When I was younger, I developed a desire to overachieve. Reasons aside, I grew up to become self-conscious of what people thought of me, as well as how I can adapt so as to be more perfect as a person.

Over time, events have shown me again and again, that Life isn’t meant to be perfect and neither are we, as humans.

Still, I like to study what it means to be Human, all because I have been searching for what it means to be Me. Where does my identity come from? Where do my desires, fears and wants derive from? How should I find my way to living a fulfilled life? What can give me a meaningful purpose in life beyond enjoying it?

“I’ve always tried to make sense of things. There must be a reason why I am as I am”

Bicentennial Man, 1999

In the movie Bicentennial Man, when asked why he wanted to become human, instead of live forever as a machine, Andrew, played by Robin Williams replied:

“To be acknowledged for who and what I am, no more, no less. Not for acclaim, not for approval, but, the simple truth of that recognition. This has been the elemental drive of my existence, and it must be achieved, if I am to live or die with dignity.”

Before he made the full transition from Android to Human, he had a conversation with the woman he loved, Portia. She was about to marry another man because she couldn’t accept loving a robot. Yet, you could see in her the desire for him to fight for her. She was almost begging for him to make the decision for her.

Portia: Take chances, make mistakes. Sometimes, it’s important not to be perfect. It’s important to do the wrong thing.

Andrew: Do the wrong thing? Why? Oh I see, to learn from your mistakes.

Portia: No! To make them. To find out what’s real and what’s not. To find out what you FEEL. Human beings are terrible messes, Andrew.

Andrew: I see. This is what is known as an irrational conversation, isn’t it?

Portia: No, this is a human conversation. It’s not about being irrational, it’s about following your heart.

Uncontrollably, while watching this scene, my mind brought me back to a conversation I had with my ex-husband.

We were talking about him being in love with another woman, and he was trying to be truthful with me. I could see that. As hard as the conversation was, he was trying to tell me something I think neither of us could understand at that moment.

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s right. My friend told me to follow my heart. And I told him that I was afraid to do that. What if following my heart means hurting you?”

When I first heard him say that to me, 2 whole years ago, my heart didn’t quite sink immediately. My pride got destroyed, but something inside me agreed wholeheartedly with him. I think we both felt that what we thought was love……was not true. We didn’t really love each other. But parts of us craved it so much we thought we could will it to happen.

At that time, we weren’t in an estranged relationship as we are now. Messy divorces destroy relationships. Many things were said and done between us, and we can no longer repair whatever bond or trust we had before. But back then…..when we still had that connection, I said to him.

“Don’t worry about me. No matter what happens, I’ll always be okay. If you choose someone else, I’ll eventually still be okay.”

Of course, as we all know, life is not as simple as that. The truth sometimes hurts. And in the coming 2 years, Truth revealed itself in many ways, of who, what, why and how. And it hurt. While dealing with pain and shame, humans do what their animalistic instincts tell them to – Fight or flee.

In the end, names were called, accusations were made and even more pain and shame ensued. For the overthinker and self conscious person I am, I struggle with both anger and guilt, always almost at once. On one hand, I want to acknowledge the wrongdoings done towards me, things said about me, on the other hand I want to be kind, understanding and focus on my own faults instead.

But that’s what being human is, isn’t it? As a species, we are so vulnerable and insecure, having risen up to the top of the food chain in just a short matter of time, when evolution used to happen over hundreds of thousands of years.

Being human is to have all of these contradicting thoughts and emotions, all clashing inside our minds at times of conflict. Conflict between us and others, conflict within ourselves.

The truth, although it hurt, is that I wasn’t quite sure of what I was doing back then. I wasn’t sure what I wanted in life. I let external factors decide for me. If given a choice between A or B, I never asked for C, even if I didn’t really want either A or B. On top of all of the uncertainty I had about myself and how I should live my life, I cared too much of what others thought. I unnecessarily sought people’s approval.

In his dying moments, Andrew’s life-partner Portia, played by Embeth Davidtz, asked why he needed the world’s approval – Why did it matter if the world viewed him as human if he was able to live a good part of his life as one?

“Old habits. I came into this world as a robot, I still like to be told certain things.”

This complete acceptance of who he is as a person, without needing to change or be perfect, is admirable. Now that I’ve started to understand where my people-pleasing/ fixer tendencies stem from, its easier to decide when to give in and when to reject them.

The movie follows Andrew as he slowly figures out the different desires he has, each arising at different stages, but all pointing to the ultimate goal of him wanting to become Human. From at first wanting to wear clothing, asking for facial expressions to later on asking for freedom, searching for his own kind and even going through the process of becoming human, Andrew spent a good 200 years exploring different facets of himself. The entirety of his being was constantly changing and growing, as he started understanding himself better.

Though he spends good effort in making permanent changes so as to be acknowledged as a human by humans, in the end, he passes away peacefully without hearing that his status has been converted from Robot to Human. “Maybe he didn’t need to hear it,” Portia told the nurse who was caring for them. Moments later, we witness the sweet ending of Portia crossing the end of life, minutes after Andrew.

Alas, pain is inevitable at times, especially in the pursuit of the truth. And just as Andrew discovers, loss, grief and mistakes are all part of the human existence.

While embracing who I am, I also realize that life as a human is incredibly messy and there’s no need for us to crave perfection or to be acknowledged by anyone else but us. We might want it, but we don’t need it to be happy.

The biggest mistake I made in life also brought about the biggest lessons. I’ve had other regrets in life before, but never the determination to learn from them. As they say, certain things take time to happen. Everyone journeys through life at their own pace, in their own time.

Writing to remind myself to practice Patience. That it’s okay to be imperfect because that’s the very definition of being Human.

To my younger self,

I know you’ve always felt a little lost. And perhaps you’ve been used to feeling lonely too. You used to surround yourself with many friends and constantly traded your self worth for the approval of others.

One day, you’ll find out where your fears came from and why you’re constantly afraid of being alone.

Somewhere around your mid 20s, you embarked on a rather self-destructive path because the inner turmoil grew and grew, and you weren’t even aware that you were suppressing your frustrations. Amidst the parade and charade, you could barely even listen to your own cries. Your actions however, were obvious. You turned a blind eye to your dependency on alcohol and convinced yourself you were just “bored with life”. But you knew, you always felt the discrepancy between how you truly felt and what you told yourself.

One day, your heart will get so broken. You thought you had finally found someone who saw and loved you for who you were. You believed his lies when he said he would never leave or forsake you. And you gave him everything – every piece of your heart and every ounce of your trust. You saw in him what he couldn’t even see in himself. And you loved him. And so it will hurt. It will hurt like hell when one day, he looks your father in his eyes and say “I made a mistake in marrying your daughter, now I want to marry someone else”. He will turn out to be exactly what you always feared him to be and you will ask yourself why you ever fell in love with him. You would have given him so much of yourself, and nothing left for anyone else, especially you.

The pain will shatter your entire existence. It will crumble the foundation you thought you was solid. And it will cause you so much pain you can hardly even breathe or eat. You will look at your parents and feel guilt for ever letting them love that man. And you will curse the day you said “I do”.

It will hurt. And it will keep hurting. The grief will never get smaller.

But then, because of this pain. Because of this unconceivable flood of agony that will overwhelm and plague your every minute, you will finally recognize that you have to put yourself first. Just so you can get through this terrible event.

For the first time in your life, you’ll be confronted with the fact that no one will be able to help you. The pain you’ll experience will simply be too much to bear. Everyone will be living their own lives and going about their day. But yours has already imploded. Your world doesn’t exist anymore.

For the first time in your life, you will start making decisions not based on what anyone else has done or thinks is right.

You will meet strangers, people whom you’ve just met and you will relate to them so much. Suddenly, you will have found people who tell you stories that spark something in you. They will speak words that tug at your heart and make you feel instantly comfortable with them.

These people will make you feel like family right away, and help you realize you have always felt out of place in Singapore – lonely even though you’re constantly surrounded by people who love you.

You’ll start to understand that love is not enough. We all crave to be understood, to be seen. And you never quite felt understood – did you? Even from a young age, when you were just a child – you never quite felt like you belonged anywhere, did you? You never wanted the same things society wanted and never enjoyed the things others did. Yet, there was never another path you could see, or another way that life could be lived.

And so, because you’ve now seen it happening for yourself, you will start to follow that one and only one desire you have and have always had – To travel. To explore the world. To try and make traveling a lifestyle until you find the way forward.

Because of the people you meet, you’ll start believing there IS another way to live life. One that you thought was an unbeaten path but really – just an unfamiliar path to people you know. You’ll discover so many people who have chosen to ‘rebel’ against society and realize you’re not silly for dreaming the same dream as them. Your dream IS their reality.

Along the way, while trying to heal, you’ll discover so much strength and love inside you. And learn how to be happy on your own. How to eat on your own, watch movies on your own, read, go to museums and even laugh on your own. You’ll find out that being alone won’t make you feel lonely, once you can be honest and vulnerable with yourself.

While slow traveling, the mental distance will give you time to heal. I won’t deny that for a good part of 2 years, grief will be a big part of your journey.

Sometimes, the grief will be manageable and other times, it will plunge you into a deep pit of depression.

During this time, you will learn to lean on the right people for help and you will feel so so loved. These people will prove to be your angels and because of them, you will heal well. Along with therapy sessions, you will start reflecting on many things in your life.

Why you chose to do certain things, why you made certain mistakes, how you can choose to do differently in future and most importantly – what kind of life you want in the future.

Slowly but surely, bit by bit, you will start to grow. Emotionally, intellectually and metaphysically.

Because of the people you will meet and the quality of conversations you exchange, you will start allowing yourself to dream of a completely new life. One where no one you know has lived before. No one to give you a road map; no one to guide you on where to go or what to do. People will inspire you all the time – but still you will be faced with a big challenge.

Guess what though? Because you have experienced piecing yourself back up, because you have plucked yourself off the floor again and again, you are ready for that challenge. You’re geared up!

Soon, you will even find the strength to help others. You will happily spend time talking to people who think and feel just like you! You will realize that there were always people back in Singapore who felt the same way as you – you just never crossed paths with them.

While writing as an outlet to express yourself, you will also find opportunities to remote work. From water colour painting, learning Italian, how to work in the tech industry, to options trading and freediving, you will be learning LOTS.

Every country you go to, every new experience you go through will teach you so much. And your thirst for evolving will empower you to soak all of it up.

Your Ego will be bruised multiple times. Many events will happen to teach you more about yourself and mold you into a better version – one that is acutely aware that we are all part of a greater synergy. And that our actions can cause ripple effects. You will learn how to work with your ego, how to slow your thoughts down and calm your knee-jerk emotional reactions.

Because you have new found love for yourself and you’re healing deep old wounds that happened in your childhood, you’ll start to see our family in new light. You’ll start to feel more space to hold them with love. You’ll appreciate your friends more and want to spend time with people who matter. No longer will you tolerate gaslighting, emotional abuse or narcissistic relationships, even with friends.

At the same time, you’ll witness so much beauty in the way. Beauty in mountains, oceans and cities. Beauty in the different cultures. And in the way whole societies go through war and recover. Beauty in how people tackle poverty and come up with ways to help each other without selfish benefits.

Your traveling experience will inject so much optimism in you, inspiring you to be a part of that side of humanity. The side where people actively seek themselves out so they can give more in productive ways.

And yes – we do find love again.

We find love in the most wonderful way.

We find someone who sees us. All of us. And we find someone who puts in the effort to actively love you – not just with empty words but with action. You will test this relationship again and again because of your trauma, but one day, you will finally believe that this man loves you.

And you will love him too. You’ll grow into a person who can love him as he deserves. The two of you will live happily on an island and discover new parts of yourselves because you’re together.

And this fear. This fear of losing him. This tremendous fear of living life without someone else. Will start to fade. Not because he’s around – but because you have learned that life can be happy even without him.

You’ll accept that you might one day lose him and that his absence might leave a gaping hole in your heart. But you’ll know that it will still be okay. Life will still be good.

That….will be the ultimate freedom to experience.

Knowing that we can survive and even thrive….on our own.

And off we will go. Off into the world. Having finally found ourselves. For more adventures, experiences and lessons.

My dearest Jane, hang in there. Enjoy the ride.

Life is earnest and it is good.

I can hear my heartbeat pounding in my eardrums. Literally. Doom Doom Doom Doom Doom.

My face is completely heated. I can feel steam coming out of my palms. I have a massive impulse to get revenge. To make her hurt. To fight back with all the secrets of hers that I hold. To expose to the world what a complete hypocrite she is. To show everyone the truth and retrieve back my dignity. To tell everyone how much of a fool she looked like, trying to gain pity from others. I wished she would experience all that I did, all that she made me feel, and then laugh in the face of her pain.

Has it only been a minute? It feels like hours have gone by. I’m barely breathing, my eyes can’t focus on anything. All I see in my mind……is rage. All I feel in my body is terrible terrible anger.

I used to fear feeling like this because I didn’t like the way I felt when anger attacked.

I didn’t like feeling angry. And I would beat myself up about it. I would feel completely horrible for having bad thoughts of other people. The guilt of wanting to hurt them would engulf my anger and render me even more ashamed. I wasn’t this person, so why was I feeling that way???

How could I ever have those thoughts? I’m not a vengeful person. I’ve never been this angry, enough to have such thoughts. Growing up, I’ve never cared about what others said about me. I’ve had people do worse things to me and still I never felt this angry towards them. I’m not even this angry towards my own ex- who was the one who actually did the stuff to hurt me. Why am I so angry towards this person? Someone I don’t even know?

Why? I wanted to seek out the meaning behind my anger towards this particular person.

Twice when the triggers attacked and I experienced tremendous rage, I started hitting myself. I would bang my head against any hard surface, scratch my skin until it bled, pull at my hair, I would hit myself in the head continuously until Marco calms me down. And every time after I calm down, I would start crying immediately because of all the emotions I felt. I felt like the Hulk. I kept repeating to myself “I’m not the hulk. I’m not an angry person.”

Because of such traumatic experiences with Anger, I got afraid of it. So many times when the anger resurfaced, I would push it away. I would reject it, avoid it and completely deny it.

But Anger didn’t want to leave. It found ways to sneak back into my heart, small and big ways. A flashback, a memory, a song, a word, a type of food. It became so exhausting avoiding Anger, it felt like she was waiting around every bend, lurking around every corner.

So, one day. I finally had enough. I summoned up all the courage I had, marched up to her and said “What can I do for you so you will leave me alone????”

It was then, when Anger approached me calmly and placed a single finger on my stomach. The heat that suddenly coursed through my body felt so familiar, so haunting and yet……it wasn’t setting me on fire. I took a leap of faith and embraced the intense heat. Instead of harming me, it was trying to burst energy into me so I could feel my body better. I was….suddenly aware of knots that were in my body. Knots that seemed to pulsate to the drums of my Anger. I couldn’t feel them before because all of the heat used to concentrate around my mind, stopping me from being aware of my body.

I quickly learned that Anger……….was just trying to be helpful. Anger was just trying to tell me something. About who? Not about what we think of the person trying to hurt us, or people trying to get a reaction out of us. Anger doesn’t care about them. Anger doesn’t know them. Anger doesn’t want anything to do with them.

Anger wanted to reveal the cause of my pain and sorrow.

“I want you…to feel where it hurts when you pinpoint where the anger comes from,” My life coach, Rella, told me.

I went through the list of things my perpetrator said about me. One by one. I said those things to myself and I asked myself where the words caused a reaction.

Some surfaced in my lower back, some in my throat, most of them in my stomach and some of them in my chest.

“For all the feelings you’re experiencing now, as you’re replaying the hurtful things that were said to or about you, when was the last time you remember feeling like this before?” Rella very calmly and gently asked me.

At first, it wasn’t so clear to figure out where the source of my feelings came from. I had long ago detached from those memories. I had long ago put away the incidents that hurt me. With Rella‘s help and patience, she helped me navigate through my past and gave me actual solutions to my problems.

Slowly….and when I mean slowly…..I mean that it’s taking months and months, I’m managing to unearth so many things that happened in my past, things that hurt me deeply. I’m going back in time to remember what happened to toddler Jane, child Jane, teenage Jane, young adult Jane and I’m putting faces to many of the triggers I have.

For every precious skull of memory I collect, I place them gently into individual jars and from time to time, I now hold them close to me, with a sole intention to heal these wounds.

I hold closely, each skull that contains a memory of past Janes, and I let the ghosts of them cry out to me. I let them demonstrate what it felt like when those things happened. I allowed them to remind me how lonely, abandoned, hurt, betrayed, and dismissed I once felt.

I used to see such a thick layer of fog. A fog that covered up the meaning behind my anger. Why was I angry? Especially if I knew her intentions to accuse me were only in reaction to her own inability to cope with her feelings?

The minute I started realizing that her anger was not just directed towards me, but more towards her own self, the minute I also realized my own anger wasn’t just in reaction to her actions. They were in reaction to my own past actions.

I put her aside and I focused on my own actions.

I stopped feeling bad about things I’d done before. I started understanding why and letting go of the past. I stopped feeling guilt towards the past because I now knew that the reason I made all of my “mistakes” or “regrets” were because I had past wounds that were buried alive. Buried while they were still pounding alive, wanting to be healed, to be acknowledged, to be heard. My thoughts and actions were driven by the ghosts of my past, all rising to the surface whenever a trigger occurs, all demanding that their grievances were dealt with.

Soon….The fog started clearing and I could see so clearly. There was so much clarity.

I even started looking at my bully differently. She wasn’t my enemy. Although she intended to hurt me, it mirrored the amount of hurt she herself was feeling. However hard she was on me, it reflected how much more brutal she is towards herself. I was never her enemy. She had her own battles to fight. It was easier for her to direct anger towards me, than face Anger herself.

There was no forgiving needed. From either party. I just had to see her. To really see her. And just let her be. Not to change her actions towards me, or wonder why she had so much hatred towards me, but to accept that whatever she does or says is out of my control, and that I can decide to disengage and let go.

“Tell me who you are,” Anger once asked me to write down attributes that would describe me.

As I wrote down each word, I waited for a rejection from my body. If there was, I would re-examine the word and ask myself what the truth was. Is it a word that accurately describes who I am? Or it a word that describes the ghosts of my past? At the end of the session, I looked at all the words that described the person I am and I felt……..accepted. I was finally acknowledging who I am, all of it – even the parts that I felt ashamed of.

Then, I also wrote down words that described who I wanted to be, and I set an intention.

An intention to release myself from the actions of my past, be it good, bad, ugly, or sad.

An intention to allow inner parts of me that were once suppressed and denied, to express and be accepted.

Energy is neither created nor destroyed, but transferred.

And after the calamities that happen in our lives, it is up to us to recuperate and heal, and then seek to grow from within.

And this is how I know, that every single one of us, is capable of building ourselves back up. From the ashes of our calamity, we nurture our self-worth and allow nature to tend to our healing.

And you know what?

After 2 years of grieving, pain, anger, shame, and sorrow, I’ve come to accept all of it. Not to change them, not to wish them away. But simply to accept them.

Someone once told me that acceptance is a mutually beneficial agreement.

If you go to a shop to buy something, and they name you a price, you get what you want only by accepting an agreeable price. However much you haggle with the seller, both of you have to agree on a set price.

And once that price is agreed upon, there are no more hard feelings towards each other. Both parties simply accept and move on.

Accepting our past, accepting the people around us, accepting ourselves.

It all goes into helping us move past temporary disagreements. Not to judge, blame, or hold accountable for anything more. Just to say “look we once disagreed on something, but it doesn’t mean anything else. Let’s move on.”

If we can constantly do this with our “enemies” whether they are people who’ve hurt us, or even ourselves, we will do better in our goals of pursuing happiness.

How does it feel now?

Lighter and happier.

It’s been easier to distinct between the voices of my past and my own voice now. Even when triggers come, they swiftly go and I’ve learnt to be patient with myself.

Stuck emotions no longer last longer than a day, and my dreams are no longer plagued with what “could have been” or “should have been”

After the calamity, there is Peace.

And Peace……is a treasured luxury. Peace is a gift. I’m grateful for Peace.