My realization at 20 and how it changed my perspective in life.
When I was in elementary school, just like almost everyone who was taught multiplication, we were tasked to memorize the whole multiplication table. And as a girl who absolutely hates numbers or math in general, that was a living nightmare. But you know starting out, we all know it's easy. One is just basically counting, 2 is adding another 2. However, as the number goes up, so does the level of difficulty. I knew back then that 9 would be the hardest one and so I focused a lot on the ending numbers such as 7,8, and...the number 9. I memorized it so much that until now I can still recite it even if I'm sleeping.
But this is not about the multiplication table. You see, all my life I lived like this, thinking of life as stages. Going from elementary, highschool, to college, going from childhood, adolescence, young adult to adulthood. each with a constant increasing level of difficulty, in which the latter ones would be considered the hardest. like a video game where you would reach the boss level at the end.
In my previous entries I've talked about my life like this. Well it’s not just me actually, the people around me would always undermine my problems by saying “that’s nothing compared to when you have kids” or “if you go to college, then you would know how hard it is.” Making me think that the further I live, the harder it gets.
Just last week, as I was studying for an exam, I stumbled across this multiplication hack, specially for answering the multiplied by 9’s, where you would use your fingers to find out what answer a 9 by a digit would be.
(For example, 9 multiplied by 7. Spread out your fingers, put down the 7th finger, count the fingers to the left, which would give you 6 and count the numbers to right which would give you 3, and that is the answer, 63.)
I didn’t know this back then, it was dumb I know, I literally memorized the whole multiplication table in my head because I was so scared of failing, knowing my shortcomings when it comes to mathematics. Never knew there'd be countless techniques to study it easily. With this I realized, the thing that I thought was so damn hard before, could actually be easy.
Right now I’m in college, the stage in which my elementary/highschool self trembles to imagine becoming. Entered college with the mindset that this would be the “boss level” of my academic life. But actually, I could think of this as easy too if I just let it be. College is hard, but I was in the same position in highschool too, worrying about freaking Algebra and lots of teen angst. Although college dilemmas/adulthood would be different it's just the same fear and anxiety all throughout but it's nothing that I can't possibly solve just like my old ones which I thought we’re the ends of the world. I know that when the time comes and I fortunately survive Tertiary years, I would look back and see how easy I could probably see the things that I find hard these days.
The thought that life is a series of levels that becomes harder and harder as the level goes up, as the stages change, makes sense, but that’s not life, and this is not a game. The “boss level” could literally fall at the earliest level and there's no level beforehand that could’ve “honed” or “practiced” your skill for that. Challenges and obstacles don’t tone down towards your level number, if it fucks you up, it’ll fuck you up. No matter how many years you are living in this world.
This old mindset of mine hinders me to live, I go from one stage to another by constantly being bugged by the future stages, by the “hard levels” that I would someday embark on, sharpening my sword for the upcoming war. War in which has 50/50 certainty of occurring. With this mindset I was always scared and I failed to live, live in the present, enjoy the present, and appreciate the present times.
Life isn’t a game, with a bunch of levels, life is a surprise, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t continue to learn and build ourselves along the way. It doesn’t go steeper and steeper like the Mayon Volcano’s edge, it goes up and down like a heart rate. But it’s your choice whether to recognize what level you are in life right now.
Thank you for reading!
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