The problem with me is that I focus so much on the things that I am not good at/feel bad or unhappy about, so much so that sometimes these thoughts blind me from all the other aspects of my life. In psychology, this is a type of cognitive distortion called mental filter, or even disqualifying the positive. *pysch nerd mode*
Psychology is probably one of the best choices I have made regarding my academics thus far. It is something that came about from a very forced, do-or-die situation, but it has proven to be great so far. For someone who evaluates herself so much, perhaps even excessively at times, psychology has definitely opened my mind about how I am seeing myself, or how I should NOT be seeing myself.
For example, how I tend to feel that people are constantly judging me. Based on what's happened with my academics. Engineering to psychology. Not exactly the ideal asian parent's or asian kid's ultimate-huge-moneymaking course or profession. This is also the reason why I've tried to restrain from talking about this change to people around me. They are my friends, but in my little mind at the back of my little head, they are constantly seeing me as incompetent and lazy, resulting in my situation today. That might probably not be true at all, because they ARE my friends, and the reason why I am brooding about how people are viewing me is probably because of the nature of myself as a pretty judgmental person in the first place, which is regrettably quite sad but true.
It's hard when people are discussing engineering terms and I am no where here nor there. I kinda know and I kinda want to say something, but I also worry that I might say something incorrect (based on my somewhat shallow knowledge of engineering materials) and end up just looking stupid. That's the ego in me. Believe me when I say my ego is about the size of a guy's ego. And we wonder how I get along so well with guys without a clash of ego.
But when I think about it, life has never treated me better. Sometimes I want to yell out to the world just how happy and contented I am today. Yes, I have failed in engineering and I have let down a lot of people around me in the process of trying and still failing. I've let myself down, most of all. And just when I thought that all is lost, here I am, still alive. I never expected another chance, but here I am doing psychology. It's funny how psychology was just one of the courses that I just looked past when I was skimming through the list of courses to choose from when I was applying for the scholarship. This was the mentality - engineering, medicine, architecture. Nothing else. I never imagined that I would be here, reading about brains, how people think, and why people become sad or happy. But then again, I never imagined I would be in the US either. You know how some people always say that education should be about learning, and not pure studying? This is how I feel today in contrast to how I felt half a year ago - it's like life telling me that it has all these planned out for me after all. Things like this brings me back to what my friend has told me long long time ago - "If things doesn't go your way, God has other plans for you." In my case, "Life has other plans for you" would probably fit my situation more.
Everyday now I remind myself how lucky I am to have failed my engineering course - the irony of it - and how lucky that I have had my first relationship breakup, because right now I feel that I am finally in the right place with all the right people and the right life.
