reasons why I love being here in Taiwan

How grateful I am to be here in Taiwan. These days the pandemic has definitely not over yet, but the condition is getting better and better each day.

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Covid cases in Taiwan within the past one year

As you can see, the graphic is drastically flatten to almost under 10 new cases per day. That is a relieving fact to hear in these bizzare time.

Per 18th July, there are still 1,095 active cases in this country. However, this number is counted as fairly low and controllable. For the last one week the government has eased the strict control for some restrictions, such as reopening some public facilities and allowing small number of social gathering.

This morning I just read the news that Malaysia defense minister, Ismail Sabri, praised Taiwan as he said, “Taiwan has not introduced any nationwide or local lockdowns, yet it still has one of the lowest number of COVID-19 cases in the world. The key to Taiwan’s successful pandemic response was self-discipline on the part of the population.” – Taiwan News

Couldn’t agree more with his statement. Witnessing by myself how Taiwanese deal with the pandemic, make me believe that everything is possible as long as we ourselves have awareness and discipline.

I love this country for the people’s attitude and the government’s prompt and clear policy. However, I admit that I often think Taiwanese are being too much, too paranoid of something that hasn’t happened yet. Even so, they are just simply being preventive.

Care of others and unselfishness are highly essential disposition each person has to have in this pandemic era. Nevertheless, I still thrive myself of becoming a better person and more aware of my surrounding each day.

Lately, I frequently wondered – during restless days and sleepless nights- what if Covid has never happened and existed; what if masks weren’t part of our everyday fashion. Yes, it’s been a very strange period of time. But in the end of the day, I just hope that the world will be healed very soon.

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languishing: 2021 theme emotion

_{“Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield. And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021.”}

Adam Grant – The New York Times

This pandemic situation is not easy for all of us. Sometimes we feel like doing monotonous life all the time and this indescribable void feeling strikes us. The uncomfortable feeling of not achieving something, doing mundane things in daily basis. It’s not burnout (yet), but somehow we just feel empty or aimless. Actually there’s this term for that feeling: languishing. It is in-between state where you’re not depressed but not feeling happy either.

Have you ever staying up until late to do something else other than sleeping? Even though you already feels very sleepy. I think recently I’ve done it too many times. Sacrificing my sleep time in order to reclaim the freedom of my free time in day time, it’s sometimes just drawing or watching or scrolling through social media. Feeling “productive” if I could against my nature of having break. Considered sleeping is unproductive and feeling guilty about it.

There’s actually this Chinese expression that can correspond with this circumstance. It is 報復性熬夜 ‘bàofùxìng áoyè’ – or ‘revenge bedtime procrastination’. The phrase, which literally translated as ‘retaliatory staying up late’.

Then, what’s the cure for this languishing thing? How to avoid it so it wouldn’t worsen to be depression? At least, it is good that we’ve given a name to this condition, so people aware and conscious about it. According to The New York Times, “flow” state can be the antidote to languishing. Enter the “flow” state where your concept of time, place, even self melts away. To maintain the pre-pandemic happiness, we have to be more immersed to our projects. Focusing your mind on task on hand, so the other things become insignificant for awhile. Give yourself some specific uninterrupted time.

I just remember this phrase from somewhere. When your body moves, your mind tends to be more passive. While your body don’t move, your mind becomes more active and then the overthinking loops happen. So, doing some physical activity can be very helpful, too.

Other suggestion is to focus on small goals. I have this little note for myself in the mirror written “Make your first small step today 👣”. As I grew older, I become more understand of my pattern habit. Most of the time I struggled to make action into reality is because my to-do-list is too overwhelming. I aimed something so big, like for example, making this blog, it’s already on my to-do-list since years ago. But now, I tried different approach to make my goals smaller and aimed for the nearest step that I can do. I changed my to-do-list become more specific, such as “write about “xxx” and just press the publish button, don’t worry, you can edit it anytime.” And here you go, I’m still very doubtful with my writing and what I want to do exactly with this thing. However, I just try to push myself to really doing something real, and not just think about it only.

“We all have to start somewhere, and doing something better than nothing at all. Start small so you don’t discouraged and give up. Remember it is all about consistency.“

– Khloe Kardashian

Take control of yourself. Challenge and push yourself a little bit more. You don’t have to do the important work, just choosing to do things that meaningful to you, it’s enough. Small yet meaningful. So, what matters to you most?

daily habits to prevent depression

This morning while doing my daily job as usual, I decided to listen to Youtube recommendation on my phone. Using wireless earphone, it is very convenient to do multi-tasking. My eyes focus on computer while my ears focus on listening.

It was only one click from my phone notification. I’m glad to choose these videos because those were quite useful for me, especially for this time. During this pandemic, I felt a bit overwhelmed with the situation and especially it is because my mind always overthinks everything that actually no need to be overthink 🙂

So yeah, I think I need to have positive habits to keep me sane. Here’s the first video some daily habits to prevent depression:

➼ morning routine: express gratitude or meditation, avoid social media when you wake up

➼ see social media in lunch time

➼ have enough night sleep (I’m still struggling to do this, only had 4 to 5 sleeping hours on weekday recently 😥 I know it’s not healthy, but yeah…)

➼ being clean and get dress

➼ take vitamin

➼ exercise (very agree, even though I only started doing exercise these several past months, but it really helps to improve my mental health!)

➼ being outside: get sun or wind~ or open your windows if the condition don’t allow you to be outside in this pandemic situation

➼ evening routine: pray or journaling or just write out your feeling or thoughts (recently just started doing bullet journaling again after many years of only thinking about it…)

➼ self-care

➼ have social interactions, human needs it 🙂 (haha agree on this one, but sometimes the reality is not that easy😂)

Source: Daily Routine To Fight Off Depression – Psych2Go

https://youtu.be/Y9A5wuTtblw

And here’s the second video about some small yet life-changing things you can do to improve your daily life.

7 Small Changes to Improving Your Life

➼ put your phone on silent & face down

➼ put your alarm opposite of your bed (have been doing this for some time and it works!)

➼ carry a water bottle always (eight cups a day)

➼ allow yourself to say “no” to others

➼ share your ideas or write down your thoughts (yes, journaling can be very helpful)

➼ replace bad thoughts with good ones by acknowledging it first

➼ think before you react (maybe I’m too good at this 😂, since I always think too much before really express myself)

Source: 7 Small Changes That Will Improve Your Life – Psych2Go