivated now.

I come up with all kinds of excuses in my head, but the moment they exit through my mouth I see them for how weak and pathetic they are. The bare truth is just that I've been lazy. Nothing more, nothing less. I've just procrastinated so much that all the work I've been putting off has finally caught up to bite me in my rear.

The worst part is that I'm actually not even that bothered about it. There aren't any alarm bells ringing in my head, no voice yelling PANIC STATIONS! through my mind, no real sense of urgency seeping through my soul. I suppose I just really can't seem to bring myself to truly care about my work.

Maybe that's the problem. Life isn't about only doing things you care about - there are also other things that don't exactly set your pulse racing but are no less important. I suppose those things exist for a reason. Boredom and excitement share the same symbiotic relationship as light and darkness, each needing the other to validate and balance out its existence.

Instead of filling my head with thoughts of  'I hate this' and 'I'd rather do literally anything else', perhaps I need to look at my thesis from a different perspective. Forget about the big picture for once - thinking about how it will help rural women entrepreneurs this whole time hasn't exactly helped, after all. I don't need to truly care about my work, and I should stop trying to; I need to just care enough to get it done. I just need to see it exactly for what it is: a thing I have to do.

I just want to be done with this. And I will be. Then I'll be free to read, write, travel, play football and waste time on the internet to my heart's content. Well, maybe not quite to my heart's content as I'll be 24 this year, a number that's possibly smaller than the number of responsibilities I have. I say 'possibly' because it's never actually occurred to me to list down and count exactly many there are. And now that I think about it, it sounds like a frightening prospect, and I'm probably better off not knowing.

One thing I do know, of course, is that before I can do anything else, I'll have to get through this thesis first. It's been a figurative thorn in my side for almost two years now, and I'm getting sick of it. I want my life back, and the only way to do that is to get this thing out of it.

Let's do this. Let's get this thing done.

Data Collection.

I didn't post anything here last month, because... well, I just didn't feel like posting anything. Things did happen last month, but they were all overshadowed by a lingering feeling of despair and hopelessness that hung over me like stratus clouds when it came to my research. I barely got anything done in March.

But now I'm sort of back to feeling like my life has meaning again. It's been less than a week into April, but it already feels like I've done a lot, and there's even more to come.

I spent the first morning of the month in Shah Alam, meeting up with most of the Rawang team (plus a couple of new faces) to firstly give away free drinks to people jogging by the lake, and then making our way to an orphanage where we were met with the chaos that comes with squeezing thirty 4-to-6-year-olds in one small area. Straight after we were done there, I had to rush back to KL as I had to attend a meeting for an event which I'm part of the committee for.

A few days later, I had another early start, only this time I was headed to Melaka to carry out a pilot study for my research. I just so happened to have a former classmate from Rembau who fit the criteria for my required respondents, and thankfully she was very accommodating and showed me a level of hospitality above and beyond any reasonable expectations. She even helped me get more respondents until I met my quota of five, which was nice. It meant, among other things, that I was able to spend the whole of the next day chilling at home instead of having to worry about getting more respondents. I wish her all the best in her business and in life.

Now I'm making plans for the next stage of my research: the dreaded data collection. I'll have to go to Pahang, Terengganu, Kelantan, Kedah and Perlis to get about 300 respondents, and the current plan is to do it all in one go and in that order. That would realistically mean that I'll be out on the road for more than a couple of weeks, assuming I stay in each state for three to four days.

There's also the possibility of the upcoming general election being held during my data collection, which would mean that I'd probably have to do something dramatic/crazy/stupid like taking a quick flight back to KL to exercise my right to vote, and then heading straight back to continue my research. Now that would be some story.

Judging by my experience in Melaka, the data collection process is likely to be strenuous, and one of my supervisors keeps telling me that I shouldn't expect it all to be plain sailing. She's right, of course, but that doesn't mean I should spend all my time feeling terrible about it. Whatever happens, happens, I suppose. Nothing to it but to do it, as they say.

One thing I've decided to do to make the trip more bearable is vlog it. I'm not really sure how much footage I'll be able to get or how good it'll be, but hopefully the whole video-making process will help keep me sane. Making videos, and particularly shooting and editing them, is something I genuinely enjoy and have missed doing. In among all the negativity that the awfulness of collecting data and being away from home for so long is bound to bring, there is a bright beacon of hope and joy that comes from being able to also use the trip to make videos. The prospect of making videos again has gotten me all excited for the trip now. I'm going out to get new tripods and stuff as soon as I can.

(I do realize that people do 'mini-vlogging' these days through 'stories' on social media, but I can't really get with that. Stories aren't as lasting as proper videos, and require little to no editing. The difference between stories and proper vlogs is the same as it is between instant meals and proper ones. True enjoyment is in the preparation.)

It's going to be a big month for me, and hopefully I can get all the data collection done by the beginning of May, at the very latest by the time Ramadan starts. Following that, it shouldn't take me too long to publish the vlogs. It's eminently doable, and I will try my best to make it so.

Subjectivity.

Image courtesy of beckybedbug.com. Would have used a picture of my own copy but I don't have it on me at the moment.

Several years ago, I read this novel called 1Q84 by the Japanese author Haruki Murakami. It was a very thick book of over a thousand pages and cost quite a bit, but there was something about it that made me curious enough to want to actually spend money on it (probably using some book vouchers, can't quite remember) and then read it from end to end.

One of the reviews cited on the book's cover called it "a work of maddening brilliance", and I was eager to find out why that was so. To be fair to the novel, I did find it rather intriguing, and I quickly sped through it. Not quite as quickly as I did the last three Harry Potter books, but quickly enough.

Oh, it was "maddening", alright.

Upon finishing it, I found myself in a state of frustration and deep dissatisfaction, wondering how on earth a book that left so many questions unanswered (and not even in a good way - there's leaving your reader to speculate and there's leaving your reader hanging) could in any way be considered to be a work of brilliance. Linguistically, maybe, but good language is the minimum you would expect from a renowned author.

After ranting to my roommate at the time about the book, I put it away and haven't really thought about it again since. Until today, that is, when I finished the last book in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. Similar to 1Q84, it had an ending which I felt was quite unsatisfactory, though in this case it wasn't because there was a multitude of important questions left unanswered, but instead because the story felt as if it'd ended far too abruptly and should have gone on for maybe half a book longer.

I was then prompted to check out some reviews of 1Q84 on Goodreads. The first reviewer absolutely loved it, and crowed on about... well I don't remember really, but I remember that it made sense. It was about looking at the novel as a piece of art and viewing the big picture behind it. What I understood, mainly, was that the plot of a novel was just a component of its artistry, and not the entirety.

Personally, though, I've always felt that the most important thing about a novel was the story, and I'm clearly not the only one. I read a few (very) negative reviews and found myself agreeing with the points raised.

So the question is: Is a novel, first and foremost, a story or a work of art? I suppose there is no right or wrong answer, and it all depends on you and what you care about. Different people appreciate different things, and to different degrees.

I watched the latest Star Wars film with a few friends about a couple of months ago. One absolutely loved it, while another absolutely did not. I was more in the middle - I enjoyed it, though I did admit it was heavily flawed. Three people watched the same movie, yet all three had different opinions about it. (There was a fourth guy with us, but he had nothing to say about the film at all.)

That's the thing about art, and pretty much any abstract concept: it's subjective. There are some things that just can't be nailed down to concrete rules. Art represents diversity - the diversity of opinion. Different people like different things. Different people think in different ways.

One of the major issues with the world we live in is that people can't seem to respect diversity. That's where racism, sexism, and any other negative -ism you can think of come from. If people can't respect diversity in things that are objective (race, gender, etc.), is it really any wonder that they also have a problem respecting diversity in things that are rather more subjective? Is it any surprise that people have difficulty in agreeing to disagree?

(Yes, I do admit that sometimes there are opinions that are just plain wrong. I'm referring to situations where diversity of opinion shouldn't lead to verbal abuse and even physical violence, but somehow sometimes do. You know what I'm talking about.)

So how do we fix this? Does teaching people to respect objective diversity automatically teach them to respect subjective diversity or vice versa? Does one really even affect the other? Who knows. Maybe someone should do a study on that. Maybe someone already has.

I wonder if giving art more importance will help. Back in school, I hated studying it, as I never really had the talent for painting or drawing or crafting anything that vaguely resembled anything. But what if art was more than just making pretty pictures? What if kids in school learned more about appreciating and interpreting art instead of simply producing it? It would certainly make the subject more interesting, as well as helping to develop thinking skills.

In conclusion:

• Art = Subjectivity
• Subjectivity = Important
• Art = Important

This started as a rant about 1Q84, but ended with me... realizing stuff. I guess that's what art can do to a guy. Well played, Murakami. Well played.

I should really read more novels.

Memory.

Here's a little something I wrote some time ago to submit somewhere but didn't quite make the cut. Figured I'd post it here (with a few further edits) so that it'd at least see the light of day. Big-ups to Fizah and Shayan for proofreading.

***

A blinding white light greeted the man as he regained consciousness. It took a while for his eyes to adjust themselves, but when they finally did he became aware of where he was: a small, beige-colored room that was completely empty except for a long mirror on the wall directly in front of him, a small stool underneath it, and the bed he was lying on. The room was brightly lit by three fluorescent lamps on the ceiling. A metal door stood shut next to the mirror.

The man saw himself in the mirror, dressed in a green hospital gown with the lower half of his body covered by a brown blanket. His head was completely shaven. His tanned face looked pale and tired. He tried to move, but found numbness in his limbs.

“Hello…?” he croaked. “Is… is anybody there?”

The door opened. A large orderly in a blue uniform entered, carrying a bottle of water. Without a single word, he pressed a button on the side of the man’s bed to sit him up and proceeded to gently place the mouth of the bottle to his lips. The orderly slowly tilted the vessel, and cool water trickled down the man’s dry throat as he audibly gulped it down.

“Thank you,” he said. The orderly nodded in response before promptly exiting the room.

A few minutes later, the door opened again. This time, it was a smaller, balding old man in a white coat. He carried with him a pen and a clipboard.

“Good evening, John,” he said cheerfully, grabbing the stool by the mirror and sitting himself down by the bed. “You can call me Dr Aziz.”

“Where…” – John stopped to clear his throat – “…where am I?”

“Why, you’re in a hospital, of course!” was the doctor’s enthusiastic reply.

“What?” asked John, confused. “Why?”

Dr Aziz smiled. “You don’t remember?”

“I… I don’t…”

A dark night. An empty road. Bright headlights from out of nowhere.

 “I was… in an accident?”

Dr Aziz nodded, a strange smile still on his face. “You were; a terrible one. Can you tell me what you remember from it?”

Screeching brakes. Crunching metal. Shattering glass. A screaming woman.

John’s eyes widened as a horrible feeling came over him. “Rose,” he said, quivering. “Where is she?”

“Rose?”

John tried getting up, but his body refused to cooperate. He was getting more and more anxious. It was unsettling how… upbeat the doctor seemed.

“My sister… where is she?”

Dr Aziz’s expression suddenly changed. He looked down at his clipboard, his eyebrow raised. Something wasn’t right.

 “Where’s Rose?”

 “Don’t you worry,” he calmly told John. He seemed composed, but no longer happy. “Rose is fine. She’s resting.”

“I need to see her,” John said, almost pleading.

“Soon,” Dr Aziz replied. “You can barely move yourself.”

John let out a long, despairing sigh. He closed his eyes, not noticing as the doctor scribbled down some notes with his pen.

 Dr Aziz removed a photograph of a smiling woman from his coat pocket. He held it up in front of his patient.

“John,” he said. “Take a look at this. Is this Rose?”

John opened his eyes – they widened almost immediately.

“Yes, that’s her!” he exclaimed. “Where did you get this?”

“It was with your other belongings,” replied the doctor. “Are you sure she’s your sister?”

“What? Of course!”

Dr Aziz stayed silent for a few seconds, scribbling down some more notes.

“Is there a problem?” John asked.

“Don’t you worry,” smiled the doctor. “That’s all for now. You rest up and I’ll see you again soon.”

***

The next morning, Dr Aziz entered the room again, wearing his white coat as always. “Good morning,” he greeted John, as cheerfully as he had the day before. “How are you feeling today?”

“I can’t move,” came the reply. John was fairly alert; he’d been awake for a couple of hours. An orderly had changed him into a fresh gown and fed him breakfast before Dr Aziz had come in. “Am I… paralyzed?”

“No, no,” Dr Aziz chuckled. “You’ll be able to move soon. Now, I have a visitor for you.”

“A visitor?”

The door opened. It was a woman, seated in a wheelchair pushed by a nurse. The woman was in a hospital gown similar to the one John was wearing. She also had her arm in a cast and bruises all over her face and body. Despite her battered appearance, John recognized her instantly as the smiling woman from the photograph.

“Rose? Is that you?”

The nurse pushed the wheelchair over to John’s bedside. Dr Aziz motioned for her to leave the room, and she duly obliged.

Rose mustered a smile. “It’s me, darling. Are you okay?”

John looked confused. “What?”

“Is there something wrong?” asked Dr Aziz.

“Is… is this really Rose?”

“Of course it is.”

“Something’s not right,” said John suspiciously. “She looks like Rose and sounds like Rose, but Rose would never call me darling.”

“Why not?” protested Rose. “You’re my husband!”

“What?” John was shocked. “No! I’m your brother!”

There was a startled silence.

“Don’t… don’t you remember our honeymoon?” asked Rose. “Don’t you remember that night on the beach? With the campfire?”

“That… that was with my wife!”

“I am your wife, John,” Rose pleaded. “I’m not your sister!”

She reached out and held his hand. “Darling... try to remember...”

John froze as the woman’s touch triggered a frenzy in his brain. His mind was struggling to reconcile his conflicted memories, and the stress showed on his face. He started to sweat.

Rose quickly removed her hand. “Put him to sleep,” she said urgently. “Now.”

Dr Aziz removed a syringe from his coat pocket and stuck the needle into a vein on John’s arm. He soon calmed down and lost consciousness.

The doctor breathed a sigh of relief. “That was a close one, Laila,” he said. “You might have pushed him too hard there.”

“Perhaps,” Dr Laila said, getting up from her wheelchair. She removed her wig and pulled off the cast from her arm. “But at least he’s still alive. Remember what happened to the last one?”

Dr Aziz nodded at his research partner. She was much younger than he was – about thirty years his junior – but she was equally brilliant. It was the reason why he’d chosen her to work with him on this project.

“At least we’ve made progress,” said Dr Aziz. “We got the memories mixed up again, but this time the misconsolidation didn’t fry the subject’s brain. That means the degree of the error wasn’t as severe as before.”

         Dr Laila was wiping off the fake bruises on her face with a tissue. “That is true,” she said. “Now we just need to bring the error down to zero.”

            “Just a matter of fixing the coding,” Dr Aziz said. “I’m confident we’ll be able to do it before the deadline.”

He placed his hand on his partner’s shoulder. “We’re so close to cracking this, Laila. I can feel it.”

            “We’d better be,” replied Dr Laila. “I hate dressing up like this.”

One year later…

The Opposition Leader, seated at his desk, was listening carefully, not quite believing what he was hearing. It sounded like something straight out of science fiction.

“Let me get this straight, Halim,” he said, addressing his chief aide, who stood before him. “You’re saying this device has the ability to transfer memories in and out of a person?”

“That’s right, sir,” said Halim, nodding. “I saw it happen with my own eyes. They’ve already started mass-producing handheld versions of the device.”

“Do you realize what this means?”

Halim was silent. He knew precisely what it meant.

“Memories come from experiences,” said the Leader. “Experiences dictate the way a person thinks and acts. If this device can take away memories and create new ones, it can completely change a person’s thoughts and mannerisms.”

The chief aide nodded solemnly.

“The government now have a device,” continued the Leader, “that can physically brainwash people. Instead of having to psychologically break down the mind’s defences, they can just go directly to the source.”

“It’s… terrifying, sir,” said Halim. “What should we do?”

“The people need to know,” said the Leader.

“No one will ever believe us,” said Halim, shaking his head. “We’ll sound like lunatics.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

Halim reached into his trouser pocket. “We can’t beat the government, sir,” he said. “They’ve already won.”

His hand emerged; in it was a silver, pen-like object. “The only option left is to join them.”

The Leader stood up, his body tense with fear. “Halim,” he whispered. “What is that?”

Putting on a pair of sunglasses, the chief aide held the device up vertically to eye level. His four fingers were wrapped around it with his thumb perched on top.

“This little thing,” Halim said, “was made specially for you.”

His thumb pressed down on the device; there was a blinding flash.

“How are you feeling, sir?” Halim asked, grinning. He removed his sunglasses. “You look a little dazed.”

The Opposition Leader blinked. “I… I understand now,” he said. “Everything is… so clear.”

“The Prime Minister knew you’d see it our way,” smiled Halim.

Experience.

I've got a big year ahead of me, full of big changes and big decisions. As always, I have no idea how things are going to go, or how I'm going to react to whatever happens, but recently I've found some comfort in the following mantra:

When the time comes, you'll know what to do.

I can't remember if I heard it from somewhere or came up with it myself, but either way, I've found it to usually be quite true. It might not work for everyone, and it definitely won't work without some degree of preparation, but it works for me. It helps to curb overthinking and keeps me calm in the face of uncertainty.

Uncertainty is a big thing for me. I'm not much of a risk-taker; I don't typically do things unless I'm fairly confident of what the outcome will be. I don't like trying new foods or meeting new people unless I'm able to first convince myself that it won't turn out too badly. (Of course, what usually happens is that I either don't try the new food or meet the new people and I move along with my life, or I do and it turns out just fine, thereby rendering all my worries pointless.)

Of course, there's never really any way to be fully certain of an outcome. Only two things in life are certain, as the saying goes: death and taxes. No matter how many reviews I read, watch or listen to about a movie, for instance, there's no way to know if I'll actually enjoy it without actually watching it. But the reviews do help to give some idea of what to expect, as will my previous experiences watching movies by the same director or featuring the same actors.

Experience, therefore, is a crucial part of eliminating uncertainty. The other day, I had to make some phone calls to get data for my research, and the prospect of calling all these government offices seemed hugely daunting...until I actually brought myself to make the first call. Things were a lot smoother and more bearable after that, as I'd already had the experience of making that first phone call and would rely on that experience to make the subsequent ones.

That's an example of firsthand experience, which is always the best kind. Sometimes, though, firsthand experience is out of reach, and you just have to rely on secondhand experience instead. As someone who doesn't talk much (or didn't use to, anyway), I tend to listen a lot to what people say, and sometimes people relate their experiences in matters I've never come near to. I've learned a lot about life from people who've lived far more of it than I have, and it's partly why I didn't get up to a lot of mischief when I was younger. I didn't have to make mistakes because I learned from the mistakes of others.

This year, I'm aiming to actively gain more firsthand experience. 'Actively' is the key word here; where possible, I'd like to do less sitting around waiting for things to happen to me. I started being more proactive some time ago, but this year I'd like to step it up. I'd like to stop being so overly cautious and passive and just...do things instead of thinking up reasons why I shouldn't.

I don't know what I'll end up doing this year, but I can rest easy with the knowledge that whatever happens and however these things happen will be for the best. No need for overthinking.