Life Challenges #3: Bookworm Challenge | Part 1: Challenge Rules

Works of the written or spoken word are unidirectional time machines, mind readers and windows to imaginary worlds. There are countless ideas we can gain and apply to our daily lives by interacting with the people of the past through words in various mediums. These mediums can be books, newspapers, journals, magazines, documentaries and many more. Going through any of the words left by people who have walked down the paths of their choice can be immensely meaningful. They allow us to understand how we come to be, and where we will be heading.

It is in such a magical world that the third in my series of Life Challenges will be founded on. This challenge is called the Bookworm Challenge, and this post is about its rules.

1. The challenge is to happen over a duration of 4 weeks, from 1 August 2020 to 30 August 2020. If you are wondering why the math involving the 28 days (4 weeks) does not add up, it is because 2 more days are added at the end (29 and 30 August 2020) as a contingency plan against any incomplete tasks.

2. A daily reading routine lasting 15 minutes will be implemented. What is to be done in this duration is up to me.

3. I am to finish reading a book during the challenge duration. For now, I am planning to read a Chinese book. It is a translated version of the biography of Elon Musk, "Silicon Valley Iron Man".

4. I am also to catch up with the news for at least two days per week. The news is an important source of information on current affairs which will be helpful in drafting future Kaleidoscope posts and help me understand more of what I am reading. I have freedom in choosing what kind of news to read and the method of consumption. It can be videos, online articles or infographics. As long as I learn of something, anything is good.

5. Finally, I will submit at least one reading note every fortnight. Submissions will appear on the Vincent Academy website. This component is expected to be the hardest as it requires the most commitment. However, I believe this can be done with consistent effort in trying to read.

I hope to be able to cultivate the good habit of reading widely through this challenge. This can also help me improve on my vocabulary and knowledge which is necessary for writing better blog posts. In addition, the various writing styles I get exposed to through reading can help me to come up with higher quality work for future Story Creation Challenges!

My Blockheads #1 | New series, new world

Welcome to a new series of blog posts dedicated to gaming! The game that I will write about is the Blockheads, a (mostly) 2-dimensional virtual world that is built by, unsurprisingly, blocks. It has much resemblance to Minecraft, an immersive sandbox game where players can craft their own world in the game's servers. In fact, I started out playing this game around 5 years ago as I wanted to feel how building my own world is like but could not afford to get Minecraft.

But why focus on a game that many consider as dying? Well, my most important reasons for playing this are its accessibility and freedom - it is free for all to play (unless you are into Time Crystals which can help you save time crafting, though I personally think this takes away the fun from the game) and I can do anything I imagine inside, bound only by whatever the game has to offer. In a sense, this game is like a canvas where I could express myself through whatever I do with it.

Here is a quick look at what I have done in the past 5 years:

Most of what I have done is exploration of my world, so there is not a lot of crafting going on. This explains why buildings are so sparse in this world.

Towards the left of the Portal, there is a tower with rooms on top of it shaped like a honeycomb (and called "The Honeycomb"). It was intended as a mixed-use space where my blockheads could live and do crafting in. But without enough materials to start with, it would be hard to do anything inside there, so my blockheads spend most of the time outside.

The caves and sky islands underneath and above the Portal respectively are part of a mega-project that was years in-the-making. It was an exploration project to find shorter pathways to the various places in this world and to discover new materials for use in crafting.

I started with underground exploration first. When I came up with this a few years ago, I named the project "Search for Underground Objects" (SUGO). 

• The first phase was just digging around in a systematic manner, and lighting up underground spaces using stick torchlights. The result was a gigantic grid that showed the composition of the rocks underground - limestones, marbles and stones were the most common ones. It looked cool but it was very time consuming, taking me a year before I decided to move on with something easier.
• The second phase was cave exploration, and some mining of the ores to craft out my first few metal objects, such as bronze pickaxes, tin buckets and iron cages. As the network of explored caves expanded, and as I connected and enlarged some caves by digging around, I began to run into a few problems: 
• How to move my blockheads through these maze of caves efficiently?
• What do I do with the stones I dug up?
• How do I avoid losing my way?
• Thereafter, I embarked on my third phase of SUGO, which was to make underground pathways donkey-accessible. This would address the first question. 
• The most difficult part about this was to domesticate enough donkeys by feeding them carrots to serve as means of transport. 
• And for the rest of this phase, it involves enlarging narrow spaces so that they are at least two blocks tall, enough for a blockhead on a donkey to move through. Also, to prevent donkeys from becoming injured and enabling them to move around, large cave networks are connected via pathways to make transport quicker, and the cave structure is modified so that the donkeys can jump their way through them. 
• As a vertical path through the underground space cannot be accessed by a donkey, I made a stairwell connecting the ground to the magma (the diagonal path slashing through the underground space). I named that stairwell "The Syringe" based on its appearance. For those wondering why its top part was larger, it was a remnant of some horticultural experiment to grow plants underground. The experiment ended up in failure since the trees died off quickly and required a lot of maintenance to produce much food, but the concept of riding donkeys downstairs and collecting fruit from the trees at the same time was attractively convenient.
• And for the fourth and final phase of SUGO, it was to make finding my way around these caves easier. This included making a lot of signs to direct the blockheads on the donkeys, and makeshift maps using stone and sand (the blocks of stone were to mark out other positions while the blocks of sand were to highlight the current position. Naturally, the signs would be placed on these blocks). In addition, riding the caves more frequently should help me familiarise myself with the environment.
• Note: I still have not figured out how to mark out where the ores and trade portal are with something prominent instead of relying on wooden signs which can be hard to read if you are moving around on a donkey.
• As SUGO comes to a close, there were some gaps left to close, that being what I should do with all the extra stone. That is when the second mega-project came in.

Introducing how I found all the sky islands: Sky Island Radar System (SIRS).

The concept of this project was simple, built stone pathways up into the sky and see what I would hit. Initially, I was skeptical that it would find anything, and would only be able to link up mountains at best, but the number of sky islands I found with this was astounding.

To start with, I built a vertical column of stone on top of the Honeycomb, then at intervals of around 30 blocks from each other, I built stone paths sideways. In this manner, I linked up many of the sky islands that could be found on top of the portal (there are more than 30 of them shown in this image alone). And the stone got to be put into good use!

This is my two grandest projects that made my current world look like this today. In future posts, I would zoom in to this world and introduce more of the projects I did in this world, as well as the names of my blockheads, the places and the animals.

Update: looks like this is not possible now, since I have switched phones and the world can no longer be played.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention the name of this world. I named it "Theodocosm", which means "the land willed by the gods". Of course, I am the god of this world. Asides from the blocks in this server, I made the rest. There is not much going on here, since I am a solo player, but whatever this world has in store will definitely be interesting, otherwise I would not have played this game for so long.

Story Creation Challenge Round 2 | Part 2 (End): Completion

This post is going to be a quick one. Basically, I have just concluded Round 2 of the challenge, and I will be sharing the flash fiction I wrote out. The story is based on true events, and is about over one thousand words long.

A Stressful Day at Home

What is home? For many, it is a restful place for people to recharge as they enjoy quality time with their families. But my experience of homecoming on a Thursday was one fraught with worries and frustrations.

After a long day at my army camp, I did some shopping at night to prepare for the next time I return there. Finding out the best deals and products I wanted gave me much satisfaction, but that feeling soon gave way to disappointment when I came home to the news of the Wi-fi being broken. Once I learnt of that, all I could think of was how to get enough data to get by the next day. None of my parents could offer their hotspot since it would be a Thursday and they had to be off at work, so I would be home alone with my sister to rely on mobile data to access the Internet.

Deep down, I felt like a bird who had lost its wings - grounded, helpless and anxious about what would become of itself. I had never realised how important Wi-fi would be until it was no longer there for me anymore. There were times that the connection was slow or disrupted, but that beats having no Wi-fi at all and having to go for the more expensive option of using mobile data. Meanwhile, my parents were relieved that they could count on me to look after the house and help them handle the technician who was scheduled to arrive on Thursday afternoon to exchange the modem. 

“What modem?” I asked. Thereafter, I had to sit through a lesson on some Wi-fi related technicalities by my father. By combining his explanations with some research I did online, I learned that a modem converts electrical signals into digital data which is understandable by a computer, while a router beams that data to a computer connected to the network and together with the modem, makes up what I know as the Wi-fi. 

I was also filled in the details of what went wrong with the Wi-fi. My father first suspected the software to be the root cause of the issue, and tried resetting the modem to no avail, so he wanted to try out replacing the modem first - that would be where the technician and I came in.

However, when the technician came in the afternoon and tried setting up the modem, the Wi-fi still did not work, leading him to conclude, “Your router is old, you should change it.” I was confused at first because the technician mentioned something about ten years old while the router was bought a few years ago. But, everything made sense when I interpreted his recommendations as my router system becoming out of date.

In spite of all my efforts in helping to fix the problem, I was disappointed to find out that there was no happy outcome and I could only wait for my father to replace the router. Still, the fixing of the Wi-fi was only one out of the many difficulties I had to deal with. More was to come, such as getting the mobile data to work and balancing between running errands for my parents and estate maintenance.

As the morning sunlight streamed into my bedroom, my sister was getting ready to report to her virtual classroom, since it would not be possible to hold classes physically amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. Concurrently, I was watching whether the sunlight would stay for the rest of the morning so that I could dry my clothes out in the sun. Various problems began to arise.

My sister complained that she could not get the mobile data to work on her laptop. After I tried fumbling with the settings for her smartphone and laptop (which uses Windows 10, an operating system I am unfamiliar with since mine runs on Windows 8). I threw my hands up shortly after that and went to try on my own phone and laptop. The tethering method, which I found after some searching on Google, worked for me. Tethering is basically connecting my phone to my laptop using a cable and turning on the hotspot. My sister’s one got to work too after a few tries, albeit not being able to find out the cause of the issue. Initially, I planned to use the data to do some research and watch anime on my laptop, but with it guzzling up data so quickly, I had to ditch that plan and use my smartphone more instead.

Just as the data was working and I thought I could finally focus on writing awesome blog posts, a lady from the National Environmental Agency knocked to notify me of a fogging that will take place at 9 o’clock in the morning. Not only would the fogging take place along my block’s corridors, it would also happen downstairs. Given the rise of dengue cases, this could not be helped, but the fogging happened later than announced. By the time all the fogging stopped, it was nearly 11 o’clock, leaving me with little time to sun the laundry.

I would have liked to leave the laundry be until late in the afternoon, but the sky became overcast and threatened to rain cats and dogs, so I hurriedly kept the laundry a few hours after bringing them out. By then, I would have to get ready to open the door for the technician who would replace the modem to come in. Could my afternoon get any busier?

Yes! In the late afternoon, block washing happened and I had to rush to close the doors and windows before the water would spray everywhere. I was surprised because nobody told me that this was going to happen, unlike the fogging in the morning when I had time to prepare.

As the day drew to a close, I was tired from attending to so many things, including the chores that I would have to do in the evening. But in hindsight, there was something positive in all this trouble, as I learnt how much it took just to maintain our living quarters, from my parents who did the chores and ensured that the electrical appliances were working fine, to the essential workers who did estate maintenance like clockwork. It seems that I have to be grateful to these hardworking people for the comfort and rest I get at home.

Story Creation Challenge Round 2 | Part 1: Rules of the game

Round 1 took way too long, so I have decided to give myself less work for the second round. This time, instead of focusing on quantity, I would like to work on the quality of my stories instead - it can be having a better character and plot development, or write with more elegant expressions that will elevate the whole reading experience.

As such, I have settled upon flash fiction as the topic for Round 2.

A flash fiction is basically a story that has 1500 words or less. To learn more about flash fiction, visit this website: https://blog.reedsy.com/what-is-flash-fiction/

For this challenge, I will write a piece of flash fiction. There are no limits on the genre or the writing style. I am free to write whatever I want, but it must feel like a narrative and not some documentary script or news article.

I estimate that it will take me a month or less to complete this challenge. This is especially so since I have longer breaks from my work. I am so excited to take on this challenge and learn new things on the way!

Story Creation Challenge Round 1 | Part 3: Submission of entry

Round 1 | Part 3: Submission of Entry

It had been a long journey, spanning a few months, with this challenge that was going on. I am happy to announce just today, that I have finished completing a story that links 5 randomly generated keywords together: Fossil, Continuation, Performance, Pasture, Pardon

The completed story can be found in this document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQaqquDFrQzVXvUY0oG8k1_g1HfdKJNd0C1uDzH2CquHSJYbMtL2v3TWdbaGQCdHrFFI_vxSehcmBCU/pub 

The process

There were 3 stages that I devised to complete the challenge. 

The first was some brainstorming that I did by looking up the definitions of the keywords and their related images to find out what kind of ideas I could draw from them. This was shared in my very first story creation challenge post.

The second stage was to come up with a rough draft for whatever story I am planning in mind. It was then that I set the theme for the story to be based on a virtual reality online game in a futuristic, dystopian world. You can see the results of the draft of my first chapter here.

The third stage was to firm up the story as I create more chapters and narratives and connect the dots outlined in my story. For the later few chapters, I drew up an outline of how the stories would progress before starting on crafting the paragraphs for each chapter.

The difficulties

Most of the time, the actual story I am writing would turn out to be very different from my drafts. I found out that the more time I spend thinking about the story, the more new ideas I would churn out. These would add additional plot twists into my story, making it much longer than I had expected.

I realised I started with a cliffhanger, and ended this round of the challenge with a cliffhanger. I am not sure whether this would annoy the readers too much, but I just wanted to use this chance to try out new things.

The story might not be exactly coherent, grammatically sound or as excellent as writers who have more experience or are more professional than me. I tried to use a more personal writing style in order to make the story feel less dull and more relatable, but it could have been more consistent.

The decisions

As the story is taking longer than I had expected, I have decided to serialise the story that I am writing on. The series will be called "Free Frontiers", named after the game that was the focus of this story. Any updates, reflections, spin-offs and progress would still be notified to all interested readers via this blog, but the main story, together with future versions and chapters, will be found in the same document as the above link.

This also means that the nature of future story creation challenges will change. Instead of just coming out a story from a collection of keywords, I am thinking of venturing into different genres, or create something based on actual events!

Look forward to Round 2, which will stretch my creativity and writing skills even further!

Meanwhile, the Free Frontiers series will continue, but it may not necessarily be included in future story creation challenges, so I can spend more time thinking about how I want to develop this series.

Habitica Crossover #1: Introducing how I manage my life using it

(Note: the image above is a combination of screenshots from the original Habitica desktop website. This is not an official promotion for the game, as it is simply an original blog post written by a Habitica user to share how he plays and enjoys the game.) 

What is Habitica?

Habitica is a productivity role-playing game that allows users to create to-dos, dailies and habits to help them get things done and improve their lives. 

There are features such as quests, rewards, equipment, pets and potions in order to provide extrinsic rewards. According to its website, these provide instant gratification that helps users to feel good about getting things done and have more motivation to work. 

There are also features designed with accountability in mind, so that players can stay on track in fulfilling their goals. Players can team up in parties, or join dedicated communities about particular topics, life goals or hobbies that are called guilds. This makes it feel more like a role-playing video game.

My way of playing Habitica

Like most players, I create those normal tasks and habits using Habitica and categorise the important ones using labels. However, I have some ways of using Habitica that are different from many players. 

Habits - they can become part of your motivation system instead of using it for specific tasks

To reward myself for doing well, I can set specific rewards like bonus experience points using positive habits. Likewise, I can penalise myself for undesirable behaviour by setting it as a negative habit. This is because I find myself to be more driven by actual consequences rather than the things I can buy with the gold in the game. In this case, what I use to motivate myself is the actual progress I get in the game - basically the level, health, experience and gold my avatar has - because they represent the amount of time I spent being committed to whatever I want to do in my life. 

Examples of how habits can serve as rewards and punishments 

I have reused this approach in the form of rewards. Asides from using gold to get real-life rewards, I can also use the rewards section to design fines to penalise myself financially for bad behaviour. In this way, there will be a stronger deterrent against skipping my dailies, habits and to-dos. 

Rewards - they should be reserved for something special and not be confused with breaks

This is the most difficult section of Habitica to use well for me, since the only thing it does is to make me poorer in terms of gold. Is it not strange that you still have to purchase rewards with gold which you painstakingly accumulate by checking off your tasks and habits? I mean, I don't see very much of this in real life.

Thankfully, Habitica allows me to set free rewards. Using this, your very productivity can be turned into vouchers that you can redeem for something rewarding!

Also, I have used the rewards section to add additional rules for in-game rewards. For instance, I have set the amount of gold to pay for the taxes and fees before I get equipment or use the drops, which includes pet feed and hatching potions. These will deter me from using in-game rewards so readily since there is a chance that I will be so immersed in it that I will lose my productivity. 

Free rewards and in-game rewards to make the game feel more realistic

Do-it-yourself - achievements and challenges

Since Habitica needs money to run itself, a lot of the good stuff can be pricey. Some even requires gems, which are to be purchased (unless someone else gives you gems) or a subscription.

I was depressed about how basic-looking the things without needing much gold or money are, so I decided to make my own achievements and challenges.

For the challenges, after designing them, I have used Habitica to keep track of what I need to do and give me rewards. Once I am ready to share about my challenge, I will post it under the "Life Challenges" series of this blog. This blog can be an effective medium for me to record my usage of Habitica and what I can do to make it more fun for myself. 

To keep myself more motivated, I tried designing achievement titles and badges for myself. It does help me to stay in the game longer and have the world being mesmerised by the things I came up with myself. However, for now, the badges don't look very nice, so I am considering learning pixel art to make the style of the badges more consistent and to increase the visual appeal of the badges. 

Self-made achievements

Interaction with other players

The most fun thing about Habitica is that you can find communities you like and grow together with other players! 

There was this 'Inspiration Station' guild that I joined because I liked the idea of sharing inspiration for others to feel better about themselves and working hard. But the primary reason why I joined was because of the challenge rewards - I can finally unlock those parts of the games that require gems and make my avatar look better. Until then, I will be working really hard to get the guild leader's attention.

For some of the guilds I joined, such as the 'Life Hackers' guild, it was to get some inspiration on how to be more productive and how to make Habitica more fun. At times, I check out the wikis other than the guilds for inspiration too!

I have also sought help and contributed feedback in guilds and the tavern. I was bursting with pride and joy when I saw my tip on the 'Use Case Spotlights' guild getting featured on the Habitica blog! 

My tip getting featured. And yes, "synitheia" is my username. It is Greek for "habit". Why Greek? Because it sounds deep and it also sounds like a legitimate name.
Link to the post: https://habitica.wordpress.com/2020/06/25/use-case-spotlight-adapting-to-life-changes/

My progress

For now, thanks to the tasks and challenges I am coming up with, as well as the blog I am writing, I can churn out enough work to ensure that I level up every week. I am also having fun trying out as many features of Habitica as possible and be creative in playing the game.

For my future plans, I intend to make this feel more like a role-playing game by creating a world made of pixel-art and have nice storylines to keep me engaged in the game. This was partly why I dabbled in world creation using the Free Frontiers story series in the Story Creation Challenge I set up for myself.

Do keep looking out for the "Habitica" label, and stay tuned for more posts detailing my exciting journeys in Habitica!

The Query #2

The Query

Issue 2 (June 2020)

Here is a round-up of my searches for the past month:

What should I do if my girlfriend disagrees with me? 🔍

Background: There was this small fight between a guy and his female friend about which direction a place is at. Looking at this, I wondered, if a girl asked multiple choice questions and disagreed with my choice, what should I do to avoid falling out with her, yet settle on an outcome that is acceptable by the both of us?

>>> RESULTS >>>

Medium: 5 Things to Do When You and Your Partner Just Can’t Agree 

This article is written from a female's point of view.

1. Express gratitude.
   Why? Remind him that we have agreed on things before and are on the same team. This allows you to approach your new difference in opinion from a place of unity.
   
   
2. Give him space.
   Why? For some, it’s tough to embrace a “team-player” mentality following a disagreement. The disagreement, after all, resulted from the fact that you are unique individuals. Realize the space you’re giving him is space you’re giving yourself. Use it to think about what you’ll do if his initial position doesn’t change.
   
   
3. Re-evaluate the strength of your preference.
   Why? If each other's preferences were so strong that no compromises could be made, it may be time to part ways. It does not make sense for the couple to be together anymore.
   
   
4. Stick to your guns.
   Why? Everyone's identity is based on their own core values. Resentment would only follow if one were to give up their core value in favour for another's.
   
   
5. Act with grace.
   Why? Your partner's position is important to himself too, and should not be undermined. Don’t let your emotions get the best of you. Don’t lash out. Don’t say things that will undermine the relationship you shared up until this point.

I have problems finding an answer that is written by a male, but I have fortunately come across something that is more neutral, and elucidates the problem of what kind of things couples would find difficulties agreeing on.

Becoming Minimalist: How to Communicate With Your Partner When You Disagree

Do note that this post I am sharing is for married couples who are with each other for a long period of time, but we can learn a thing or two about how to defuse relationship conflicts from this article.

On marital conflicts

John Gottman, one of the leaders in the field of marriage research, has discovered that the majority of marital conflicts are perpetual. They’re continual and repeated. In fact, 69% of all marital problems fall into this category.

There are many areas in a marriage where you’re simply not going to agree. Here are a few:

• One of you wants to have children (or X number of kids), while the other says they’re not ready, or are happy with the current number of kids.
• One of you wants sex far more frequently than the other.
• You want to raise your children Baptist, while your spouse wants them to be raised Catholic.
• Your spouse is lax about housework and rarely does his or her share until you nag, igniting anger.
• One of you is a saver with money and the other is a spender.
• Or one of you wants to work towards a more simple and minimalist type of life and the other doesn’t.

How to communicate with your partner if both of you do not see eye to eye?

1. Respect - this is the important thing that allows you to like each other
   Useful note: “Respect is defined as not trying directly or indirectly to change anyone.” -Thomas Fogarty
   
   
2. Clearly define yourself - doing so means you have a deeper awareness and understanding of your beliefs, wants, needs and desires
   My opinion: the website does not give a clear reason for this, but I think that in a marriage, taking care of your own needs is as important as taking care of your partner. Marriage and love is a two-way thing, and for couples to grow with each other, one needs to have a good understanding of oneself.
   
   
3. Understand the idea of over-functioning and under-functioning - these are positions that we occupy in response to how we do life. None of us is all one way all the time. We over-function in some areas of life and under-function in others. This is determined by what’s important to you and what you value.
   Useful note: by understanding this, you will have more constructive discussions with your partner.
   
   
4. Live by what you hold dear - it means that you can live according to your own integrity and values.
   Useful note: getting into a relationship does not mean you have to lose your own individuality. Couples do not need to be in sync with each other all the time, I think that is more like a scripted act instead of a real relationship.

>>> MY TAKE >>>

Basically, what I will do is to ensure the respect is there and allow my partner to have space to share her thoughts on the subject of disagreement. I will seek with her to find out the solution that best fulfills our needs (with some compromises here and there). However, if the argument is on something trivial like our preferences, I will try my best to understand her position but I will not feel obliged to change my mind.

The interesting thing about this topic is that it is more common than we think, and is not just about marital conflicts, these tips apply for all relationships we have. I will recommend Episodes 10-12 of Sakurasou no Pet Kanojo for some inspiration on how to resolve these relationship conflicts (many of these are caused by misunderstandings).

What are the effects/symptoms of sleep deprivation? 🔍

Background: I tried to have no sleep at all for more than 24 hours on the job. I found out that I had develop sore throat and reddened eyes so I was concerned whether these were caused by the lack of sleep. Understanding the symptoms, together with the short-term and long-term effects of sleep deprivation is important because we will know when we need more time to sleep.

>>> RESULTS >>>

NHS: What happens if I don't sleep?

An occasional night without sleep makes you feel tired and irritable the next day, but it won't harm your health.

After several sleepless nights, the mental effects become more serious. Your brain will fog, making it difficult to concentrate and make decisions. You'll start to feel down, and may fall asleep during the day. Your risk of injury and accidents at home, work and on the road also increases.

 Johns Hopkins Medicine: The effects of sleep deprivation

Check out their infographic (the effect highlighted is obesity): https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/-/media/files/health/infographic_sleepdeprivation.ashx?la=en&hash=BFEC7405D1A13CA192186C797152F475D917A116 

>>> FOR ME? >>>

So, how about my sore throat and reddened tongue?

For the sore throat, it could be due to a small cold I get from having a lowered immunity when I sleep (inferred from the various effects I have searched up. It is a reasonable explanation - though I do not know for sure - since there are many types of colds and many have mild symptoms such as blocked nose. Not having fever does not necessarily mean your body is well)

As for the reddened tongue, it could be due to a lack of saliva contributing to dry mouth, since it could not be caused by any disease for there was not any red lights in my last medical checkup. More information here: https://www.colgate.com/en-us/oral-health/conditions/dry-mouth/dry-mouth-at-night-how-to-relieve-dry-mouth-discomfort-0913 There is no link between dry mouth and sleep deprivation found, so I should not be too worried about that.

But the moral of the story is clear - from ageing brains to ageing skins, a lack of sleep is detrimental to our health. As such, I must get more sleep, and aim to sleep for at least 7 hours every night.

Life Challenges #2: Simplification Challenge | Part 2: Results and reflections

Simplification Challenge

Part 2: Results and Reflections

Results of the challenge

For seven days, I worked hard to find out what aspects of my life can be simplified. I experimented with different ideas, and researched on what makes for a simple life.

I am happy to announce that the results of the challenge can be found here: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTSNYKwe6fWOR85xCm-PxQbusrTaPUIrF0BdKwnYl8gLYbvr4R4hznIaDxnJR52hU5DdsofmRq2Ey13/pub

This document is not only a logbook of what I have been through for the seven days, but also contains a list of recommendations for me to be able to lead a simpler life, after collating what I have learnt from the duration of the challenge.

Since these are my personal notes, there may be some terms that are not explained well. If you have any questions concerning that, feel free to drop a comment to seek my clarification.

My reflections on simplicity

I have now thought of simplicity as being the most efficient way of doing things. Before this challenge, I was unsure about the definition of simplicity, and how it would be beneficial to my life. Thanks to this challenge, I can appreciate how much I am lacking in simplicity and how it does wonders to my well-being - I worry less and get more done instead.

This journey has been a difficult one, because my commitments and training left me with little time to work on the research and to try out some of the ideas I have come up with for this challenge. Having to juggle between the different things I wanted to do was frustrating, so I came up with a kind of a weekly roster to help me keep track of the things I am doing. Having a routine to follow can be useful for people who are involved in a lot of commitments and side jobs.

This image shows the roster I follow for all my commitments that I have in my free time. I did this in the form of a checklist in Google Keep, and included emojis to help me add some quick remarks to some of them (for instance, the pin emoji marks what I am working on for the day) since Keep does not offer much customisability for its notes.

This challenge has also helped me learn that the lack of simplicity is caused by a variety of psychological factors, many of which can be found in the list of recommendations (^ link above ^). By recognising them and overcoming them, I can look at things more straightforwardly and be more flexible in my response to different scenarios. For example, I have very little control in the training that I need to do when serving in the military, but instead of wasting my time and energy in trying to futilely reject whatever needs to be done, I can choose the mentality and the effort that I want to put in instead. This kind of mindset brings out the best in me, and allows me to see difficulties in a much more positive and a productive way.

Life Challenges #2: Simplification Challenge | Part 1: Prologue and development

Life Challenge #2 | SimplificationPart 1: Prologue and development

The bridge between positivity and simplicity

“Life is simple but we insist on making it complicated” - Confucius

Two millennia ago, the great sage, Confucius, came up with this insightful statement. Put it into today’s context, it is still as applicable as in ancient times.

This Medium article brings out the essence of the quote nicely: it is not life that is complicated but us who tend to overthink things and make ourselves suffer unnecessarily. [1]

Especially in today’s day and age when humans can do much more with technology, and are less obsessed with survival (a life and death matter, not about how others look at you), we forget that life is inherently simple. [2] Just do what we can to survive, and the rest of the time will be ours.

It is this overthinking and getting frustrated over the smallest things that prevented me from having a positive mindset. Hence, it is only natural for this Simplification Challenge to be a follow-up to the Positivity Challenge.

I learnt the need for simplicity from notebook-making

During the previous weekend (6 June), I realised that I needed to get a new notebook as the one I was currently using ran out of pages. As all stationery stores and supplies shops were still close down amidst the gradual reopening measures for Singapore’s post-Circuit-Breaker period, I decided to make my own notebook.

I gathered all the materials I needed:

• A stack of unused fax invoice papers
• Puncholder
• Scissors
• Clear tape
• File binder (basically a piece of thin metal)
• Ruler
• Plastic sheet
• Wide extendable string
• Cardboard sheets

Basically, as the papers were thick and I assumed I had no sharp cutting materials, I tore out the pages, folded them and cut the pages one by one. This was a very time-consuming process, and the pages turned out to have slightly different dimensions.

Next, I created a page with a whiteboard, which was basically a piece of paper wrapped with a plastic sheet. I wanted to include this to take down reminders and write down lists. However, it was more flimsy than I had anticipated. After that, I cut out a piece of cardboard and folded it into a notebook cover.

I decided to waterproof the notebook because I would be outdoors quite often during training, and I would hate for the notebook to get soaked by the rainwater. To do so, I taped the whole cardboard notebook cover. But before that, I used a black marker to colour the whole cover black, because it would make the notebook more usable outfield (not too eye-catching). It turned out to be more trouble than it was worth.

To bind the pages together, I used the puncholder to punch two holes at the top of every page, placed the binder through the holes and bent the ends of the binder poking out so it would not fall out.

I did not do the binding before the taping so that I could remove a page easily when I needed to access it without the rest of the notebook. This was at least less messy than tearing out pages. The removable pages feature was the only thing that turned out good in my notebook.

Originally, I wanted to make a pen holder by cutting out one small piece of the extendable string and tried to attach it to the notebook cover using tape. Normally, it would be best to use a strong adhesive such as glue that could be easily applied here, but when I asked, my mother thought it was too much of a waste, and recommended tying a string around the notebook cover to substitute as a pen holder.

The whole process took me 4 hours. My mother came to check because she wanted to see how my notebook turned out (she first got interested when I wanted to make my own when she could not find any A6-sized ones I requested for in the stores) and she was astonished to see me taking so long. Who wouldn't be?

She was perplexed how something so simple to make can make me spend hours on it. And she demonstrated a method that allowed her to churn out 4 notebooks in half an hour:

1. Measure the size of the paper you want on the first page of the stack, then with a drawing board underneath it, cut through the stack with a penknife.
2. Measure the size of the paper cut out on the cardboard and double the length, then cut it out and fold it over the paper.
3. Place the whole strip of cardboard on the drawing board and tape both sides up.
4. Using a large puncholder, create holes through the stack of paper and the cardboard covering it.
5. Use a binder (metal strip, nylon thread or anything suitable) to bind the cardboard covering and paper together through the holes.

Her way of doing things was much more simplified than the many paragraphs I spent on describing my method. And her end product looked nicer than mine too. This picture makes the difference clear: 

(Left: the notebooks my mother made. Right: the notebook I made.) The difference in quality can be seen in the evenness of the pages and how closely the size of the covering and the stack of pages matched.

The moral of the story

I made several mistakes that made the whole craftwork more complicated than it was necessary.

First, I assumed that the materials I had were the best fit for the job and compromised too much on their suitability. Making assumptions was supposed to make things more efficient [3], but that would only work if they were based on accurate information. It would be better if I had a plan on how best to use my materials and discuss with my parents about whether there would be any alternative materials that were better than what I owned.

Second, I made a fundamental mistake in product design - I tried to cram in too much functionality into one product, until I lost focus of what I wanted to do [4]. My original intent was to have a pocket-sized paper with waterproof backing for me to write down notes, but it sidetracked to adding on trivial things to make my life a bit more convenient when I was writing.

Third: I skimped on the measurements but I realised later that it was one of the most crucial process for the end product to function well [5]. As a result of this sleaziness, which was a consequence of me not making the notebook a simple one, my pages and cover turned out to be uneven. It was so had that when I tried to do the binding, a few pages tore off.

These called for some simplicity to be introduced into my life.

Taking the first step to simplicity: make a statement

Hence, I did up plans for another week-long challenge targeting different aspects of my life that can be simplified. To keep whatever tasks I needed to complete the challenge from becoming too complicated, I decided to make my own simplicity statement which will be the motto for this challenge. This is the statement:

“Think with a purpose. Don't waste time overthinking.”

As I pen down this post, I am already halfway through the challenge. Some of the to-dos are less realistic than I had thought. But these are valuable lessons for me to improve future challenges. Fight on!

Notes:

[1] The Medium article on leading a simple life: https://medium.com/@feeljoy.in/life-is-simple-but-we-insist-on-making-it-complicated-c1e910a13431 

[2] How humans are hardwired for complexity according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: http://www.wearestop.com/2017/04/psychology-simplicity-just-make-things-complex/ 

[3] Why we assume things and how to become better at it (in short, by being open to new possibilities outside of our ‘thinking box’): http://arbingerinstitute.com/BlogDetail?id=80 

 [4] There’s a name for something that has too much functionality such that it was becomes less usable - feature fatigue: https://hbr.org/2006/02/defeating-feature-fatigue 

  

[5] Not knowing better about how something would turn out was one reason why people cut corners. There are more reasons, such as accountability. Find out more here: https://www.fastcompany.com/90264166/this-is-why-your-employees-cut-corners-and-what-to-do-about-it

Anime Review | Weathering With You

A scene from the anime movie, "Weathering with you". Image credits: https://images.app.goo.gl/f5VgJ6NmwAaUXASa7

There might be some spoilers here and there so approach with caution if you have not watched the film.

My first thoughts after watching this movie was that this was a wonderful mix of Japanese folklore and a realistic depiction of the trying years that job-hunting teenagers go through. The story opens with a young boy who came from somewhere suburban and detested the boring, unmeaningful life he once led. He made his way to Tokyo and had a fateful encounter with a middle-aged man who wrote magazines (the boy would eventually work under him). When he parted ways with the man, he went all over the place looking for a job but was told he was not of the legal age for employment. He almost collapsed at a McDonalds outlet when a girl working there, whom he would come to love gave him a hamburger free of charge and saved him from going out cold due to hunger. The rest of the story surrounded the popular legend of the weather maiden and how she would influence the weather.

This highly acclaimed film directed by Makoto Shinkai was well-timed, as the world increasingly experiences the effects of climate change, such as more unpredictable and extreme weather. While we grumble about how whimsical the weather could be and how it would affect our livelihoods, we yearn for certainty and comfort, such as being in a long, passionate relationship as exemplified in this anime. There were many crazy scenes on how the protagonist chased after his lover, which was a stark contrast to the reality check and existential crisis that the film painted at the start.

 While loving someone else with all your heart and soul is admirable, I find that the buildup of romance in this film was too extreme. There was law-breaking, skydiving and war-mongering (using the weather) included in this film. While these rebellious scenes might look really thrilling, their means were too extreme. I am sure having a blissful life is more than two people making love - there would be no point in enjoying life with your lover if you bring down the whole society in the process! But that was the choice made by the protagonist in order to save his lover from the tragic fate of being a weather maiden (which I won't spoil here).

Generally, I quite liked the theme of two worlds - one being the scientific and logical society we are so familiar with (other than the idiosyncrasies we face at times) and the other being the fantasical, legendary world we come across in our myths and stories. This conflict provided the staple for most of the drama in this film.

The animation, colours and music were wonderful, as always from this particular film director. I did not know the sky and a metropolis could be so beautiful (even though the former was mostly blue and the latter was mostly grey). And I could listen the soundtracks for a while day. The songs made me feel that I was speaking my heart out. As an introverted person, this was a really special feeling. Once you listen to "Daijoubu" by RADWIMPS, you might know what I mean.

Overall, this anime was a really good piece of work. It would feel more personal if you watched it on a rainy day.

Life Challenges #1: Positivity Challenge

Introduction to Life Challenges Series

Sometimes, we are so busy with our various commitments that we forget to leave some time to check in with ourselves and improve one aspect of our lives.

Doing the same old routines and work every day is just going to nurture the mentality of getting by with life uneventfully, but that is not a life well lived, for we are shelled up in our own comfort zone, and we do not experience any excitement or growth. [1]

This is why I have been trying to fight back the busyness and trying to set up some challenges for my self-improvement. These challenges usually include soft-skills that will improve my character and increase my well-being. However, the nature of the challenges can evolve in future, in line with my changing needs and the changing environment.

The first challenge: Positivity Challenge

The purpose of this challenge is to encourage me to reframe my thoughts in a more positive and constructive way so as to improve my mental well-being and feel more in control.

Many occurrences are neutral by nature. But as we colour these events with our own emotions and our biases, they will fall into the category of either what we like and what we dislike. The negative category of what we dislike can be self-defeating, as they may be necessary for our growth but our mind is resistant to change. This workings of our inner selves, combined with the negative thoughts that spring out from our interpretations of the events, make many things in life harder and more stressful than they should. [2]

What did I do for this challenge? Everyday, for one week, I wrote about at least one difficulty I faced and tried to apply positive thinking to it. You can see what I have done here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14wnd-KJfQ5_PRE7wcXqDIpqilT8uBHzYlrnN5YY8DRE/edit

Looking back on the challenge

I surprised myself by generating many positive ways to look at an otherwise negative event. It seems like most of the time when I feel depressed or stressed by the negative things in life, it is more likely because my mind does not want to acknowledge positive side of things.

I hope to be able to gather these thoughts and find out their commonalities, which can help me set up a toolbox for helping me to cope with negativity and inject more positive feelings into my life.

References

[1]
https://www.fastcompany.co.za/inspiration/why-challenges-and-problems-are-important-in-life-12411996
[2]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2013/08/08/518/

Announcement: Delays in publishing of blog articles

For those with a keen eye, you may have noticed that this blog published at least one post a week. However, starting from the first week of June, the timing for the posting of articles on the blog will be different. 

As far as possible, I will try to stick to publishing something weekly, but as I like to prioritise quality above quantity, I may need more time to draft out and do research on my articles.

There are other factors that could cause delays in the publishing of articles, such as what I have experienced this week (first week of June):

• Managing other blogs, such as Vincent Academy, an online space dedicated to the recording of my learning from whatever I have read or watched online.

• Multiple rewards for completing my tasks and goals which I could only clear during the weekends, since I only have that time and the internet access to enjoy watching anime/shows for longer periods of time

• Certain tasks that cropped up out of a sudden need (such as notebook making) can take up quite a lot of my time, leaving me with little time to cook up a blog post

• Formatting issues when I do up my articles which requires some time to resolve

Therefore, the interesting stories will not stop, but they may not come up as regularly at times. Now that I have explained my situation, please continue to watch this space grow and check back again the following week if you see no new posts on this blog.

UPDATE: Due to limited functionality on my phone, for articles of a new series, I may post the content first and add in the banner later.

Kaleidoscope #3 | May Stories (Part 3)

#3: May Stories (Part 3)

Recently, on my social media feed, I have been seeing more opinions surrounding Singapore's responses to Covid-19 and how Covid-19 has impacted to our lives. Looks like the virus is still pretty viral in our social media platforms. 

As much as I want to quickly drop the topic of the coronavirus, it still serves as the context for most of our discussions and lives nowadays, so I will inevitably still be touching on it. Gone were the days of Donald Trump dominating the news headlines when the whole world has a crisis to tackle. But the coronavirus which replaced him in the position for the hottest news was not much better.

So on with the stories that I read up recently...

Commentaries by university professors on Singapore's responses to Covid-19

Within the last week, a very interesting discussion about the Singapore government's responses to the pandemic made by 2 local university professors had been shared and commented on by some of my friends who are studying / working in local universities. Even though the accuracy of the facts were very inconsistent (since errors with the statistics and political motivations coming into the picture), we could see that there were two distinct sides: whether someone disapproves or approves of the government's responses to the crisis.

I append the posts of these two gentlemen here:

I think it is very encouraging that academics are taking the lead to get everyone to reflect on what the government had done well in managing a crisis. I also learnt quite a bit on critique skills while reading on their posts and the comments.

After going through both of their opinions, I am more in agreement with the view that the government has managed the pandemic reasonably well. To show this, I will expand upon the two main issues that were covered by the writers: the decision to mask on, and the management of foreign workers.

With regards to the mask problem, the initial decision to not have the general population put on masks was out of concern for the sustainability of the stock of masks and the availability of information on Covid-19. It was easy to see that there would be a shortage in the global supply of masks, and Singapore did not have the resources nor the equipment to be able to produce masks independently, since there was not much demand for it before Covid-19 became a pandemic for this to be feasible economically. Singapore is in a tight spot because the external sector it relies on to drive most of her economic growth is falling apart, and Singapore will also need to control her spending in order to rebuild her own economy for the post-pandemic world. Until then, masks did not seem very high up on the priority list. The lack of information on the coronavirus also meant that many were ignorant of asymptomatic cases and how easily transmissible the virus was. As such, it would only make sense that the masks were reserved for healthcare workers and those who were sick and really needed it.

To be fair, the government did communicate the mask issue to the masses eventually, and ramped up on production. And amidst this crisis, it would be difficult to come clean entirely about the masks because any irresponsible proclamations made about it could cause undue alarm and influence the willingness of suppliers to produce the masks for us. With all these people-management at play and limited resources, the government would be forced to prioritise its efforts in order to contain the spread of Covid-19. In this case, it meant missing out a few months of not wearing masks and focus its efforts on quarantining existing patients of the virus, most of whom came from overseas.

More fundamentally than the mask issue, the government did well in communicating its plans with the people and is as transparent as it could possibly be. This excellent communication was lauded by the international community. But we err, for we are all human, and the same goes for governments. In February, when the DORSCON level was raised to orange, many Singaporeans mistook it as some sort of alarm for the virus or something indicative of a lock-down and went on panic buying. Internationally, this incident made a dent on Singapore's generally positive image. Also, this brought out the larger problem of gaps in communication and mental care. Singapore emerged out of that incident stronger. The various communication platforms rolled out, infomercials to spread awareness of Covid-19, responsible coverage by the media to help people make sense and cope with the information and people generally being more helpful toward one another, showed that Singaporeans, along with their government, had the capacity to bounce back from failures and learn from their mistakes. As such, we cannot demean the government's efforts to deal with the pandemic just because of a few failures.

To me, the issue here is not about how transparent any organisation is, but how maturely and intelligently the masses could handle the information regarding the pandemic. In a crisis response, information is extremely valuable, but making a lot of information accessible to everyone at once may not necessarily help in the response as information is not always translated to constructive action.

Next, moving on to the responses to the pandemic involving foreign workers. How Singapore handles foreign workers in dealing with the coronavirus crisis was generally seen as a weakness in the country's overall response framework to the pandemic.

I think Professor Ben Leong's analysis of the root cause of the large number of Covid-19 cases in foreign workers is quite cogent. According to him, Singapore's limited testing capacity is to blame. And this is true. Many cases, especially asymptomatic ones, have not been uncovered in time due to the lack of testing kits in Singapore. Meanwhile, other countries who have undergone massive testing, such as South Korea, had yielded results in containing the virus.

Some people might be inclined to blame the government and the reigning political party for the state the foreign workers were in now. Though I agree with views pertaining to more regulation, oversight and mutual support by the various stakeholders in terms of improving the workers' living conditions, it is unfair to criticise the government for neglecting foreign workers because of any kind of selfish reason. Managing foreign workers is no easy feat, especially when one-fifth of Singapore's population are made up of them. Much of the management was delegated to their employers, who unfortunately have to worry much about the costs of accommodating them as they try to keep up with the standards. We are talking about livelihoods here. Many of them have jobs that could not be worked on at home, unlike most of the local population, and they do not have the means of providing for themselves.

In general, I find that much of the issues surrounding Singapore's responses to the coronavirus was mostly due to the lack of measures targeted at the asymptomatic disease carriers. A disease like this was unprecedented and we could not rely on the same playbook we used for previous pandemics. I think Singapore really shone in terms of its comprehensive and methodical measures to deal with the pandemic, the outpouring of support and sharing of information between the government and the community, as well as the ability to rectify mistakes quickly. This is why I am proud of how Singapore handled the coronavirus crisis.

2020 Series | Part 2: Basic Military Training

PART 2: Basic Military Training (BMT)

Basic Military Training is the most disruptive thing that has happened to my life. I mean, I had to be away from home to undergo training on Pulau Tekong, an offshore island that is geographically closer to Malaysia than it is to Singapore, and the transportation there was quite inconvenient - I had to switch trains, catch the bus to the ferry terminal and board the ferry bringing us there. The training was so hectic that I barely had enough time to take a shower, much less use my phone. Even when I am outside of camp, I would still be required to prepare for the upcoming training for the next week. Despite all my grievances, I would say that this training had been a life-changing journey for me. Not only was it a process of self-discovery, I also got to appreciate more about the importance of defending Singapore.

In my first few weeks of training, everything seemed so difficult to me. 

I could recall vividly about the in-processing procedures. There were many items that were issued to each of us, most of which I could not name. Although there were commanders to help me, I had trouble finding what I was asked for as it took me some time to understand the names and the usage for the items. I felt that I was peering at an alien civilisation, with many weird objects that I had never encountered in my daily life. I had to put my own personal bag (or civilian bag) neatly with the rest, carry the extremely heavy bags of issued equipment and items upstairs where the company bunks are located and finish up checking on them. Thereafter, there was a survey before dinner time. During this process, I was so dehydrated that I felt my strength draining out of me, yet I could not muster the courage to ask for the usage of the water dispenser, since I would feel really guilty for troubling others over my own needs.

I was unable to catch up with some of the training, especially on the weapon handling. There were so many things that I got unfamiliar with that I panicked during the lesson and could not understand a thing that was going on. There were commanders and section mates living in the same bunk as me to help me out, but I was not relieved by their assistance because I was too used to working alone. I realised that I had selective listening and was afraid to approach others for help. These were communication issues that would haunt me for the rest of my BMT.

I did not know what to do. My section commander was so nice that my whole section agreed not to do anything to infuriate him. All of my section but me seemed to know exactly what to do, but here I was stuck in my own world, struggling to come out of my shell. Many people were frustrated with me being unable to come to terms with what I did not know and what I disliked. Soon, I started to doubt myself. With the simplest of tasks like putting on a uniform, folding clothes and carrying a bag, I had to go through the motion many times before I was confident of doing them. Otherwise, I would just blank out and make many stupid mistakes. Sometimes, I even wondered whether I had a childhood that was too sheltered, or I had some sort of mental problem.

The way most people started off their conversations with me was, "Are you okay?" To some, this question could sound comforting, but to me, it was an affirmation that something was wrong with me and it made me depressed. I could not blame them for asking me that question. Usually, any sort of fatigue or exasperation would show through my face. My face could not lie, whenever I felt that I could not go on anymore, I looked like I really wanted to die. It must have been painful to look at me being like that.

I think my mindset made things unnecessarily difficult for me. Training was supposed to be tough, but instead of showing any determination of completing it, my mind was full of self-defeating thoughts like, "This is too difficult." "Impossible, that can't work." "No, no, I won't be able to do this..." "What? I cannot understand. Help!" These thoughts made me lost my drive to face my mistakes and strive to be a better person. Thankfully, I had buddies, mentors, commanders and officers being patient with me, encouraging me on and giving me advice on how to break out of any dismal situation I found myself to be in.

I did not have a strong mind, and my physical body was breaking down as well. Booking out of camp became extremely important to me as it was a time when I could rest and recover. I got abrasions, bruises, cuts, ankle sprains, heat rash, throat infection and sores... Most of the injuries were minor enough to be healed within a few days, but the throat infection had me go through one week of medication, and the sprain caused me to be excused from running, marching and jumping for 5 days. And during training, I usually had problems with the equipment and the heat. Whenever I march with long distances with a helmet on, I would start to feel light-headed and feverish, and I would be sweating so much that I could not pass urine for more than half a day.

My lack of leg strength was a weakness in me, and my legs never failed to get sores after each book out before the weekend. My legs got so beaten up after the 24 km route march, the final strenuous activity in BMT, I could not even stand for long for any kind of parade, hence I could only join the later half of the passing-out parade. Most of the training for the parade I have done before that were wasted as my body was not in a condition to be able to deliver the standards required from me on the actual run.

Luckily, it was not all despair and depression during BMT. I had my fair share of fun moments and memories. 

I would remember fondly of my days shooting rounds to my hearts content when I acted as the enemy during the group battle course, the performances that were put on to commemorate significant events such as Chinese New Year and the end of the BMT training, as well as all the weird and funny questions during the engagement we had with the officers. I also could not forget how people were nice to me, giving me snacks and looking out for my health. I should treasure these memories and use them to help me feel positive and stronger when moving forward with my National Service journey. These experiences made me feel that I would give my all to bear arms so that I could protect the smiles of others.

It was mostly about me ranting and a bit of sharing of my experiences during BMT for this post, but I really want to drive home the importance of learning from my mistakes. Keeping an open mind toward any new challenges, interacting with people and remembering the reason for all the difficulties I went through was what I failed to do as a recruit. Without them, it would be just as difficult to make it through BMT as it is for the rest of my life.

My officers said that there is no running away from the 2 years of National Service being in the military, but how well spent these 2 years would be is entirely up to me. How very true.

UPDATE: Came across this blog post shortly after reading this and I found it to be quite helpful in tackling my problems. Usually, many of the negative emotions we feel stem from being unprepared for many situations and the self-deceit that we put ourselves through just to forget about how difficult the world can just be. This morning ritual described in the post can help us cope with that negativity. Cheers!

https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2020/04/pandemic-ritual/