Happy 5-Year Graduation Anniversary to Myself

 
5 years ago (12th December 2015), I walked across the stage to receive my degree certificate. Believe it or not, it took me 5 effing years to finally put that piece of super expensive but somewhat useless paper into a proper frame. Yep, it was lying somewhere in my closet for such a long time and I really just couldn't be bothered. In the end, thanks to IKEA, my certificate finally has its own home.  

I wrote about my 1-year graduation anniversary back in 2016. As much as it made me cringe as I read through it, I wouldn't deny a single thing that I wrote previously. 

So let me sum up these 5 years in bullet points (for my personal record):

♠ 2016: 

• Experienced my 1st breakup and lost about 13kilos from that in just 1 month.
• Started my fitness journey so I wouldn't rebound (I sure as hell did not envision myself having the persistence to keep it up till this day - the story is here).
• Worked as a private tutor just to make ends meets as an unemployed fresh grad.
• Got my first ever corporate job as a part-time bank teller after sending out over 200 resumes and having no replies at all - fortunately, I nailed the one and only interview that I got and that's the start of my corporate life. 
• Passed my PTE examination.
  
  

♠ 2017 (the craziest year of my life): 

• Became a full-time banker and moved to a new branch and worked 6 days a week. 
• Still worked as a private tutor. 
• Passed my NAATI (National Accreditation Authority for Translators & Interpreters Ltd) examination after cramping the whole syllabus in under 2 months. 
• Sat for my CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) level 1 exam after a 3-month preparation - failed by 7 marks *FML but it's a blessing in disguise because I knew I didn't want to go down that path anymore*. 
• Experienced my 2nd breakup - the whole relationship was like a drama on its own but I definitely learnt a lot of life-changing lessons from that ex. 
• Spent about 20 weeks of Sundays finishing an Australian Professional Year Program.  
• Travelled to South Korea on my own - and I never brought my soul back with me.   
• Got diagnosed with mild anxiety and depression issues. I hid it from most of the people around me but quietly wrote a blog post to release my emotions (I still have no idea how and when did that begin).
  
  

[For those who wonder, the reason I took the programs/certifications/exams during 2016 and 2017 was to gain more points to obtain my Australian Permanent Residency visa. To date, I still am waiting for the Australian government to decide my fate.]

♠ 2018 (my world flipped 180 degrees):

• Got a new role as a personal banker and moved to a new branch - finally had my very own office. 
• Travelled to Hong Kong spontaneously for 36 hours just to watch Yong Hwa oppa's concert after the sudden announcement of his military enlistment. I spent about 5K AUD on such a short trip and that changed my perspective of spending money ever since (I'll talk about it in detail in a separate blog post someday).    
• Despite all the effort that I invested in the past 2 years, I still had not gotten my Aussie Permanent Residency visa so I had to move back to Malaysia. I said goodbye to my 2nd home, Melbourne - with a blog post to make it somewhat 'memorable'. I cried bucketsssssssss of tears both before and after my departure.  
• My anxiety and depression got even worse because my life turned upside down in the blink of an eye.
• I refused to go back to corporate in Malaysia because I wanted to take a break for the sake of my mental health. It was a now or never thing. 
• Started working as a freelancer for all those behind-the-social-media work + did some copywriting as well.  
  
  

♠ 2019:

• Dabbled into content creation and even tried out graphic designing (I taught myself through Youtube, certainly not a pro at all). Big fun creating and designing e-Books for my client from scratch though. 
• I came across Ricky on Youtube and I binged on his videos because he's cute. That's how I learnt that there's another way of dealing with stocks without having to wait for 10 years to reap the fruit. I made my jump and tried to figure out how to open the parachute in mid-air. It's a really bad and scary way of commencing it but I never regretted taking that leap of faith.  
  
  

♠ 2020:

• I quit freelancing entirely and started focusing on being a serious trader - that's a roller coaster ride but very worthwhile.
• Covid happened and pretty much all of this year was spent in front of the laptop trading and readjusting my trades - here's a recap of my lockdown lessons.
• Another break-up happened this year because I was too obsessed with building up my trading career - just bad timing, nothing unhealthy.
• Miraculously, my depression symptoms started to fade off on its own because I do look forward to opening the Pandora box of every trading day. 
• I finally felt that I found my calling of life in trading. I'm documenting my journey here. 
• Started learning about currency trading as a backup plan for my career as a trader.
  
  

As I laid in bed looking at my 2015 convocation Instagram posts, I started thinking about these questions:

"How did the past 5 years go?"

"Did I become someone who'd make the fresh grad Fion proud?"

"What will the next 5 years have in store for me?"

I have mixed feelings towards all these questions. Looking back, there were definitely times that I had regretted big time but I also knew that I wouldn't be where I am right now without those moments. 

5 years is not a short time nor is it a long time - depending on how you look at it. If you are viewing it in terms of your 20s (like where I am right now), then it's definitely a significant amount of time - 50% for hell's sake. In the contrary, if you were to look at it on the spectrum of an average homo sapien's lifespan of approximately 80 years, 5 years is nothing at all. 

In the Asian culture, there's an unspoken rush behind every 20-somethings and it's called achieved-everything-by-30. 

Everyone knows it, everyone tries to be cool about it but in reality, most people succumb to it without ever questioning if that's really what they want themselves, deep down. 

Getting a house with a home loan that you can barely afford, settling down and popping babies......feel free to elongate the list. 

(I'm not a fish, so I can't tell if a fish is sad/happy being unable to walk or fly, so yea no judgment - you do you)

I get interrogated a lot by many people about my plans for these "must-dos" because in 5 years' time I will be over 30.

And I still am nowhere close to ticking off any of those boxes - frankly speaking, I have no interest in putting effort into doing so. 

At times, I questioned myself if I'm the alien among all of my peers. This is a constant tennis match that goes on and off in my head - because I know that personally, I don't buy that shit yet when it seems like a norm on the outside, it feels like you just showed up at a party with the wrong af dress code, all alone. 

I only have 1 goal: to have money and a rock-solid money-making skill that nobody can take away from me. Shallow as it sounds but at least to me, it's fucking realistic. Money can't buy happiness but it's unlikely that you will be happy when you can't afford the things/life that you want.

I don't have big dreams to change the world but I just want to be a decent person with a big bank account so I can do whatever and go wherever the F I want whenever I want - simple as that. 

Recently, I brought up this topic with a friend and I asked if I was in the wrong for not having a plan for the future. Unlike most people, he told me "fuck everyone else, remember it's your life and do whatever the fuck you want". 

WOAH~ that's a breath of fresh minty air that I hadn't had since I left Melbourne. For the first time in a really long time, someone is giving me an affirmation that I had been wanting to hear desperately - I wasn't wrong in wanting what I want and that I shouldn't change/rush myself. 

"What about the next 5 years?", I asked.

Then he said, "Don't worry about it now, you are doing good, just keep it up". 

After this conversation, I sat in my room and reminisced the past 5 years of my life (that's the whole premise of this blog post), I realized that as much as I tried to plan and make things happened, nothing panned out the way I envisioned back then. Nevertheless, I have never been as happy and free as I am right now. 

Time passed. Things changed. People changed. And so did I. 

I went from wanting to climb the corporate ladder to thinking that it's the most excruciating drama to put up with in life. I went from putting all my heart, soul and money into obtaining the Australian Permanent Residency visa and thinking that my life would be over without it to seeing that as the biggest silver lining of my life as it led me to discover the world of trading. 

I don't know what is in store for me 5 years later from now. And many thanks to that friend's wakeup-call (seriously TQ, you know who you are 💗), I no longer feel the pressure to have everything figured out in this instance. And I also no longer think that I am at fault for not going after what most people are chasing. 

Because I know whatever it is, it will certainly be a result of all the cumulative big-and-small decisions that I make along the way starting from now. 

I just had this epiphany:
Just like losing weight and building abs, I don't know what I will be eating tomorrow, next week or next month...But as long as I give it my very best in maintaining a clean eating habit most of the days and keeping up with a consistent workout routine, obtaining my dream body isn't an uncertainty anymore. 

All I need to do now is to keep my focus by:

• Making sure that I stay true to my personal wants and needs unapologetically 
• Giving less F about what other people I think I should/shouldn't do 
• Striving to do my very best in honour of my own dreams and/or goals
  
  

Being an Aquarius baby whose birthday's at the beginning of the year, I had always felt a tremendous level of stress going into the new year. It felt like a serious appraisal time for not just the past year's resolutions but a guilt-tripping moment for not moving an inch closer to ticking the boxes of everything-by-30.  

But as I am wrapping up this blog post, I think I can now accept the fact that I am turning 27 in less than 2 months' time with a lighter heart. In fact, I kinda am curious and excited as to how I am going to shape the next 5 years with my own hands moving forward.  

Though I did my Commerce degree zero justice, I can put my hand on my heart and say that I finally did my own life justice for the first time in my 26 years of existence - and I really do hope that I can keep moving forward in this manner. 

화이팅 피연아~ 

I'll come back to this blog post 5 years later and let's see! 😈