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Being Grateful For Life December 22 2014

It’s come to the end of 2014.  Looking back at the last 12 months, it’s definitely been eventful.

In March, I took a break from the day job to start this website and develop the business full time, learning to manage my time, splitting between designing, making and marketing and all the administrative work.  Fulfilling? Yes. Stressful? Yes too. Would I trade it for another 9 months spent differently? Nope.

Despite the stress, and constantly having to convince people around me that I actually DO work at home (!!) , it was a learning time best experienced first hand. Nothing can to replace that journey, which will give me a deeper appreciation for the colleagues in the next cubicle.

Also in March, I went on a 2 week motorbike ride to Chiangmai in Northern Thailand sending off our friends who rode from Singapore to Sweden for breast cancer research. THAT was no mean feat! And I’m glad they returned safely 4 months later.

 

There were many things that didn’t turn out as I wished.  Like not keeping up with my schedule to get the daily tasks done, like reading too much but procrastinating in putting them into action, like buying a ton of supplies and taking forever to make them into finished products.

 

On the other hand, these are what I’m grateful for…

My hubby, who allowed me to leave a stable income to explore my life, and giving me a bigger space for my jewellery workbench. 

Friends who supported and encouraged me along the way 

Customers who left words of appreciation and came back for more of my jewellery

Fellow vendors of sales events who offered help generously and eventually became friends

Successful as well as failed experiments which taught me many lessons

For another year with a clean bill of health (more adventures!)

For fast and reliable wifi that we often take for granted

......What are you grateful for this year? :)

Next month (January), I will be traveling for 3 weeks…. The store will still remain open but orders will be shipped when I return at the end of the month. Till then, enjoy the festivities and have an awesome 2015!

 

Leave your comments here.


Giving life a reboot August 25 2014

Last week, someone posted on facebook a personal issue she had. It was 4 weeks after a major surgery, and she felt she couldn’t get her motivation to resume her life.

In our attempt to map out our lives and packing our schedules to the brim with activities, sometimes we hardly set aside time for contemplation.  “Downtime”, whether it’s an unexpected medical leave or a retrenchment, is life’s way of making us pause and take a breather.

We might have planned our career path, our life, kid’s future, but the moment something unexpected happens, all might have to change. Insisting on clinging to the original plan sometimes doesn’t work.

Imagine, you started the day with 4 must-dos lined up for the day, but while rushing out of the door, you slip and have a bad fall.  The stuff which seemed very urgent and “got to do by today”, now take a backseat. You beg your sister to get 2 of them done, re-schedule the important meeting, and call hubby to pick up some supplies on his way home.  The fact is there is usually a plan B hiding somewhere, and nothing is absolutely cast in stone. No one is totally indispensable.

So, why do we then become so frustrated when our lives don’t turn out as planned?

Whose plan was it anyway?  Yours or the big guy up there?

Most of us, at one point of our lives, have faced that “drop everything now” moment, when one thing interrupts and supersedes the importance of everything else. Do we crumble and see it as the end of the world or take it in our stride and walk a new path?

What if this new path IS the path that you were meant to take from the start, just that you were so obsessed with the “right way” and constantly ignored the signs?

best things happen

On another note... some reboots are a little more subtle.

The phrase “mid-life crisis” came about in 1965 by a psychologist.  These days, young people also face another milestone…their quarter-life crisis, when they move to adulthood and the real world.

I don’t agree with calling it a crisis. To me, this is a good break from an old routine to open myself to new experiences and explorations. They are transitions in life that make people choose which direction to go, and it's just part of the journey. I suppose it's which viewpoint you choose that makes the difference.