Journal 6

        For me, journaling is a great way to escape from the burden of reality and re-organize myself to find inner peace back again. Journaling is very magical; it serves as a healing function, and just randomly jotting down words in my head is really helpful for me to evaluate myself afterward.

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        March and April were the two months that really made me feel overwhelmed: homework, internship, relationships with others, personal issues, and so on. To start with, as a student, I actually enjoy learning and progressing through tasks and courses; however, my poor time management and my excessive anxiety about all the burdens and responsibilities on my shoulder were putting me in deep water. As a result, I started to feel that I could not escape from the school work and internship—the fact that I wanted to “escape” made me realize that I could not take on and enjoy the challenges anymore; I lost self-confidence, which was very discouraging.

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        Moreover, I am the type of person who is always overanxious about the upcoming tasks and unknown challenges; the fact that I lost confidence in myself only made matters worse. I started to lose my temper and get irritated easily, not just with people around me but also with myself. Upon realizing how hurt my behavior was to the people who love me, I started to lock myself up and refuse to open up my obstacles and feelings with my friends. So of course, it also created some misunderstandings between me and my friends.

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        However, around the first week of this May, I read in the book that said, we as humans could not be angry and curious at the same time. At that time, I was deeply bothered by my anger toward the others. After reading this, I’ve started to contemplate and re-examine myself. And that’s the time I found that if I adopt a more positive perspective to view the person before my eyes, for example, if instead of lashing out my anger, I try to be curious and wonder why the person in front of me behaves like this that makes me angry, I could successfully transform my infuriated emotion into a calmer and a more positive feeling. In this way, I could stay calmer to observe the person and scrutinize the situation. In the end, maybe there were just misunderstandings between the two people; nothing too big to feel angry about.