Ep 116 Being Ordinary or ACTUALLY NOT
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Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Cover Corner. Today is your episode 160. So I know it's been a while and every time I use this line to start up a video, I feel, I sometimes feel really anxious and guilty about it. But at the same time, I feel I just need to take my time to think about what I want to say and I want to be genuine, also informative.

But that takes time. Anyway, so today is going to be two parts about this video. So first one, I want to talk about being ordinary. The other day I was chatting with my husband on a walk with Bob. I said, well, now we're being parents. I have this worry because I'm a very ordinary person. I don't feel bad being ordinary, but sometimes I feel like it's it's sad, right? That you live your whole life.

you've done nothing standing out and you feel you feel it's quite a waste of your life or time right and then now being a parent i'm worried that what if my kid is brilliant uh but he can't be brilliant because of me or because i've done something stupid or i stop him from being brilliant

Or seeing my kid being ordinary or acknowledge or realize he is not just an ordinary person. I kind of feel sad.

I don't know why, so I brought this up to his attention and he said, "Well, what's wrong with being ordinary?" I said, "Well, nothing wrong being ordinary, but wouldn't you want some glamorous, fancy life that you have people around you, got all the attention, you got money, you got fame, even, you know, got everything you want. Those people, they've made a huge accomplishment in the world, they have huge impact, influence,

But you have nothing. You just go to work, live your life, come home, have family and go to sleep. Right. Nothing wrong. It just nothing feels quite right there. That's my point. And then he said, well, you know, we can't really control people's life. I can't control my life.

To what extent? But I can make choices. But when you make choices, you're going to make mistakes. And certain mistakes will lead you to a different path. But that's your choice. You can't regret and say, I'm going to go back and revise. Some mistakes you can. Some paths you can reverse and re-walk through the path. Some you just cannot. You have to just live your life. I said, well, that's true.

But for him, my husband, this is my husband's words. He said, I think nothing wrong being ordinary. And most people are ordinary people and you live an ordinary life. As long as you're healthy, you're happy, you're contributing to the society. I think you're a good person. You're trying hard to maximize your wealth.

And that's pretty good life, right? Not everyone has that kind of life. What you consider ordinary might not be ordinary. I, you know, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to say at that moment. I kind of got a little bit stumped upon. I said, I was thinking, yes, I always want him to be healthy and happy. Of course, this is what I want for myself. But every stage...

you have a different demand, you have different requirements for your kids or even for anyone, right? So at this moment, I want him to be happy, to be healthy. But when he goes to school, I want him to be the smartest one. When he goes to the society, I want him to have a good job. And maybe in the future, he wants to have a family. Then I want him to have a happy family, those sort of things. So you add layers of your requirements to his life.

and you have more expectations of course and when he when he can't meet your expectations you start to feel disappointed but then back to when he was born or at this young age you start to think all you wanted was just for him to be happy and healthy but you forgot about that and i think that's how we got miserable sometimes because we forgot what we really wanted

in the beginning. We got carried along by other things, other people, other opinion, the whole society, and we forget what we really want, what we really crave. And that's how being ordinary feels miserable at that moment. And then that's what I was thinking. And then another thing really struck me when he said I was contributing to society.

I always wanted to become an influential person and I'm not, which makes me feel little, small. I don't know what to do to make myself more influential. But I think that words from him basically saying that anything you do, you're making contribution to the society in different ways. Sometimes your contribution is very small.

might be really subtle to the point you can't even notice. Sometimes your contribution is really huge, like those great people, they make huge improvement in human society, in human history. We can't because can't. Really, to be quite honest, if you think about people around you, how many of them are as smart as you are? Actually, not many. How many of people around you have degrees like what you do?

It's not that many. And if you are working currently, if some of you work in a service industry, you will notice there are so many stupid people. Sorry for you. There are so many stupid people. So many people don't have common sense. So many people just can't really quite understand what you're saying. Even though your words are simple, your concepts are simple, they cannot understand you. That's how we are different and we stand out differently.

In that way. So basically what I'm trying to say is we think our life or ourselves are ordinary, but we're not. We're doing something to really move the society, move the whole world forward. But we don't know because we're so tiny. We're looking at everything at a macro point that we can't see our movement.

If you focus on small things, let's say today, okay. I know in previous video, I was talking about driving. So again, I'm going to use that as example. So let's say today, I drive safely. My contribution to this whole society is I'm responsible for my own life. I'm responsible for other people's life. I didn't make anyone in danger. I followed traffic rules and then I got home safely.

And that's ordinary, right? So nothing stands out, everybody drives, most people drive safely, but you never know. Something just sort of happened that you don't know until it happens. And when it happens, you will be sad. You will realize how happy your life was before this thing happened. And that's our ordinary life. And sometimes you have to remind yourself

that you are living a good life you might not be able to afford some luxury brands you might not be able to do what you really want to do you might have to suck it up work hard kiss your boss ass and keep going but at least you have a job you're making a living and you can survive um

I remembered, I was talking to my friend the other day, she reminded me of my early stage in Canada. I remembered how hard it was. I even thought about giving up. I didn't have a job, didn't have school, didn't have money, didn't have anywhere to go. But I wanted to stay here because I wanted to make a difference in my life. I think back then, I wouldn't think my life was ordinary. Until now, I'm talking about that as a story, I think.

It is not ordinary. For a person like me, who does not have anything to make a life that is totally different from the life I had before, my parents' life they had before, it is a huge, huge accomplishment. And that makes you different. That makes you

not ordinary. So you have to find a moment like that to make yourself think I am not just ordinary person even though I am among so many people but this moment I'm very different. I can do it.

That's why I wanted to talk about being ordinary. It's sometimes depressing that when you think about it, you stand there, you're not that pretty. You're just average person with average beauty there, with average education background, average family, average personality, even average height.

You can't think about anything wonderful about yourself. You feel sad. So I've been on social media so much recently. I've been focusing on getting fit, losing weight, or sorts of things. People talk about how they lost weight or how they look. They look amazing, to be quite honest. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to lose weight or not. I'm just trying to say that when you look at them, they look amazing. They have...

they have so many views, so many followers, so many comments, they have so many clothes that make them look glamorous. What do I have? I have my actual meat on my belly. I'm trying so hard to lose weight and I just weight myself. I did not lose weight. I actually gained a couple kilograms there which made me very

unhappy uh but you know what life is like that full of struggles ups and downs and sometimes you just go through the downs no problem but sometimes you feel like even when you are at your uptime and you still struggle and that is normal that is life life fluctuates your emotions fluctuates your feelings fluctuates even your thoughts fluctuate you just have to be aware of it

and the other day i was not having a fight i think my husband has been stressed i don't know what i think guys tend to be stressed about things without ability to articulate

and communicate. So he was definitely stressed and the sign of him being stressed is he normally is a little bit snappy, short-fused, put that way. And then I was not happy so I was trying to calm down and I could tell myself processing.

my emotions and my thoughts and I was trying to be like this cool person. I'll be your friend and I'll ask you about your feelings sort of things. So I went to him and said, is everything okay? Are you okay? You know, I'm here, free to talk, let me know. And he said, I'm okay. I'm like, I'm not stupid. By the tone, I know you're not okay. Nobody says I'm okay when they're okay.

uh you're not okay but i was very sad and uh um what's the word um irritated by his tone so i left i said okay so whenever you're ready let me know and i went upstairs to clean because we're gonna go on a trip so and then he came up i said do you want to go to dollarama i said no

Not until you want to talk to me. And he said, well, I can talk. I said, yeah, okay, have a seat. Let's talk. And I'm such, I'm an angry crier. I think I said this before, but I'm also an emotional crier. There's nothing wrong, nothing sad, but I just want to cry when I talk.

I hate it because when you cry, you can't really talk properly. Anyway, so I started to talk about how I felt about him, how I was trying to help and how he's been acting, those sort of things. I felt useful at that moment. I felt like a legitimate partner to him. I said, when I'm sad, when I'm depressed, you are always here for me. You're always trying to offer me the biggest support possible.

but I want to be the same to you. For some reason, you won't let me do it. You feel like if I support, if I offer help, or if you open up about your stress, you feel vulnerable. You don't want to be vulnerable in front of me because you want to take responsibility for everybody in this family. I don't want you to be that. I want you to talk about it and we have a better, healthier relationship. So that's what I basically said there.

I'm happy we opened up and then he definitely took in what I said and then I feel happier. I feel like any kind of relationship you need to open up, you need to try hard and stand by. The thing is I never really realized this is here's the thing you learn things from your ordinary life even the small things. I think a lot of parenting books are

teach you how to be with your kids even when they have tantrums. Their behaviors are not their personality, are not them. Their behaviors is a sign of, is a window to let you know how they are going through big emotions.

but they don't know how to express. So we stand for them, we stand there with them, and we hug them, we don't push them away. But we think about this for little kids, but we never think about this for our partners or even parents or older or adult kids. Let's say that is when they have bad moments, when they have down moments, and you want to talk. And then first thing, of course, they're going to say no to you or they're going to act mad at

at you but they're not mad at you if you know what i mean and you of course get upset by that because you were trying to be kind and then your kindness got turned down of course you feel frustrated and not happy

And then you walk away. So that's actually the moment you should not walk away. I mean, physically walk away is okay. Emotionally walking away is not okay. You can walk away and give them a little bit time to think about it. Give yourself a little bit time to calm down and rethink about how you can approach.

And then come back and talk to them about how you were trying to just help. Maybe my wording is terrible. That made you upset even more. Those kind of things. But I feel like for adult relationship, we tend to physically, emotionally walk away. Which is really bad. That only push you guys, push each other way away from each other. So that's what I just realized that we never really stand together.

by the close ones, the loved ones emotionally, physically, especially emotionally. So anyway, so that's what I was thinking about being ordinary.

And the second part I want to talk about it also kind of kind of is like my ordinary topic or relationship topic is I often talk about family rage and I got a few comments. One comment is really interesting. She said, well, you should never say that about your parents.

Now you're a parent, wait about 20 years, see how you feel about it. I understand what this person trying to say to me. And I am not saying that she's or he's wrong. I'm just saying that you can't...

You can't convince somebody to believe what you say because you have this point of view. Same apply to me. I can say this because I have this true feeling about things. I'm just trying to navigate how I feel about a lot of things, how I grew up, how those things in the past have impact on me right now.

i'm not saying that my parents are bad but at that moment i might have said my parents were bad because of those kind of things but that's that was also my legitimate feeling i'm not denying my feeling at the moment i'm happy i said it out loud

to to out to the public and because I want to tell myself okay here's a record of how I feel about my parents how about now how am I feeling about my parents right now so that's different people change people don't stay the same why would you expect a person to stay same we're not static right um anyway so

And what I was trying to say that why it is important to mention family origin or to learn is not because a lot on social media, a lot of people are trying to name their weaknesses or their downfalls right now originated from their family, their childhood, their upbringing, those kind of things before just because

They couldn't move forward or they have a hard time to process stuff or deal with relationships, those kind of things. I understand. But then some people, I think this is a bad thing about social media. They're really pushing you to think about how your past has associated with your present now and how that would affect your future.

But they never tell you. The importance of knowing that is not to tell yourself how they impact you, is to tell you how you recognize the pattern and then you can shift it to a different direction. Let me tell you. So I was reading this book. It's called Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. And so far, I like the book. I may do a book review after I finish that. I want to take my time really slowly, dive into it and really think about it. So that's my goal.

Anyway, so there are a lot of tests, right? Emotional tests, emotional tests, emotion tests, IQ tests, those tests, the personality test, blah, blah, blah. They always want to give you some numbers to explain why you behave a certain way. So this is a very simple linear way.

to tell you, you know what, this is who I am, what I am. But you never think about person, a human being is very complicated. It cannot be explained in or with just digits, levels. Same with your family history or your family or your parents, anyone. You cannot just explain things in that way with those numbers. Say, hey, you know, they rated this number and then this is why they behave this certain way.

the reason we need those solid we need those tangible tests to to for us is we want to understand how intangible things have an impact on us we want to see it understand it and then change it in this way when we understand our family region we know

the past might not be pleasant but i want to live a pleasant life so i have to make a change but i don't know how to make a change so i look into the past and i start to change maybe some of things my parents have done they are good but not good enough uh they did their best but their best is not good enough for me to move forward so i can i can

self-reflect and then do something to make a change. It might not be easy, but at least you know where is the source of things. That's why. And once you realize there is a bad connection between the past and the present and you want to make a decision on whether you want to separate the past from the present or you want to continue this pattern. To separate that connection,

It takes huge effort, financially, physically, emotionally, anything you can think of. So you have to make the effort and it's painful to be a cycle breaker. Not just saying it, you really have to get your ass off your chair and start to move. But how are you going to do it? It takes calories, right?

So you're going to have to do it. And then when you think, when you start to do it, you realize how difficult, how challenging, and you can't move forward. You always got dragged back to that same rabbit hole. And then you start to blame your family region. And that's how we fall into those social media traps. We

want to find excuses for our inability to move forward. That's why I'm thinking sometimes when you even read those things, those posts on social media, you're trying to acquire some information on that. You have to be very careful. You want to think about it. I was looking at, I was watching a video on YouTube. I think, oh, I forgot what's the name.

Anyway, so she's brilliant. She's a doctor on neuroscience or something and she's talking about how how screen time Slowly frying our brain. So there are a lot of scientific terms I have no idea how where I don't remember how to say it or explain things but what I wanted to say that I've experienced that I understand is when you spend so much time on

your screen on social media, going through, flipping through, and without thinking about things, you are losing ability to think about things deeply. When you lose that ability, you cannot really think about your life. And that's how you stop and start to label your life as ordinary. That's what I want to loop back.

to our original topic being ordinary. We see the glamour, we see the achievement, we see the beautiful things other people post on that and you often compare yourself with those people and they start to think why can I be that? I don't have the body, I don't have the family, I don't have the relationship or I don't have those kind of things to afford things I want and I get stuck.

but you don't think deeply. So first of all, are you guys all at the same start point? You have same background, same family, and how they raise their kids, how your parents raised you, they're all very different. If there are variants, that will make different paths for people. But we're not thinking about it. We're only thinking about that three minutes, one minute, 60 seconds of video.

That information has shown us that this is what you need to understand and you don't have to think deeply about it. And that's how you slowly lose your ability to think the source of the problem. But back to family rage and I want to say I hope my little humble opinion, I just learned my two cents. Well, well, we'll help you a little bit as you got to think deeply.

Why you want to know your personality? Is that going to give you a little bit prestigious feeling that you are different? You're unique or that will help you understand yourself better and figure out what kind of things you're good at. What kind of things you're not good at and whether you're going to make a move or not. I am not smart. I understand that, but I am smart enough to understand that I'm not smart. So which is a good thing. Then I will tell myself, don't be shy.

Don't be the obviously smart guy in certain social events, certain social circumstances, because I know I am not. When I start to speak, I might be stupid, which is fine. I have the acknowledgement of my ability and that makes me happy. And also for my people talk about MBTI, or is that the name of the personality thing? So I always forget what kind of I am. Again,

my personality changes from time to time uh my highest moments and my lowest moments my personalities are totally different that doesn't tell me anything that only tells me i'm a person with different aspects of personality which is why i'm unique right uh i am ordinary but

There's something I enjoy, being ordinary. I don't like being the center of attention, so that's fine with me. I'm working hard to make my life, and that's also fine with me. It's also a story. I wish I could have a rich life, but I don't. I sometimes feel sad, so that's why I buy lottery ticket, but you know what?

It is okay to be jealous of other people. It is okay to admire other people's accomplishments. It is okay to find other people's shining points and learn from them and also just make changes according to your own situation and make yourself shine in different situations. You never know. But that's what I want to say about those two topics.

I hope if you are going through those moments right now, I just want you to think about everything is so temporary. Everything is so fluid that it comes and goes. And when that happens, when it hits you,

You are allowed to be sad, frustrated and disappointed, but that is okay. You just cannot stay there forever. You have to move along. Family region is important because you do want to know how your personality is shaped, how you are shaped in a certain way. So whether good or not, you want to make changes, you have to understand and know the source of the problem and then start to work from beginning to the end to help yourself.

Don't work hard on yourself. Work hard on problems and find solutions. If you can't find solutions, guess what? Not everything has a solution. You just have to move on and forget about it. Maybe one day you come around and the solution is just right in front of you. So you never know. Yeah. So anyway, this is today's episode. Hope you enjoyed. I'll see you next time. Bye.