Monday, June 02, 2008

Turning 23 (Part 1)

Today at around 6.30pm, I turned 23 years old. To me, this can be considered a milestone in my life. You may ask, why the odd number and not 25? Well, 25 is of coz a bigger milestone, but I will treat this as a milestone for a few reasons. Firstly, I am no longer a student, after 20 (?) years of studying, I am now in the first 6 months of working life. At the same time, this is my first birthday away from home and on 'my own' in a sense. I have closed one major chapter of my life and am moving on to a new one. Therefore, it's pretty true to set my 23rd birthday as a significant point in my life.

So I shall take this opportunity to look forward to the next big milestone in my life - turning 25 years old. Wow, that's a quarter of a century! That's a big number, especially for those of us who still remember just turning 18 not too long ago. Lol. Yeah, I guess it is a big number. Anyway, instead of worrying about getting old, I shall take it as a measuring stick for achieving my goals. What do I mean by this? When I turned 21, I was upset with myself for not being who I thought I would be by that age. I used to think that by the age of 21, I would be someone self-assured, accomplished and capable (those from Swinburne, think someone who carries herself like Corina). So I was gloomy for that birthday till someone pointed out that it was unrealistic to measure myself like that. I should just measure myself against what I have accomplished over the years. My consolation now is that by the age of 22 and 3/4 years old, I have more or less become what I wanted to be by 21 years old. So it's only a delay of 1 and 3/4 years, ahah!

Anyway, I shall now set some more measurable goals for myself to achieve or things I want to do by the age of 25. Even though it's good to have goals, I think it's better to set a specific period or date for them since it gives me more motivation to work harder. I estimate that 2 years should be enough time for these. If I can't accomplish all by then, at least I'd have tried my best. That's what's important. I guess I may have been inspired from watching Randy Pausch's "The Last Lecture" on "Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". Though some of these goals might seem easy, they're still goals that some of us may keep putting off and never get around to doing.

Goals to achieve by the age of 25 (in no particular order):
- Promoted to 2 grades higher at work
- Check out the view from the Skybridge of KLCC
- Visit Bangkok/Phuket/Taipei/Bali/Kota Kinabalu/Pulau Tioman
- Visit all states of Malaysia (for work or play)
- Try an 'extreme' sport of some sort: parasailing, rock climbing, bungee jumping, skydiving
- Lose enough weight and exercise to become more fit/healthy
- Upgrade to a better camera (mayb semi-pro!) with more skills gained

Other long-term goals include:
- Take MBA
- Visit the other Disneylands in the world (except Disneyland in California)
- Visit Japan/Hong Kong/Australia/Florida

As you can see, some of the goals do overlap each other. And of coz, when I think of more, I'll add them to the list. Then in the next post, I'll look back on the highlights and significant points of my 23 years on Earth, and how I spent this birthday. But first, thank you to everyone who remembered my birthday and wished me a happy birthday. I felt touched with everyone's msgs, comments, posts etc. Even if some ppl were 'reminded' by certain things. Lol. Thanks anyway :) *hugz n kisses*