Turning 28

During these days, I just reflected about my life, what I have been though, what were my mistakes, what were my most painful experiences, what I have learned, how I have changed and who I have become. All I can say is I’ve changed a lot and I have become the one I really wanted to be when I was young. Well, I guess I had to share what I have learned during these years.

1. Positivity 
  It was so hard for me to stay positive and to see the silver lining in every cloud when I was 24 or 25. I was young at that time and too arrogant without sound good reason to be honest. I was leading the team and working in very demanded industry and couldn’t cope with changes, complaints and couldn’t lead the team very efficiently. I felt pressure from management team and couldn’t fulfill their desire and took personally whenever I got blame. Whenever someone advised me, I took it as criticism. That was the biggest mistake that I’ve ever made. When I heard how people talked about me behind my back, I couldn’t leave them behind. I was really angry and hated everyone who talked like that. When my boss blamed and my colleagues pointed out the things that I have not thought before, instead of taking it as advice, I took it was complaint, blame and criticism. I was not that smart. I couldn’t stand when someone blamed everyone, complained most of their working hours and too negative in every situation.
I used to have bad blood with one of bossy women before I left that place. At that time, I couldn’t stand the way she treated me and the way she talked to me. Well, I was so negative person and I couldn’t see it. But I can hardly blame on my 25 years-old girl. I believe that she did everything she could and she tried her best. She was not perfect and she made mistake.
When I am at 28, I realized the things that my 25 years old girl didn’t see. The one who I thought too bossy was seeing me as the most potential person and wanted me to go further than this. She wanted me to lead the whole team and pushed me to go far. After one year later, when I joined back to the company that I left, She and I have good relationship and we could build mutual understanding which is the best for both of us. I am so glad of it. She is still bossy but my perception of her totally changed. She is bossy because she has leadership skill. Then whenever I was told I was bossy, I was telling back that I had leadership skill. That is true Man!
Yes, of cos, I have pressure and have to work double to fit in my new position. But I am glad to work. Whenever someone told me “Yadanar, do not forget that part, this part, you still have to send me the report, what is your current status of this project, please remove that part”, I was smiling inside. I felt that they cared about me. They cared about what I was doing. Sometimes, the management asked very nonsense questions, I didn’t know whether they were testing my attitude or my patience, but my feedback was really amazing. I was explaining every detailed thing and convincing them to approve it. Well, it works so far and need to keep that spirit! 

2. Appreciating 
  Well, it was so hard for negative people to appreciate someone else’s effort. I had difficulty to appreciate it as well when I was around 24. Sometimes, I forgot to say “I really appreciate or Thank You”.  Sometimes, I just ignored someone else’s effort. It was all wrong. People would like to be appreciated what they have done.
After I left Huawei, I joined one of the digital agencies and I was handling one of operators’ digital account. Then I had to work on one Saturday to prepare the report for their new campaign launch, the client requested us to send the report in the morning. I had to send the report to their CEO, not only CMO. Well, I was kind of nervous to send the report to CEO directly. Then I told myself “of cos, CEO would not read my email”. Then I was relief and sent it out. A few minutes later, I got email back and said “Hi Yadanar, Good job and I really appreciate that” from CEO. I was reading that email again and again. I told myself several times that he read my email. I was happy and got appreciated by CEO and I felt I did a very good job. 
After working a while in Agency side, I joined smartphone industry again and worked in Samsung. My boss in Samsung was really nice and he always appreciated every detailed thing done by someone else. When I was working during weekend and he was away or couldn’t come to the event place, he sent the message like “Thanks for your support”. I was so amazed by his humble behavior. I am so glad that I had very good chance to work with him.
So, 28 years old me always try to appreciate everything. Read every email from agencies, colleagues, subordinates, management apart from HR salary deduction email because I hate to read it. I tried to reply my email on time. Sometimes, whenever I thought to skip to read one email, I reminded myself that even CEO read every email, why wouldn’t I read the email. Then I get my job done and reply. That is really amazing because I found that team was motivating too because I reply their email on time.

3. Perception of Marriage  
Well, when I was 24, I aimed to get married at 28. When I was dating with my then boyfriend more than 2 years ago, I was imagining to get married with him, have kids, quit the job and pursue my writing career. I even spoke out to him and I couldn’t understand why I found that he was so frustrated when he heard what I said. He was 28 at that time. I was 25.
I understand why he looked so freak now. Because 28 years old him knew marriage is the lifetime commitment and he would like to choose the best team mate to get through all ups and downs. He was right. He didn’t think that I was the best team mate. Well, when I incidentally spoke out about this, we were only dating for a few months. I was naïve and so typical. I even dreamed about having kids. I kept telling how many kids I wanted to have along our relationship.
What on earth made me to think about quitting my career? I don’t know. Well, I don’t blame my 25 years old me. She felt like she was living in fairy tale at that time. She didn’t know that sometimes life could hit her in the head with the brick and the person who threw at her was the person she loved the most.
Now I realized how difficult to raise the kids, to sacrifice the freedom, to have lifetime commitment with someone. If I am ever asked if I would like to get married now, my answer would be NO. Why? Marriage is a lot of commitment and hard work. The commitment is our whole lifetime. I am not saying I will never get married or have kids. There’s gonna be times I may want to have kids and get married. But not now. I don’t think I can raise the kids. I always salute and respect every mom out there because they are doing the hardest work in this world which I cannot do right now. They are loving someone else more than their life.
When I read about how mom was brave enough to save the kid, I thought it was her duty to do so and didn’t feel anything deep about that. But at this age, I realized that it was very noble to sacrifice her own life and save someone else’s life. How could a person to do that? Everyone wants to be alive and live well along their lifetime. Once I realized that, I always respect to every mom out there.
For me, I put my career first. My career is the first priority in my life now. I will never give upon this no matter what happen because I love what I am doing. I have found my passionate work to have commitment. But if I am lucky enough to meet with another significant, I would get married and have kids. But not in the foreseeable future. 

4. Maturity  
When I was young, when someone made some mistake, I blamed and always went back to that part and it was hard for me to get it over and forgive. But I feel like I am more matured now. Sometimes, things don’t happen as we plan. Even we tried our best to stick to the plan, it didn’t work. So, I have learned how to let go off those things and move forward. I never go back to the part where the unexpected things happened. Instead of this, I more focus on what I have and what I can do. It is for both personal and work.
In the recent project, the execution didn’t happen as we planned. It went wrong and we couldn’t control anything. If it happened last few years, I am sure I would cry first, then shout the related person and keep blaming for what they did. But in the recent case, I didn’t do that. I collected all the information and resources in our hands, then made the second plan and tried to stick to it. That was the most important thing that we had to do at that moment. Once it was all set, I called the whole team for meeting and pointed out what we did wrong and urged them not to do the same mistake. That was good because the related person just said that was his mistake and he insisted to take the responsibility. I am proud of him though.
As I become more matured, I have learned how to let go of the things and move forward. We cannot hold to the things that don’t belong to us. We need to move forward. We can look back at the past sometimes but we shouldn’t stay in the place where we don’t belong to. 

                          
5. Overcoming The Fear  
As I said, I had my first relationship when I was 25. I was so afraid to get hurt. So I never jumped off from the fence. I was always sitting on the fence. When I was in relationship, I was so afraid that we couldn’t make it together. I always tried to stick to that relationship because I loved my then boyfriend so much. I loved him a lot as he was my first love and I felt like I was living in fairy tale whenever I was with him. But I didn’t realize that I was living in perfect illusion. Not in reality.
My biggest fear was to break up with him. I thought I couldn’t get through if I broke up with him because I always believed that he was the love of my life. I always pictured myself with him at the beach exchanging the vow and kissing. Whenever I watched romantic movie, I believed that I was also living in one of those romantic movies. Sound crazy! 25 years old me was like a teenager and crazy about love. I don’t blame her because she just had her first ever boyfriend at that time and wanted to do all the crazy things that the teenagers do. And she kept telling herself that she would make it with him for the rest of her life.
Well, it went all wrong. When all the communications started fade away, she cried. She was not 25 at that time. She was 27. But still living in perfect illusion. She couldn’t realize the reality. She was too blind to see the truth.
Once my most imagined love life was falling apart, I knew that it was time to do the things that I feared the most. I was offered to join back to the company where I used to work with a bigger role, I was not sure if I could take it or not. But I decided to have formal meeting with regional CEO who was the main person offered me that amazing job with the better opportunity. I requested him if he had time to have meeting with me on wechat, once he said “Yes”, I packed my bag and flew to Bangkok. I was telling myself, this was the time. The time to hit the jackpot. I was so nervous to meet with him as he is the most powerful man in the region. When I worked in that company before, I tried not to talk a lot or I tried not to raise my opinion so many times and I tried not to talk to him directly. But I was wrong. I shouldn’t have taken back myself several time. But I had chance to fix it and I needed to take it. I met with him and talked about my position, what was the current situation now, what I needed to focus on; etc. He explained me well and what did he expect from me. I was so happy to know the things that he expected from me. I promised him that I would take the offer. He just used one word during the meeting which was “You’ve grown up a lot”.
After I decided to take that job, I decided to start work out and get the stamina. I was weak and easily to get sick. So, I decided to hit the gym to build myself a heathier and happier person. The first days at gym were like hell. Every part of my body suffered pain and I couldn’t even walk. But I became more positive, more open-minded and the person who I always wanted to be. 

They say “Sometimes, you found yourself by picking up all the broken pieces.”That is right and I collected all the broken pieces and built myself to be the one that I always ever dreamed to become. After coping with the biggest fear, I thought there was not so many things that I was afraid of.
I decided to do the things that I have never done before. I recently went to Laos and that trip was really amazing and totally different from the other trips that I used to go. I only brought the hand carry, camera and backpack. I didn’t bring so many cosmetics, skin care or so many shoes. At the airport when I was checking in, I was telling myself “if the airport check-in counter didn’t allow me to go on board with this handbag, I will buy the extra kilo”. But it worked. Amazingly it worked and I could go on board. I was so happy. Of cos, I had to carry the camera bag, backpack and hand carry. But I was happy.

In Laos, my friends were swing and jumping into the water. I knew I wanted to do it but I was so afraid what if I bumped into the rock inside of water, as I saw the fish in the lake and I was thinking what if one of biggest fish bite me. Actually I was over thinking. But I went to Laos with good friends who urged me to overcome my fear and jump into the water. Though it took nearly 15 minutes for me to jump off, I jumped into the lake finally and I couldn’t say how much I was so happy to do that. That was one of the biggest fears. I couldn’t swim. But I was wearing life jacket and I am so glad that I did it. I am so glad that I went to Laos with the best partners. I would love to go to another adventure trip with them if I have chance. Since I did it, I was willing to do scuba diving and sky diving. I was even watching the Youtube videos of those activities sometimes and I am sure I would do one of that things in future.

6.   Loving myself  
Well, everyone loves themselves but sometimes they don’t know how to love themselves. I learn how to love myself and how to respect myself. I take care of myself, eat the meal on time, work out, have fun and enjoy with the current situation. I remind myself every morning to smile when I wake up, to listen to the happy songs when I go to gym and to start the day with positive attitude. Self-love is not being selfish. I didn’t know how to love myself before. I was hoping someone to love me, take care of me and fix me when I was broken. Well, that was all wrong. Nobody would fix us unless that one was us.
Since I learned how to love myself, I started to realize that I love my body, I love my smile, my hair, my lips and everything. I don’t even need someone else to say that I am beautiful. I accept my flaws and my body as it is now and I don’t need any validation from anyone for my existence. I live for myself. I tell myself not to forget to help others, do some donation and appreciate someone else. Some people may see I am too demanded, determined or a bit bitchy. Well, it is right though. But I don’t mind at all cos I understand myself so well more than anyone else in this world. I know what I am doing, I know what I want and I know what kind of woman that I want to be. I know I have big dream and spread my wings to fly high. The most important thing is to stay true to myself, tell how I feel, not pretend to be anyone else and I need to love myself completely, unconditionally and truly. I become a very straight forward person and I say how I feel because I don't want to be accepted as someone else who is not me. I'd rather to be hated or disliked for being myself.

So, I realize that I love myself a lot at the age of 28 and I am very happy in my own skin. I am glad that I got through a lot. I broke down, fallen down, cried a lot, needed someone to prove my existence, wanted someone to appreciate me, lived in the perfect illusion and wanted to be respected. But I am so glad that I have so many flaws, I made mistakes, I believed the wrong things. If I didn’t do all of those things, I wouldn’t learn and I wouldn’t grow. Now, I accept that I am truly a grown up woman and have a good future ahead because I believe in myself, I believe that I deserve the best.

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