ep 123 My 2024
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Hello, my friends there. Happy holidays. Welcome back to another episode of Coffee Corner. Today is your episode 123. I've been planning to do this self-reflection video for a while and finally I got to sit down and talk to you guys about it. As a content creator, I'm definitely not productive. My videos are...

posted randomly, no schedule. It's always like when I have a thought, ideas, I want to do it, I will do it. I don't normally plan things a lot, but for this video, I did have my notes here to help me get through this talk. When I started to jot down my thoughts and start to jot down what I've accomplished this year or what I did this year, I realized it's not about what you actually did. It's about whether you are

aware of what you've accomplished physically, mentally. So I want to talk about that through four parts in this video. First one, I would like to talk about my job.

It has been very stressful. This year, I've got a lot of students that had really big class. And most of the students are refugees and newcomers from war zones or from countries that basically people did not have much of education, which made a lot of things very difficult. It made me realize the importance of education for everybody.

It is really interesting to see that when you don't have education, you don't even know how to be a learner. Not saying being a student, but like lifelong learner. You don't know why you learn, how you learn. And when people only care about answers, I get frustrated because it's not about answers. Life is not about answers. Life is about how to find a way to solve problems yourself.

How are you going to deal with things? And I think that is a lifelong goal for everybody. But apparently, it's actually a very difficult thing to learn, to acquire or to do. So I've had a lot of drama at school from students, from work. And one thing I've learned is people make mistakes. I don't like making mistakes because making mistakes make me feel very vulnerable, make me feel very incapable.

And there are a few hiccups at work. I felt like I definitely did something wrong.

And I was so panicked, so scared to the point I actually had a little bit panic attack there. And I realized everybody makes mistakes. It's really not the end of the world. People make mistakes and it's very common. Nobody can guarantee that you do one thing with perfection. You're going to make mistakes. And the most important thing, and it also has been my mantra, you're not the only one. I kept telling myself, you're not the only one. You're not the only one.

That makes me feel so much better because everyone is about the same. Everyone makes different mistakes, but it's about the same. And I want to remind myself that way. Another thing I learned from this year at work is some people like you, some people don't.

We've been together for a very long time. Some of you said I've been following you since the very first episode. You know, I'm a very people pleaser. It is very difficult for me to realize some people just don't like me. It took me a while to learn that they don't like you, not because of you. And some people like you, some people don't.

Your co-workers like you, enjoy your company. Some co-workers don't. And your students like you, and some students don't like you because you just don't get along. But that is not your fault. And that's not because you are being a ridiculous person or anything else. They just simply don't like you. I have to, again, remind myself that when people don't like you, you have to move on. I think one of the comments

asked me to do an episode about how to deal with dislike. One thing I said, well, it's always easier said than done. I think my trick is I will write down that someone doesn't like you. I would make myself face the fact that that person or that group of people don't like me. I will write down the reasons I think

why they don't like me. And I will start to reason with myself. Is that really true? Is there something that I can change to make them like me? Or there's something I just, I just simply can't change. Or is there something that they just don't like me for no reason and I have to move on. So I like to make everything appear on the paper.

then I can't really deal with it. It's a very painful process because you have to face the reality that they don't like you for no reason and there's nothing you can change. If they don't like me because I'm a rude person and because I said something stupid, I can remind myself, okay, next time you're going to be careful when you say things. I like it. I also don't like it because it forced me to talk to myself

to see the reality, to see myself. This is you. And next thing about this job is you will have to realize, I don't know how many of you have jobs right now. How many of you had a passion before you started your job and gradually your passion kind of fades away? That's how I feel about this job. I always felt like I have some sort of influence on other people or I'm hoping to have a positive influence on other people that I can make the world

Slightly different, but overall you have to remember this is just a job. I know you want to do your best, but don't focus on the job itself. You're not going to make the job better, but you can make yourself better. So if the job gives you a hard time,

Could be the tasks are very difficult. People are very difficult. Your clients are very difficult. Whatever gives you the challenge to do this job. Don't treat the job poorly because the job is just a job. Really, you need a job to pay your bills.

But you can focus on yourself. Let's say you can treat those difficulties or challenges as stepping stones. Then you grow faster because now you know how to deal with emergencies. You know how to deal with difficult situations and people. And for next one, maybe you'll have a chance or opportunity to get promoted or have a better job or somewhere else.

But don't get stuck in that job because to be quite honest, job is a job. You don't make any job better. And the last thing I'm going to talk about my job and work is this year what I learned is

Do not compromise. Do not sacrifice. I think if you truly believe in yourself, you think you're doing the right thing. Don't compromise. Don't sacrifice. Protect yourself. This is only a job. I hate to say that, but this is only a job to us. You do not need to sacrifice. You do not need to compromise.

If it touches your bottom line, you have to learn how to protect yourself, protect your rights, protect yourself physically, mentally, and do the best to focus on yourself and get paid. And that's my tip for myself too. I think I sometimes go above and beyond and I exhausted myself to the point that I just could not carry on. I have burnout.

And I start to hate my job. I start to hate everybody. So I start to realize that if they are crossing the line and they're touching my bottom line or they're rubbing me in the wrong way, I should stand up and speak up for myself and be firm and gentle and tell them, I do not like this. You should back up. I know that might be difficult for some of you to protect yourself in a way without sacrificing, without compromising. But I have to say that if you have to compromise yourself,

compromise with the conditions. Okay, you got to protect yourself, but never sacrifice. When you sacrifice at work, nobody's going to cherish that. Nobody's going to value your sacrifice because they think, oh, if you can do that, why not do that second time? Don't be a pushover at work. Stand strong for yourself. And that is very important. If you have needs,

You want people to see that, you want people to hear that, verbalize that in a very polite and firm way. And let people know this is you, don't even dare cross the line. But if you say, well, if I do that and I get fired or anything else, if that happens, then you rethink about your own role. Do you want to keep the job or you don't care about the job because you are more important in that role?

and then you make decision, but every decision has consequences. So you have to be responsible for your consequences. And that is very important. Other than that, I think

protect yourself and get paid. Second part I want to talk about this year is a very big part in my life as a parent, as a mother, and it has been very difficult. And I probably mentioned this many times in the previous videos, how I started to realize the difficulty, how I start to realize my own emotional development, those kind of things. But I still want to talk about as a parent,

I've learned a lot of things. I am still learning. And they're full of ups and downs. And you can never get to the happy ending because happy ending doesn't really exist. You will reach to happiness, but there's no ending. You keep going and you reach that bottom and then you come back strong and then you reach bottom again. So that's parenting and that's also life.

The first thing I learned is you got to treat your kids as human beings. I think as a parent, you're not only a parent with the power, with authority, you're also guidance. You help them know the world to learn the world. You also protect her. You make sure they're safe. They explore whole world within protection of yours. I think it is very important. I think if you watch those parenting videos, they might or

or might not mention this is be friends with your kids. Try to understand their world from their perspectives, which is you're going to make yourself act like a two-year-old or a one-year-old or a four-year-old just to see how they see the world, how their rules work in their world and why they get frustrated. And that's the most important thing. You need to understand why they get frustrated.

But that doesn't work all the time, which is the second thing I learned. You have to treat yourself as a human being. What I mean by human being is, you know, you have normal feelings and emotions. You know, you are going to get frustrated, upset. You're going to even get really mad at them just because they don't listen to you. And that is very normal.

Sometimes I feel like I can control myself so I can be patient. I can be firm. I can just reason with him. But sometimes that doesn't work. Whatever tricks you used before,

don't work anymore. And that's when you get frustrated. But you want to maintain the dignity as a parent and you start to say, okay, I have to be normal. I have to be calm. You have to let yourself explode at some point. You can't always maintain the calmness as you parent your kid, which is really impossible because that means you're suppressing your emotions. And every time you suppress your emotions or needs or desires,

there are going to be a volcano explosion in the future at some point. What I learned is I'm aware and I also acknowledge my negative feelings towards him. And when I have those kind of feelings around, I might get mad at him. I might raise my voice. Let's say he's whining, he's crying, he's screaming. I want to step away.

And just look at him not saying anything. Sometimes it might not be good. But I think the most important part is after you have those negative feelings, you can self-reflect. And you know what happened, why you have those emotions and feelings. And also normalize yourself.

those emotions and feelings. Being a parent doesn't mean you have power over everything. Being a parent doesn't mean you are capable of doing everything, controlling everything. And being a parent doesn't mean you're perfect. You don't have other feelings than loving your kids. As soon as you realize that part, your life will feel slightly lighter. I can guarantee you that part.

And it is also for your mental health as well. If you keep yourself to the corner, especially negative to the corner, and you only show the perfect side to other people, eventually you're going to have burnout. And I think as a parent, you want to find a sustainable way to maintain this healthy relationship

will also help yourself grow and learn and be a better yourself. Another part about being a parent, what I learned, I started to realize he understands a lot. Whether you think a two-year-old can't understand or not, don't assume that you don't understand. I think this is also a very important lesson to any learners as well. As a teacher or as a person who explains things,

I always assume that they don't understand things. So I skip the difficult part and jump to the conclusion and let them just do it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But I think one lesson I really learned is to not assume they don't understand. You always explain the whole thing, whether it's complicated or not. Explain to them first. He actually pays attention first.

to what I say every time you can tell his brain is spinning. He's trying to understand what my mom is saying, those kinds of things. It's amazing. After the whole explanation, he still doesn't understand, but he's trying so hard to understand. He might get bits of the story, but you can tell he's trying so hard and it makes me very happy. And sometimes he really understand. And last night he had their ache.

And I was trying to give him medicine and he just could not. I just kept saying, you got to take medicine, got to take medicine. That's a result we want. I want him to take medicine. But he really refused. He really cried there until I said the medicine will take the hurt away. And he repeated the medicine will take the hurt away. And he said, medicine, please. So I felt like if you try your best to explain, the effort you made will make a huge difference on him.

And that's what I really learned from him to other people as well. So now when I explain things to other people, I will try my best to be as detailed as possible so other people can understand me. I don't assume they already know. Some people might think, well, it's really unnecessary because I already know that.

But I don't think everybody does. And I will do my best to detail everything so everyone can have a chance to understand things. But that's what I learned actually from him. Another part I learned from him is everybody has their own roots and you don't understand. They have their own roots. They have their own worlds. And there are certain ways things work in their world that you don't get to understand. But they don't tell you or they are incapable to tell you how

how things work and your way doesn't work in my world and then they get frustrated and they wig out. And I think that's my son. I don't know how things work in his world, probably because I never really get to know him that well. Even though we spend every single day, every single minute together, I just...

i don't realize that i have to remind myself that i don't understand or i don't know i am willing to learn but i might still not acquire the knowledge of how things work in your world but i respect that i will try my best that trying best is the key

Don't just say, I don't know and I don't want to learn. I don't even want to get to know your world or yourself or the way you work. So you just do things my way. But with other people, same thing. You are in any kind of relationship.

You want to get to know each other and you want to know how things work in their way. They have different standards and expectations. How are you going to understand them? Whether they're reasonable or not, you are seeking the perspective of their world and you understand better. Maybe there's something you can do, maybe not, but you tried your best and that's the best thing about yourself. And the last thing I learned is to understand

walk away with love. Sometimes in certain situations, you just have to walk away. He cries, he screams, and you see those tears. As a mom, it's very difficult for me. I just want to solve all the problems and kill all the bad people for him to make him happy. It's very difficult to be protective 24-7, let alone

He's going to grow up. He's going to have his own friends. He'll go get hurt at some point. He won't get whatever he wants all the time. And he's going to cry. And I have to walk away with love. What I mean by walking away with love is if he wakes out either in public or at home, I need to be firm.

And a gentle, I need to tell him, we don't do this like this. I'm here, but I'm not doing these things you want because it's not reasonable. You don't need to explain to them why you don't do it. You just need to let them know this is not going to happen. And I'm right here when you need a hug.

They learn really fast. They know they cannot get things they want. Using that way, they will immediately turn to you and look for solutions. So if I want to get things, how am I going to do to make you get things for me? And that's the moment you can teach them how to get things. When he freaks out when cars don't go his way, he will throw cars and I will throw cars in the garbage because I will tell him if you don't want them and you throw them, that means they go to garbage.

He would definitely freak out. And I would say, I'm right here. You can cry after you finish your crying and then we can talk. And eventually I said, okay, are you ready for a talk? And this is back to the point that he understands. Don't assume they don't understand. He understands. So I start to talk that why you should not throw cards. There are certain reasons. And if you need help, you should say help, please. And I'm here ready to help you.

And then he gradually learned. And a lot of things, it's not like you tell them once and he'll learn. You have to constantly repeat. It might take a couple of weeks, a couple of months, even a couple of years to build a habit. But the most important thing is to build a habit. And that is very difficult for parents because for a normal adult, you would think I teach you once, you should know. I teach you twice, you should really learn. And I teach you three times and you still don't get it.

you're done. But that doesn't apply to toddlers. You just have to constantly do the same thing, have the consistency, keep everything coherent so they understand logic behind all the behaviors and decisions. And that won't make a huge difference. But sorry, parenting is a very big part of my life. And that's why I went on and on and on. I hope you can still learn something from that. But I'm going to move on. The third part is being

being partner. In this relationship, I start to realize I have problems managing my emotions and occasionally I would dump my anger on my husband and he takes it and I feel bad. One thing I learned, if you have damaged your relationship in any kind of a relationship, the most important thing is to repair. You have to remember how to repair after the damage happened. You either apologize, you either have a talk or you want to make up for that

But you have to do something. You cannot just let go and pretend nothing happened just because this moment you guys are happy. Sometimes he is a little bit short and then he started to be impatient and he started to be snappy. And I just let go and pretend nothing happened for a very long time. And, you know, when you have things in your mind, when you keep a lot of things to yourself, you're going to just feel very unfair sometimes.

And he started to feel very burned out. And that's when I realized I need to let him know how I feel, how he shouldn't do that to me. And verbalize your needs and feelings and emotions and let him know, let your partner know. And also, if I do something wrong, I will apologize to him. I will let him know why I did that at that moment. And I realized it was very wrong and apologize. I hurt you.

I'm not right about it. I think it's very important. Also, in a relationship, you need to be firm and gentle with your boundaries. If you don't like the way he talks to you, you need to make it clear that don't talk to me like that. If you talk to me like that, I'm going to walk away until you realize this is the wrong way to talk and

And we can talk again afterwards. It might not be fair to say that, but it is true that how people treat you is because of you. You let people treat you that way. If you're firm, polite, gentle, and nice and say, this is me. When I say no, it means no.

And they will learn that when you say no, it means no. They wouldn't cross your line. And that is very important in a relationship, any kind of relationship learned. And the last thing, I have very short notes about this relationship. The last thing as a partner I learned is it's a little bit different from

a role you have at work is compromise is necessary in a relationship, but sacrifice is not. Compromise, I mean, two people live in the same roof and you might have different values, you might have different habits, you might have different even tastes. How are you going to make this relationship work? At some point, both of you have to compromise. Compromise is a mutual thing to do. If you are the one who always compromises,

And that's called sacrifice. You're sacrificing yourself to meet his or her expectations or needs. And you are not going to like it. And you're going to feel really unfair in this relationship. And it is not healthy relationship. Compromise is if I want to eat stinky noodles and he will say, I don't like it.

But you know what? You like it, you go ahead. I might just go and graduate and do some work. And people often wonder how we eat together. I have a few people ask in real life, not just on social media. Do you guys eat the same food? How are you guys going to cook when it comes to dinner and lunch? I said, normally we don't eat lunch together. I eat my own thing because that's my time. I can watch TV show while eating. He eats his own thing because he has a different schedule for his breakfast schedule.

And for dinner, we sometimes eat Western food, sometimes eat Chinese food. There are food he doesn't like, there are food I don't like, which is fine. We don't have to force each other to eat everything. And then sometimes we can't figure out the same food we eat together, and then we go separately. And my kids, same thing. If I have Chinese food and my husband has a Western food, and we'll give him the combination of both. I don't think that's a problem.

But that's called compromise. You can't make other people just follow your rules or they can't make you follow their rules. You have to find the balance in the middle and make it work. And that's compromise.

Let's say I like my stinky noodles, but my husband just can't stand the smell. If I say fine, because I want to make my husband happy and I gave up my stinky noodle, I will feel unhappy. And that's called a sacrifice because I will never have a taste of my favorite food. Are you going to be happy for the rest of your life? Is this relationship going to work for the rest of life? Probably not. And that's why I think if you are in a relationship or you're ever going to think about a relationship,

Always remember compromise is necessary, but sacrifice is not. The moment you feel like you're sacrificing, then there's something wrong. That's a very important tip I learned this year about a relationship. Finally, I got to the part about myself. I think this is a very important part because everybody should care about themselves first so we can be a better person for ourselves and for other people as well.

I've read 20 books this year and I really enjoyed reading books. I feel like I'm always in another world to reset, refresh, to learn from other people and why they made such mistakes, how those mistakes have changed their life. Because I don't get a chance to experience different lives. So I learned that from novels, from characters. And I enjoy that because I feel like I'm immersing myself in a very different world and I feel different.

I've made 19 episodes of Coffee Corner this year and unlike it, I can see myself grow in this area. And my videos were from

Simply practicing my English to now has become my emotional journal to see how I grow, how my emotions develop and grow and how I learn things, how I get better. It's a digital journal for me to see myself develop and see myself grow better or worse. I don't know. And I really enjoy it. And as a content creator, I'm definitely not productive and not professional as well, because technically you're supposed to post videos.

regularly, but I can't have a regular schedule. Every single video I make is out of my own heart and I don't plan things that much. When I have ideas and when I have feelings and thoughts, I want to make it. Everything is very genuine.

And everything I share is not a lecture, it's more of my experience. So I really love it. And that's why it made me a very unprofessional, unpopular content creator. But one thing that happened and that really struck me is the video I made in August. Before I went on a camping trip, I posted a video about, I forgot what, but it really took off. And my followers from 30k something to now 55k. I'm...

really appreciate everything I never thought about. One day I could become such a big person on social media and I could never picture myself making friends with you guys sharing same values, sharing same feelings and you resonate what I said, I resonate what you said and you guys are so smart, so wise and so kind.

That just makes me very emotional. I really appreciate that and I also very appreciate this platform.

For me to get a chance to meet you guys. Another thing I did this year, I really appreciate that I started to go to therapy sessions and start to talk about my family, my feelings, my problems. And I started to open up to really see what's inside, to see the external, internal factors that trigger my emotional experiences.

explosion, those kind of things, I start to learn, start to be more aware, to be more cognitive about a lot of things that happen around me because of me, caused by me. It really helped. I know it's actually a privilege for me because I'm not worried about how much I pay for that. It's covered by my benefit. Not everyone has that opportunity.

But I cherish that. But I also think if you don't have a chance or you don't have such opportunity to do therapy sessions, talking to yourself, journaling, or even recording a video talking about how you feel, how you think is also very important. And it's also very helpful.

And that's what most of the time I do, right? So, and I really appreciate that too. And the third thing I started to do is to start to move on and focus on myself. There are a lot of things I did, it was wrong and it made me uncomfortable or a lot of things other people did, it made me uncomfortable. There's nothing I can do, nothing I can change. I started to learn about how to move on and focus on myself, do my job, be myself, be

Because life is short and long. You can't just focus on this small thing. You're wasting your time dwelling on things that will make you miserable. And it's not doing anything good for yourself. People don't care about you. Seriously, nobody cares about you. They only care about themselves. And you should do the same thing too. If ever in a difficult situation, you don't know what to do, just tell yourself, put this thing aside and

and start to do something you like and make yourself happy. Once you have enough courage, enough happiness, you can come back and talk about and think about this one more time. You might have a very fresh perspective and you might have a different solution to it. And I think that is very important.

when it comes to difficult situations and problems as well. And the last thing about myself is you have to spare yourself some quality time. You need to sit with yourself, think about things that you like, you don't like, read a book, exercise, go for a walk,

Watch a funny video, cook a really nice meal. Whatever that makes you feel happy, makes you you, you should start to do it more often. That will really, really help you build a healthy you.

And a healthy and strong you will help yourself get through a lot of difficult times and situations and people and challenges. And it's like you have a bank, right? When you need money, you go to a bank and you withdraw money. But you go there, you realize you never saved anything in your bank and you got nothing to withdraw. And that's when you feel desperate. Same with you.

Same thing for learning, same thing for mental health, and same thing for happiness and courage. You need to start build and save.

for later in the future. And then you can come back when you need it and take it and show that and support yourself. One thing I just recently discovered, and it is very interesting, is called one minute self-reflection. Not on paper, not anything. Find a space. For example, when I put my son to bed, there would be a few minutes or even longer than that.

I have to sit there by myself in the dark and I start to do this. Just need one minute to think about today, how you feel, how you felt overall, how you are feeling right at that moment, why you feel that way and list everything. Just think about it. Think about it clearly and why

Talk about your anger quietly. Talk about your madness quietly. Talk about your frustration quietly. And you will realize it is like a meditation. You know, meditation is difficult because you have to force yourself to not think.

But I think self-reflection in your mind is to actually let your thoughts go free. And I think that's a very, very good technique. And also one good thing in the end is I published my article this year. It makes me so happy. I know it's probably nothing to a lot of people working academia, but it is a huge thing for me because I published an article. I'm very happy.

But you know what? Everyone will have a little teeny tiny micro accomplishment in your own life. You just need to find it, appreciate it, and remind yourself all the time. That was a lot of talking and my camera went out of battery and I just want to

Say one more thing in the end of the video. Thank you so much for being with me, supporting me, and sharing your thoughts and feelings and your stories with me. I really appreciate everything. I hope in the new year, we're still together and we're still doing this all together. Keep growing and we can be better person of ourselves. Thank you so much. Happy holidays. Love you guys. Bye.