My Resolutions for 2019

Assalamualaikum w.b.t.

       We will enter a new year soon, so I hope all of you who are reading my blog right now have already came up with new resolution, new spirit and new hope for this upcoming new year. Year 2018 for me is a year where I learned a lot of new things, meet many new people and facing some new difficulties that I never expected before. Honestly, I did pray that this year will end as soon as possible because I thought it will be the only way I can escape from all these difficulties. But I was wrong. Every challenge that I faced, I learned 10 lessons from it. Every one person that left from my life, I got 10 new friends that came after that.

       Year 2018 is also a year where I started to follow this one incredible young vlogger lady, Aida Azlin from Singapore. As I started my new job in Japan this year, it was so tough at the beginning and I often got stress as I am the only foreigner and woman in my department. One day, I began to watch Aida’s video at YouTube every morning inside the train on my way to work. Every single video that she created indeed helped and inspired me to go through my life as a woman engineer in this foreign land. From her videos, I began to start doing new things to overcome my loneliness and my stress such as reading new genre of books, learning new language which is Korean language and trying many Japanese cultures during my free time.

       For my resolution this year, I want to explore new knowledges that out of my working scope. I want to write more new things for my blog. I want to push myself to the limit, perhaps beyond my limit because I want to see how far I can go with my own capabilities. And of course, these are all inspired from one of her videos where she talked about a 60-year-old Korean taxi driver that learned English while driving. I was so awed when I heard the story because I’m sure it’s not easy for a man at that age to learn new language, but he did. He didn’t put limit to himself to start new things but the best thing is, he didn’t think that it will be wasted.

       One of the reminders from Aida Azlin that I still remember till now is no knowledge is a waste knowledge. So yeah, I decided to use that as my motto for year 2019. When I started learning Korean language around April 2018, many people around me questioned about it. Why are you learning Korean language in Japan? How are you going to use it when you go back to Malaysia? Did you plan to stay in Korea after this? And most of the time, I told them that I love Korean language and the fact that the grammars of Japanese and Korean language are almost same, make it so much fun for me to learn it. Learning Korean language indeed help me to understand more about their history because I love history so much.

       Every 12 December in Japan, there will be a national ballot to select a kanji that represent the events of that year called 今年の漢字(read: kotoshi no kanji, meaning: kanji of the year). For year 2018, the selected kanji was 災(read: sai, meaning: disaster). This is because of the 2018 Osaka earthquake along with the heavy floods in southwestern Japan. For my kanji of the year 2018, I chose 勇(read: yuu/isamu, meaning: courage). As I started to live alone this year, I did everything on my own, I faced my own fear, I am the one that motivated myself whenever I feel down, I challenged myself to go out from my comfort zone, I mingled with people who have opposite characters with me, I forced myself to be courage even when I’m scared.  

       If I compare year 2018 with 2017, I think that I faced almost similar level of challenges for both years. In year 2017, I lost my beloved junior, I gave up my dream to further master degree because of certain circumstances, and in year 2018, I felt so lonely when I started living alone as most of my closest friends getting married and have their own commitments, I struggled on my own as the only foreigner and woman in my company but Alhamdulillah, Allah granted me with good and kind seniors that always guided me whenever I made mistake during my work. I began to realize that this year is the year where I less depend to others except to Him.

       I pray so that I will become stronger to face more challenging experiences in year 2019 because the older you are, the harder your life will be. Am I right? As my name, Amalina means hope, I really hope all of you who read this right now, as long as you are alive, do not lose hope. You are still breathing, you still have people that love and support you, it means you still have hope to achieve whatever you want in your life. Whenever you feel down, remember how you got through your difficulties until today. I know the feeling to lose hope, to give up on people around me but I always remember this one thing, there is ease along with hardships. May Allah ease our journey in the next year of 2019. Happy New Year everyone!!!