Be careful of what you write

Dear diary,

Yesterday I just wrote a long post about what a true love should be, yes again, this topic is one of my most favourite categories of writing. I shared the post to one or two close friends from the group, they encouraged me to have it posted public either on my facebook or in the group for all the girls to read and raise their awareness of true love, I rejected though.

As a matter of fact, I spent hours to write a few posts to share and hopefully guide them through this road, turn their directions into a more accurate meaning that the book or whoever had conveyed. However, the more I wrote, the more I recognized myself even get out of my original intention quite distantly and I even lost myself admist the waves of hearts, likes and compliments :) 

When I was young, I wished I would become a writer but just a ghostwriter – it meant either I would write for myself without readers or become an anonymous writer. I would like to share inspirations, use my words to express my own perceptions not only to help others see something in a different light but also probably change the world better in some way. The more I grew up, the more I learnt a lesson that we each have our own way of perceiving and interpreting the world around which shapes our personality and guides behaviors. 

There is no way to change someone unless you have the power to come into someone’s mind and reprogram the whole system of thinking, or you just need offer someone a terrific result in advance – then it would become the motivation for this utter alteration.

Sometimes I indeed doubt the inspiring or self-help books if they are helpful or just a way to lure people more to hell. Sorry to say so. Different readers, different mindsets, different perceptions will drive to different consequences and actually writers obviously are not responsible for them although writers must unintentionally become “the murder of someone’s future” to someone. 

People nowadays are more addicted to those who are successful or those whose words become “so-called” correct and seem nice. To be honest, I never dare to affirm anything or encourage anyone to believe in my posts because at the end of the day, I’m just a normal human-being and I can only see and write based on my own perceptions. It may be right to these but be wrong to those. When I want to use my words and my personal life as a good testimony to convince more people to believe in me, it means that I’m doing something so wrong and potentially destroy someone future by my own manipulating words. It’s dangerous.

Each human-being was born with each different destiny and mission to fulfill in this life, your right to do as an influencer, a writer or someone should only be as a reference for those who seem to share the same missions with you, but shouldn’t use your words to manipulate anyone’s life :)

I have no idea about what “improve yourself to have a better life” really means, but the definition of “a better life” to me and “a better life” to others are quite different so how can someone read or see my “better life”, using all of my methods to reach to “a better life” in my definition while the person has no notion of how my “better life” in reality is?

Well, with all the given reasons, I figure that I should stop writing for others and focus more on my real life, improve myself so that next time I can do something more meaningful. Since my mind is not so stable, I’d better “fix” it first before being eager to please someone’s.

Thanks,

Hal-

Respectful conversations

Unlike other usual quarrels, Ryan and I always choose to have a heart-to-heart conversation each time we start to have something disagreed with the partner on our mind. Instead of keeping the uncomfortable things inside and pile them up day by day, we’d rather say them out and handle them immediately right away.

Last night was also one of those conversations, he talked to me before our night kiss and sleep. It was from my bad habit as usual, when I was really into something and concentrate 100%, I often neglected and forgot the whole world out there, even myself. Back to the days of working, I could sit in front of my lappie since 8am until 6 to 7pm without a break, I would be grabbing something to put in my mouth and working at the same time. 7pm I finished a bit to have a shower and kept myself available to my clients, suppliers in order to solve all the problems until 1am. It became abundantly clear that my life was nothing out of work. He was so intensively concerned about me that he asked me to leave my job on the occasion of the pandemic. 

These days I started to follow and study languages, new knowledge and skills, of course I even forgot other things in reality, my schedule was fucked up since I spent most time either in front of my lappie, or books. Ryan must help me from household chores to reminding of meal times, drinking water, kissing him sometimes lolz~ That’s why we had the conversation last night about these bad habits, he expressed me how he felt and worried about me, certainly offered me a few good way to adjust my routine for the better health and lifestyle. 

He is a master of time management. Life only offers each 24 hours per day, it’s us who decide on how we spend depending on how smart we are. In one day, he always sets the limit for each activity: time for exercise, time for working, time for household chores, time for wifey, time for learning, time for meals, time for entertainment, self-time such as meditation and chanting, time for reading news and time for rest. In the meantime, for me, I only have time for working, studying, sleeping, eating, surfing on the internet, writing and reading. Done!

It seems smart since he always advises but never forces me to do anything, just says for me to consider and think twice for he figures we both are grown-up and mature adults, not children to be taught how to do a thing in a proper way. This is the way he respects me and also the way I respect him whenever I open a conversation to speak out what I think and feel in a direct way, not hesitate at all. Perhaps thanks to this way, we have never really got any serious quarrel so far because we don’t request each other to change so as to adapt to our expectation, which means our respect. 

Such kind conversation often starts with “I see you like this….I feel….I think if you are like this…I would feel…” and ends with “Aniweii, it’s just my own opinions and from my own perception, you can consider and think about it. You are the one who decide what to do next on your own. I’m not going to interfere in your decision because I respect yours.”

When you hear someone say so, of course you don’t feel offended and insulted at all, do you? That’s also how I felt after our conversation. Later he gave me a good-night kiss and said “I love you no matter what, honey” :)

Love,

Hal-

A story about a Thai man

Today, we planned to hang out with each other at a nice restaurant in town to celebrate our chosen big date. Unfortunately, it was raining heavily for a few hours until it was quite late at night to have our dinner. My hubby suggested to order authentic Thai cuisine from a Thai man who moved to Vietnam for twelve years and stayed in Nha Trang for two years that we had the chance to visit his restaurant last weekend with my parents.

Somehow, I just remembered an unexpected incident for our first experience to the man’s restaurant. He could speak Vietnamese quite well, that’s why I let him talk to the driver for bringing us to the correct destination since the address numbers on the street were a mess due to the new and old ones. The driver didn’t seem to understand and he was pissed off to say something not nice about this Thailand man while my phone was still on. When the driver handed over me the phone, I still heard the Thailand man said “If you want to come, welcome. Otherwise no need.” then hung up.

The driver and my parents judged this man was so weird or something, but I decided to call him once more time to ask him for the easier direction to go since I anyhow guessed he was not a true Vietnamese man. He also replied to me in a good manner that his Vietnamese was very limited and he couldn’t know all the remarkable places in the town to guide us. I must apologize to him and insisted him to show us by street names from the beach. Then we all made it.

Four of us came up to the third floor in a building to his small restaurant but with all the delicious dishes on which my mom kept complimented afterwards since she is a fan of spicy and tasty flavors. My hubby also made up with the man by all the jokes, compliments and nice words about cuisines, atmosphere there and certainly apology for the incident in our car that he had overheard. 

Sometimes, anger could make you lose a lot of chances to discover more about someone or something else behind this person. That’s why I rarely judged anyone by what I could see on the surface or have so little information to assume the whole picture.

Last night, we called him to order a few dishes as dinner at home due to the rain which made my mood too low to dress up and go out. To our surprise, he made all the ordered dishes and delivered them to us under the rain, even rode inside to the lane, in front of our gate to pass to my hubby so that we didn’t catch any raindrops. The bill was even cheaper than how we had calculated and free shipping.

We were wondering how come this man was so enthusiastic and nice to us. Thanks to him, we had a nice meal at home, talked together and still had mood to share our lovely stories and thoughts about people, life and all the good things behind someone else. We did talk about this man and how much we were grateful for his kindness. Without him, we could not enjoy our time at home like that.

What you see is not what you get. If we considered him as an annoying man last time like the way the driver had judged, maybe we have missed to know such a good man like this who can manage to deliver all the good authentic Thai cuisine in Vietnam. I’m grateful to know more and learn more about those who are very dedicated and use their heart to deliver their products to customers like this man.

Respect,

Hal-

Independence and Dependence

Yesterday, a close friend spent for hours to confide in me all of her emotional problems, depression and even her willing to commit the suicide. None of my advice or my encouragement mattered to her but just being a good listener beside her.

To the whole world out there, she is always regarded as an optimistic, independent, strong, positive, cheerful and smiling girl who never seems upset. It is the image she chooses to show to the world but when it comes to the inner emotional issues, she cannot find anyone to pour them out, bare her naked soul and be honest to her own feelings. Perhaps she must feel ashamed of herself and it potentially can break her impeccable image on the surface.

When we were young, our personal characteristics were quite different. Different from our definitions of the world “independence”. 

She figured that nowadays the world has changed, the role of man and woman should be balanced. Women needs to be respected and admired by men. That’s why she also wanted to prove that what a man can do, a woman can do too and even can do better. She was very confident in what she was doing and showing to the world. She was very successful in her career path, high salary, high position and her network grew very fast. Until now, she is still one of the most hard-working and confident friends I have ever known.

For me, however, I always believe that each gender was born on the planet has different missions to complete. When I was young, I was always dependent on others and I certainly helped others if possible. People was wondering why I always had a lot of friends and even strangers being more than willing to help me all the time, it was juts because I also helped a lot of others before. I do believe in karma – giving and receiving. I was regarded as such an emotional, weak, useless and dependent girl but it didn’t cause me to feel bad or something wrong about my character since I was just honest to myself. 

I would look for helps when needed and also give out of what I had when someone needed me, I didn’t try to be independent and was not so afraid to ask for a favour others. Human-beings were born with their different missions to fulfill their roles on the planet: you can ask a barber to cut your hair, you can ask a composer for a nice song to enjoy, you can ask an intelligent friend to tutor you Math and Chemistry, you can ask a friend who has a bicycle to pick you up,…it makes sense unless you want to give anyone the chance to use their good functions and values to contribute to this world just because you wanted to become independent and were capable of doing everything by yourself. 

Men are stronger, more logical and ambitious to pursuit something bigger and higher. Women are weaker, more emotional and peaceful to keep the fire and become a safe haven for men after all. There is nothing wrong for women to depend on their men physically and men to depend on their women mentally. That’s how gender equality should be. It’s not because men deliver visible values and women deliver invisible values, it means men should be respected while women shouldn’t. And it doesn’t mean women in order to be respected must prove their values physically by going out, building houses and supporting financially to protect the term “gender equality”.

From those reasons, there are two different types of “independence”: physically and mentally.

As men are for physical due to their body sizes, strength and logical mind to handle and solve problems, their roles are suitable for women to lean on and be dependent and protected.

As women are more for mentally due to their emotions, empathy, weakness and kindness to use their heart to heal any mental pains, bring peace and love to others, their roles are suitable for men to be recovered from soul and mind. 

Owing to these theories, men need a firm stuff and women need a full heart of love.

When a woman is busy at pursuing her physical dream, her inner self would lack for emotions, feelings and self-love which are supposed to be the most important things to herself. 

When a man focus so deeply on his emotions, feelings and self-love, he would become useless and unable to achieve anything bigger out there. I rarely could found a man in his emotional issues for too long, doing nothing, he’d rather spend his time on working hard or playing something to get his mind away, or analyze the issues and find out the way to handle, than just sit down and moan about his emotions. 

 The reason why the idea of suicide never really comes across my mind even I was in the worst situation like no hope at all is honest to myself. When I’m happy I smile…when I’m upset I either cry or keep quiet and blank depending on where and with whom I am at that time, but no matter what I will definitely express my feelings, cherish them in many ways. Either I choose to confide in a close friend, or I write down all of my anger, complaints, emotions, feelings in this blog, or I just cry then sleep well. 

As a girl, I have rights to depend on my man but never put my emotions into someone else’s hand because I am mentally independent. Others can support me visible values, none of them can really solve my emotional issues though. When you depend your emotions on someone, you would always need them to be there for you, listen to your stories but their advice seems to be nothing to you unless you want to save yourself first. They can give you all the materials they have but they are not a saint to give you a medicine to heal your inner self. Only you-yourself have that kind of ability to recover as long as you love yourself enough. Otherwise, it is also difficult for others to love you like the way you treat yourself.

You know, I never care how others would judge me as a weak, fragile, cry-baby and any nickname that they would like to tag me, I am just honest to myself because I love myself much more than what they see. I don’t need to prove how good I am, don’t need to create an image since I’m not in showbiz, don’t need to cover my feelings to be “professional”. If I don’t like something, I keep quiet and turn away. If I’m happy, I will make jokes, laugh and bring good energy to all the environment that I’m in. That’s why it’s quite easy for me to get recovered and bounce back pretty quickly after shot-termed depression. 

Life is tough but also interesting. It never closes all your doors unless you choose to close your eyes and only see the death as your only way. 

Yes, I’m such a dependent girl and I’m okay with it, but I’m confident to say my emotions and feelings are fully independent from others just because I love myself enough and always commit to be honest with it.

Love,

Hal-

Marital life - 0808

 

Today is the 8^th of August – such a very special day to me. Supposedly I should have a nice post about my hubby and me to save this date.

As a matter of fact, our marriage certificate has been done since July 17^th but we still chose 08.08 as our official marriage day due to its special meaning – infinity times infinity. The number 8 seems to be my destined one for not only me but him also.

8 is the number of 8-year gap between us.

8 (August) is the month he was born

8 is the last digit of the year when I met and dated with him. Sounds ridiculous but it made sense.

8 is the number of our address now

8 of November was also the first date of our official relationship

8 actually means harmony, peace and balance – These are what we only hope for our marital life.

I would like to write a long post about our love story when we were dating but I shall save it for another post. Our marriage life so far is so good. We are soulmates and share many similar habits, ways of doing things, characters, attitudes and perceptions to look through any matter. Of course, we also have quarrels sometimes but it is just because of our different lifestyle: I am messy, clumsy, careless and absent-minded while he is such a well-organized, careful, thoughtful, detailed person. You can imagine how our life would be *lol* At first, he shook his head in dismay, though still attempted to alter my bad habit of somehow throwing things anywhere and then forgetting immediately, taking another wasted hour to find them when needed. Unfortunately, he finally retired himself to the bleak fact that there is no way to change me, the only way to adapt to this situation is changing himself.

Don’t laugh at me and don’t judge either. I’m just a human-being. Everyone has their points. What I wanna mention here is his tolerance and kindness. He learnt to accept who I am, and certainly I am learning how to adjust my bad habit to meet his lifestyle although mine is actually wrong. Sometimes I find it difficult to deal with such a decent man like him since I’m not Mrs.Perfect at all.

Nothing for me to complain about this man since the first days of dating until now. He must be the most respected, virtuous and decent man I have ever fortunately met and married. There was no wedding yet due to the pandemic but we are already connected by souls and lives, more officially by the marriage certificate, by our parents from both sides. Hopefully the pandemic shall pass through soon for a better future.

We are not over confident to say that we would be able to get happy for the rest of our life from now on, but there is one thing for sure, we will fully cherish every single moment we share together whether it is sad or happy because any state of our emotions deservers to be cherished as husband and wife, as human-beings.

Next time, I will share more about our stories here for you to keep. Thank you, this blog for being such an invisible friend to me, saving all of my thick-and-thin memories :)

Say cheers to us now – Ryan & Hallie (08.08.2020)

Bliss,

Hal-