Year 2010 in Review

It's a tough year, wait let me correct that, a VERY tough year. In fact if I have a choice, I would choose not to live this year. All the sweetness and bitterness, all the glory and pain is just not worth it. The ups and downs just keep coming like a storm coming in and out. Every time there is a good news, it will be followed by a more significant bad news. Trepidations after trepidations, it does not seem to stop.

Bad news after bad news, it just keeps coming like the pouring rain. I can't even keep up with it anymore. Reading good news is just a temporary thing. Hearing bad news seems imminent. Every time I read bad news, I could relate to it more. Since I read a lot of celebrity news, I feel my tears dripping when I read news like Selina's 3rd degree burn while filming in Shanghai and Lily Allen's stillbirth that happened after her miscarriage. It makes me feel a little better to know someone out there is facing difficulties like mine and it gives me some strength that if they can be strong, I can too.

This is the year I learnt my lesson (big time!). After years of invincibility, my health came crashing down. My body gave up on me. Years of not eating (literally NOT eating), overworking and excessive exercise has burdened my body immensely and it decided to show it's ugly face all at one shot. The first half of the year, I kept going back to the hospital to be tested if I am diagnosed with a medical condition. It made me realized life MIGHT be short and I do not have much time to do what I wanted to do! Even though it is better now, I still need to be tested to ensure it will not get more critical.

The 2nd half of the year, it got even worse, I was hospitalized (and I was never hospitalized before!) and I had to be fed through a drip. This experience gave me a whole new light about nutrition and health. It was a huge blow for me and you should not be seeing me skip any meals anymore. After that, I heard some incredibly bad news from my best friend in Malaysia who experienced something similar but in a higher intensity. At that point, I thought my tears have dried but my tear ducts worked overtime again. I questioned why did bad things have to happen to good people. I do not think we are bad people but we just have to experience what is bestowed upon us on the same year. I know time heals all pain but why is some pain so incredibly unbearable?

This is also the year that I found my role model. He is my source of inspiration at a time that I am most vulnerable and down. He lost his father when he was 17 and after that, his family went into a downward spiral of debts. He worked 2 jobs (day and night) and had to stop studying to earn money for his family. But he never gave up his dreams and ambitions to be a celebrity. He continued playing his guitar, riding his low-end motorbike and traveling from place to place on low budget with his bandmates. Today, he is a very famous celebrity with a huge fan base and he managed to pay of his family's NTD 7Million debts. He can finally fulfill his dreams to buy a better motorbike and car but yet when he heard about the floods in Taiwan, he willingly gave up those money he saved to save the lives of those people.

Why do I make him my role model? Because despite all the trials and tribulations he went through, he still remain happy-go-lucky and does not seem to have any temper. He is a very emotional person but yet he can control them to only display positive emotions. As he said, whenever he is down, he will think happy thoughts; and whenever others are down, he will humor them. Despite how famous he is today, he remains selfless and loves to serve others. He worked hard to get where he is today and remains diligent and appreciative.

I am truly appreciative to have found a role model albeit not being able to see him in flesh. It gives me the motivation to remain positive and to continue to work hard. And hope that the next years will bring better news. Thus, I end this year with a valuable quote:

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.