Jennie S. Bev

No expectation

I'm a recovered perfectionist. Now I'm an optimalist. Being an optimalist means allowing myself to have no expectation whatsoever and be unconditionally good to myself.

Consistency and stability

While everything evolves, some things stay the same. Sometimes we have the urge to change, but more often than not, we stay consistent.

Staying consistent is being stable and it's an important element in life. Maybe I'm just getting older, maybe.

More on acceptance

Acceptance is not a call for mediocrity, for compromise, but rather a prerequisite for the attainment of optimal success and happiness on a personal as well as interpersonal level. (Tal Ben-Shahar in The Pursuit of Perfect)

Running away

We all run away from something that we can no longer tolerate. Oftentimes, however, we don't realize that actually we are running away from ourselves.

Until we stop running away, we cannot be free and cannot follow our inner calling. We know whenever we've encountered that "inner calling" when our steps are light and our heart joyful.

Stop running away to follow your heart.

Acceptance and happiness

The key to happiness is acceptance. Though oftentimes it's hard to accept ourselves, particularly our flaws and failures. However, once we've broken this barrier, we are likely to be happier.

Books usually give me comfort. Some books are better than others in terms of giving insights of acceptance. The idea that somewhere out there a special person thought and wrote about coping with failures and pains is good enough a comfort.

I'm not perfect, so be it. Accepting my flaws and failures gives room for happiness to grow.

A beach house

A house by the beach, where I write books and columns, is a dream so close that I can taste and see clearly.  Sometimes we do, however, need to make priorities. Let this be a close dream, not a distant one.

Home for an immigrant

In the United States, immigrants are among the most enthusiastic when it comes to purchasing homes. It  might have something to do with "immigrant mindset," as we need to have something to hold to in order to feel at "home" in a new land. I'm not an exception.

I feel owning a house and other properties give me a stronger stance. Subconsciously, I might have been wanting to have a piece (legally and literally) a piece of my new home country, even after the so-called "foreclosure crisis" or "mortgage tsunami."

Can I really think of my properties simply as "business deals" whereas sometimes you win and sometimes you lose? I'd need to think that way, but deep down in my "immigrant heart," I still need a place where I can call "my own" and I'd need to own it.

A home is where the heart is. It can be a place, a person, a state of mind. Still, a physical home gives a sense of comfort. Perhaps I'll always own a piece of property, no matter what the current state of economy is.

Perhaps. Because I probably don't wanna think that I'm "homeless." It's enough not to feel at home somewhere else, but not here.

Sleepyheadness

I'm a sleepyhead. I can sleep for 10-12 hours nonstop. People say the older we get, the less sleep we need because we need less energy to grow. Babies and kids sleep a lot because their cells grow and multiply when they sleep.

So why do I still sleep a lot? I hope it won't deter me from excelling in school, as I'm planning to go to school next year. Why do I always wanna go back to school? The answer is: it is the best way to make use of time. What else should I do?

Be blessed and be happy.

Perfectionism vs optimalism

 

Perfectionism gets me going, yet it is an unrealistic notion about life that we can succeed in all and everything without going through failures. Optimalism, however, makes more sense and releases our shoulders from such heavy burden. "Optimalism" and "optimalist" are terms coins by Tal Ben-Shahar, a professor of Positive Psychology from Harvard.

A happy person is an optimalist, not a perfectionist. We can keep the notion of perfectionism as a guidance, a set goal, a target. Yet we shouldn't force ourselves too much that we forget the important things in life because of it.

An optimalist allows failures as an opportunity to grow and learn. It's not always about winning and losing. And even when we lose or fail, we still win. It's the notion of self-teaching and self-learning that matter.

To a certain degree, we need to be perfectionists. I need to learn to forgive myself when things don't go the way I wanted. It's the process of growing up.

Positive Psychology helps me grow.