The other half

 As someone who easily gets anxious and stressed, I wonder how I could shove off the negative thoughts in my head. Once I met my other half, can they help me make the voices go away?

A loving companion acts simply by existing - as a companion. They can do their best not to make the thoughts and voices disappear, but rather quieten the effect. The unknowable future can be seen as knowable, with all its safety, thus help make life more bearable. They held options: it is always possible to leave town and start over, it is okay to live very moderately in a small place, it will be a good thing to just stay at home and have a domestic life. No one should expect them to be more either way: no feats any more, just being there is enough. They can't put more pressure to earn money, to impress others, or to act heroic. Surviving is what matters.

I'm imagining if I was at the rock bottom of life, an other half will assure they will stick around. Though it may not be it, again, they will be there to personally help make the future more manageable. When it gets terrible, we'll have each other's presence and that's enough. I'll lean on them and hold their spirits and that sounds pretty realistic.

Aside from being present, I hope the other half can instill the same fundamental message over and over again, "It will be OK." After all, even if OK isn't ideal, it's always what one always wants in the end. OK is better than abused, OK is better than death - it's always the better alternative in the mind that's suffering. Quite how the next year remains undeterminable yet, and more details have to be examined, but what is known is here and that's that we have each other. The future we see may be unendurable, but it won't need to be perfect for a huge basic reason: because there is love.

I'm good

 and it works for me.

"Good."

How many times have you used the adjective to describe something in your life? Probably, a zillion times. Then, think of everything you'd put in the category of Good: handwriting, book cover, the weather.

When you make the above a list, perhaps you'll understand why I boo a little bit when I hear someone describe my/my work as "good".

Good is neutral. Good is forgettable. Good is an ambiguous condition. Good doesn't change lives, let alone save them. Wouldn't anyone prefer eloquent, marvelous, and of course exquisite?

I'm disappointed. After putting blood, sweat and tears to all my work, couldn't I be more than "good"?

I consider goodness as tolerable and acceptable. While in different parts of my life, it can even be a virtue: how I'm doing, my room, my relationship with myself. I even rate my cooking as good. I consider my look to be good.

But when it comes to my work performance, which is obviously, being 'good' is mediocre. I react as though I've not been giving enough. By stating the whole circumstances, my feelings were hurt.

"I want to be excellent," I said to myself because I don't think I've never been taken seriously compared to others, whose experience is also hell of a ride for them but in a completely different setup.

"What if people look at my work and all they say is 'it's good'?" I wondered in desperation, worrying about a hypothetical stagnancy for a moment.

After digging around what's left in my brain, I cam to the conclusion that I could work really hear to "be taken seriously", but that would mean altering my habit, which in this care, has actually been proven to be just as effective to at least help me survive.

I'd spend more time revising for the product, learn to delve into the service...would it even work? It sounds like a painful process already, and one that is not guaranteed to even result in desired effect (all work and no life? I dunno).

I decided on something wild: instead of trying to make my work more serious or whatever, I'll stick to what's balance and lean in to how I can do everything at once in moderation. Why don't I stop chasing that 'excellence' and just accept the fact that 'good' is already a satisfying description. Good is enough. 

Here's the deal: My work gets called "good" because I AM GOOD. Or, at the very least, it registers to other people as "cute", which is okay. The way people perceive ourselves is outside of our control. Alas, you can't decide whether what your work will devastate them or not.

Being just good is good! This idea made me laugh, but it made sense right away. It is liberating. I could embody and embrace everything I've been doing well, or decide to become a completely different person just to 'be taken seriously' at work. 

I don't even know what that would entail in the long run. As long as it doesn't involve being too hard on myself, I'm pretty sure I could still make it work.

TEOFTW: My insight

We thought we know everything. We thought we’d figure it all out. We thought bad things could never happen to us and our beloved people , but sooner we learned that anyone isn’t really escaping the phase of not-knowing-anything. Anyone can stumble upon this phase one way or another. And when it comes to TV series, I think The End of the F***ing World (TEOTFW) is portraying the phase nicely, though sometimes exaggerating. At some point, the show can be awkward, but, let's say, we might crave for some awkwardness to cheer ourselves up.

The story where it all began was, I saw a capture of an episode. It had a statement that is ridiculously relatable to our daily lives. I figured, then, the show is called TEOTFW, and that is pretty much representing of the events happening during the show. The end of the world is fucking coming. There are so many times we find ourselves trapped in plots we don’t know the way out, and that’s exactly when we do something bad and dangerous and the world is collapsing.

In late 2017, this show was released. As far as I know, the show received only two kinds mixed reviews: cool and i-don’t-know-what’s-happening-there. I am one of the people who genuinely think the show is cool. The show mainly focused on outsider teenagers, James and Alyssa, who caught up on an adventure during their moment leaving home. Together, they went through and found various events, but mostly they found themselves. I think the show is really fun to watch. Despite the exaggerating representation of particular happenings, James and Alyssa made it possible to keep the satisfied viewers entertained ‘til the very end through their dialogues and life choices.

For you who haven’t been able to catch up with the series, it is available now on every streaming platform. Please take time to enjoy the ride because the show is actually really interesting and hilarious. Not knowing where to go and what to do as teenagers may be sucks, but having someone to get along with the trip of not knowing anything would make the journey sucks (hehe). It’s always okay ‘cause we are never alone.