Celebrating spring in a country without one

Hello it’s me again and I hope that it had been a beautiful spring for you (as long as you’re not in the southern hemisphere).

Although we don’t have the changing of seasons here in sunny/rainy and always summer with high humidity Singapore, it’s hard to forget about the beauty of ‘Spring’ as I have so many friends/relatives/colleagues/ex-colleagues/people I follow on social media that are overseas or had been overseas in the past 2 weeks or so. Through my iPhone screen, I’ve been living their adventures ‘virtually’ in the comfort of my room. At the start, I did feel a little jealous that I couldn’t make that spring adventure happen but at the same time, I kind of saw the blooms a year ago and I predicted (quite accurately) that Japan/Korea would be extremely crowded. I’ve seen photos of snaking queues at immigration, luggage left piled up at the side of the belt (as they had to clear the luggage for the next flight while passengers are still stuck at immigration), throngs of people taking photos under the cherry blossom trees and super long queues for famous restaurants that I’ve visited a year ago. I had been lucky to travel during the stricter covid restrictions a year ago, where I was blessed with a cheaper, less crowded travel experience in exchange for countless ART/PCR tests and mask-wearing. I truly sincerely wish that such an outbreak will not happen again, but at the same time, I miss the quieter travel experiences. Nevertheless, we can only move on and keep the beautiful memories somewhere.

Recently, I have been meeting up with some older friends of mine (mostly ex-colleagues) and a couple of them said that I’ve become more ‘zen’ with life. I kind of agree with them as since I’ve left my somewhat stressful (and possibly toxic) job (which the tarot card reader told me that my boss thinks that my working ability is low), I’ve been becoming more conscious thinking of myself more and to put ‘me’ as a priority in many situations. While I might sound a little selfish, at the end of the day I’m trying to strip myself of other people’s expectations and to ‘live for myself’.

I did a MBTI test (16 personalities) recently and there was a shift from ‘E’ to ‘I’ from a year ago. I am currently INTP-T (Logician), an innovative inventor with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Well, there might be a lot of ‘confirmation bias’ in such personality tests and there might be a difference as some people might be choosing answers for what they want to be rather than what they really are. While I can hold conversations easily with strangers, I guess it does not necessarily make me an Extrovert because it might be draining for me to do so and there’s a difference between whether you ‘can’ or ‘want’ to do something. This time round, I am a 68% Introvert (previously I was borderline Extrovert) but I believe it is because I’m not put in any environment in the past year or so where I had to socialise or get to know people. However, I do agree that at my age (and with limited time), I do enjoy having deep and meaningful conversations 1-1 with people rather than in a social group setting. On the ‘Energy’ aspect, I am 68% Intuitive – which means that I am imaginative, open-minded and curious. For the Thinking/Feeling aspect – I am 64% thinking which means that I focus on objectivity/rationality and often dismiss emotions in favour of logic. This is something that I know it’s true as I am a person who rules my life on rationality and choosing the option that makes the most sense which contributes to my indecisiveness when I have no idea which option gives the best outcome. I’m also 60% Prospecting which means that I’m good and improvising and adapting to opportunities which makes me a flexible nonconformist who values novelty over stability -> which is very true as I like to try new things for the sake of it. whoops. While I enjoy being stuck in my comfort zone, there’s always a part of me wanting to venture and explore the unknown. I’m also 65% turbulent which makes me self-conscious and sensitive to stress (which is why I do my best to eliminate stress from my life whenever possible).

Just wanted to type it all out as there might be one day I want to review the results of my personality test.

INTP Strengths: Analytical, Original, Open-Minded, Curious (yes I’m a jack of all trades master of none), Objective.

INTP Weaknesses: Disconnected, Insensitive (I can very much relate to it and have low sense of situational awareness), Dissatisfied, Impatient, Perfectionistic (I think I’ve moved on a lot from this – possibly a virgo trait – and somehow now I think I can accept the 70% best option instead of needing it to be 95%).

Logicians appreciate alone time (oh gawd, it is true) and the ideal partner is not someone they can pass the time with but an equal who can challenge their ideas (hmm, is this why I kind of have arguments often with my closer friends). Logicians may drag their feet when it comes to going out into the world and meeting new people (It might never happen for me) and it would not be easy to work up the will to risk rejection plus being the center of attention is especially not for Logicians. Gosh, it is.. very true. For friends, we tend to look for companionship and support plus the bonus is ‘intellectual depth’ (maybe this makes it hard for me to find a friend that I can deeply connect with) and we can be choosy/selective because we don’t surround with people just for the sake of it. (Maybe this is why I don’t exactly enjoy big group settings). Sadly, I will also accidentally ignore and brush off people who are not able to keep up with the knowledge-based discussion or have differing tastes. Logicians aren’t motivated by a desire to impress their boss, be accepted by their co-workers or get a fancy new job title and we are often turned off by things (e.g. team building, motivational speeches). Gosh this aspect on career is super accurate for me. It mentions that I have my own high standards and hate to be called average/mediocre and can get very frustrated with overbearing bosses or waiting around for inputs. Drawn to workplace with self-directed and flat hierarchies. Pretty much sound like an independent contributor which is.. what I strive and hope to be. I am supposedly able to understand complex systems and think critically (pretty useful in my current role) and I do not seek emotional satisfaction. I crave for intellectual stimulation and freedom to pursue ideas and opportunities to solve challenging puzzles. Also, people with this personality have many strengths but completing projects doesn’t tend to be one of them (which could explain my procrastination in many things).

Somewhat thankful that this personality test results allowed me to make sense of my behaviour/thoughts and social interactions. You can easily do such a test by searching for ’16 personalities’ on Google.

<sorry for being random again>

Yep so back to my ‘zen’ outlook, it is something that I consciously remind myself every day – To choose the path of less resistance (which is why my perfectionist mentality is breaking down) if it means peace for more people and not having to deal with anger/frustration. To be honest with so much uncertainty and unrest in the world, I really don’t know how long I can live for or whether the entire human species will extinct eventually which is why I remind myself that time waits for no man and if there’s anything that you want to do, you just got to grab the opportunity and focus on the ‘now’ rather than pushing it back for a future which may never come.

That’s it for my random blog post 🙂 Happy Sunday too, wherever you are in the world!