Today i’m going to write my 2017 year in review.

Prelude: A 2017 Note On Precession

In recent discussions, Raymond pointed out that intelligent people need to be emotionally aware.

I’m writing it this way because I’m not sure if this had been a common theme in our past discussions, since 2015. Perhaps it has always been that way, just that I never picked this theme up as I wasn’t emotionally aware back then.

The logic behind precession is simple. If it is indeed true that emotions come first, then thoughts, then perhaps all precession comes on the basis of what sort of emotions you pick up in others, and of yourself.

In the past few years, my IQ was recorded to be 126, and then 135. So I’m definitely more intelligent than the average masses (verifiable, lol). In Q1/Q2 this year I always thought (mistakenly) that everyone thought like myself, but then along the way I realised actually not everyone does.

So I’ve often felt that something was “off” due to this above average IQ, because I had assumed that most people prioritized knowledge and logic.

But no. 

That something that was “off” was “emotional awareness”.

Against this context, this year was a clear breakthrough because I have become more emotionally aware. And therefore, the emotions I pick up in others form a more accurate/ less shitty grounds for precession.

So How Was My 2017?

And the following is a set of questions I got off Anthea Ong‘s wall. I have the deepest respect for Anthea because she’s one of the people I’m really happy to have met this year.

1. What have you done really well? What would you celebrate about 2017? 

2017 perhaps could be seen as a year of emotional awareness for me.

As I look back and reflect now, I realise that hey, actually I’ve come pretty far!

I could increasingly see people for who they are right now, after taking all that emotional stuff into account. =) Basically now at least I could tell when the ego is speaking, and when a person’s true self is speaking.

2. What new things did you learn about yourself? 

I learnt to accept my own intelligence and not fight it anymore.

I always felt that I always stood out in many context due to my own smartness, and therefore I’ve always tried my best to either fight against this thought, or to blend in.

Naturally this is paradoxical and contradictory. On the one hand I didn’t want to stand out as I wanted to fit into the masses/ group, so I consciously choose to “dumb down”.

On the other hand I know I’m held back by this if I wanted to reach “the best self” or my full potential.

But I’m sure it will only get easier to forgive as I become more emotionally aware.

This year I also learnt to forgive better. It is still really, really hard for me to forgive others, or forgive myself. And I learn, and I’m getting better.

3. Who are you grateful for (name one reason for each person)? 

• Gratitude towards boyfriend, for being so supportive towards whatever I’m doing. But perhaps also not grateful towards boyfriend, because I had silently expected more support (LOL). Strangely now I do want to get closer and even more private. It’s a strange feeling.
• Gratitude towards Uncle Liew, who wrote out a method about how to forgive. A note which I reread and reread and reread when my life was brought to shit a couple of years back.
• Gratitude towards Ray and Dr Sun, even though their relationship now isn’t at the best. They continued helping me at the start of this year.
• Gratitude towards parents, who still allowed me to stay with them when I’m in Singapore! =)
• Gratitude towards my 3yo nephew (?) Haha he always likes to come into my office to look for me and he always melts my heart! He’s so cheeky and intelligent–I hope he would grow up well with this gift of being intelligent. I wish he would never have to feel ashamed of this sort of intelligence (like I used to) and I wish that he would use his intelligence for good.  I hope he talks to me about deep, intimate stuff as he grows up.
• Gratitude towards many, many people— least for providing perspective so that I can consider where I stand amongst this human madness 🙂

4. What is/are the challenges that you are most grateful for? Name one reason for each challenge (this builds your resilience reservoir).

• I have a tendency to defend people I’m loyal to till the end.

Then later I realised, this might be self-sabotaging as the emotions that motivate this action aren’t exactly very calm. And sometimes I defend people I’ll like to be loyal too even though they might not actually be doing the wisest things.

• Some people actually do say that I come across as passive aggressive sometimes.

As a context to readers, this means I sometimes go “Oh if you want to do this, you do lor, why are you asking for my opinion”.

So I actually started to wonder why I came across as passive aggressive– is it the emotion behind how I say things? Or is it because I refuse to get involved when people are about to crash into clear trees ahead?

I really like what Bernadette said. She said when I’m passive aggressive, I’ve become the tree in the middle of the road instead.

So she suggested that I offer some solutions instead of outrightly getting irritated and shutting off in the face of incompetence haha! “Why not suggest the folks in the car to slow down or drive in another way”, etc.

What a trigger 😛

And okay lah, I’ll do that. And why not, since now I have the ability to check both my emotions and others’. 😛

5. What is the one thing that you are most grateful to you, yes YOU, in 2017? 

I had to think really hard about this.

I am really grateful to Wan Wei for being so emotionally resilient, all while still not compromising what you would like to do. I think I did really well in terms of negotiation when it comes to context.

I was creative and I adapted. I got the portfolio I wanted, and managed to cut leeches off.

Of course, on hindsight, I don’t blame the leeches for leeching anymore. I take full responsibility for the structure behind the leeching, and since I’ve figured out how to structure/ position things properly, I’m quite certain that in future I won’t be leech-ed upon anymore.

Indeed there had been a lot of anger towards “being made use of”, and I think Raymond had this sort of feeling before too, which perhaps was why we could talk freely in this area.

Value after all is subjective–people are sometimes undeniably egoistic, and sometimes they inflate their own value. =)

I won’t consent to this anymore. And the method to which I won’t consent to this would be that I will always seek to understand what a person thinks of his/her value before commenting or proceeding with any larger collaboration.

People tend to perhaps think “i’m doing you a favour”, when in fact to you they are not. 😛 This then is a question of IQ and intelligence (which I had previously mistakenly assumed most people have)–so communication of value/ perception of value is key.

6. What (habits, thoughts, emotions, situations, etc) will you leave behind in 2017 that you do not need in 2018?

• I actually realised this year that some of my thoughts were just plain off.

You see, if thoughts were justifications to emotions, and if I didn’t use to pick up emotions accurately, this means that some of the justifications I made to emotions were just completely off.

So if I didn’t use to be emotionally aware at the start of 2017, and now I am emotionally aware, it means that I have grown to pick up/identify more “accurate” emotions in myself and others.

• The lack of leverage in worst case scenarios

So I would like to leave behind the lack of leverage in worst case scenarios in 2017.

Come 2018, I’ll like to tie all worst case scenarios in partnership/ collaborative context to the concept of “skin in the game”. We often think of win-win situations in collaborations, and fail to think about worst-case contingencies and the lack of leverage in such context.

So I’ll like to leave -all- ‘status-quo/ lose” situations in worst case contingencies behind. 🙂

• The Imagined Fear As a Defence Mechanism

Associated with the above obviously is the imagined fear.

I had liked to imagine my worst fears as a defence mechanism. With structure of course that I’ve now learnt, I’ve naturally given up the imagined fear because the structure guards against this now.

So this is naturally left behind and I am now free to operate based on faith once I can identify with the vision.

What Shall I Create in 2018?

I guess that is about it. I’m grateful for 2017 and I’m really excited for 2018. Tons of ICO-related projects– unD does sound pretty above-average– and I really can’t wait to help companies fly with my PR skills 🙂

We’re talking about 8/9 digit sums here, for companies with amazing visions. 🙂

On a personal level, of course I want to be more private and public at the same time. Those two aren’t necessarily contradictory– in a lot of areas it’s something like a bridge and a distance. =)

I’ll also like to make a choice to love myself a bit more every day, even when on some days it is difficult. And I’ll like to journal more too, so find out what’s going on inside myself.

I have this top super personal resolution which I want to achieve by the end of 2018, and I know exactly how to get there. But till today I don’t know who to call as a support (who is not already a family member). So i will continue thinking about and looking out for this person 🙂