An epiphany at early 30s

I love to spend time thinking hard what went wrong with my life and in disbelief I learned that there is actually a term devoted for this sad activity. It calls rumination. I have been ruminating on my failures, my disappointment and grievances a little bit too much than I should. I need to stop. Seriously.

Rumination is one among the many epiphanies that came to me in my early 30s. A while ago I wrote in Medium about all the lessons I learned throughout my 20s. Now it is time to anticipate what lessons I am going to learn in my 30s and I suspect eschewing rumination is high on my priority list. I was having an epiphany when I found out that I was an infj type of personality, prone to rumination and susceptible to eat to excess when being emotionally unstable. For the first time in my life, I managed to see myself one shade clearer.

My early 30s now is hating myself for being too weak, too slow, too senstitive and too much to consider. And I am sure I am going to spend the next decade loathing myself for not being able to avert myself away from all these flaws. Even though I had the epiphany and anticipated a regret a decade from now, there is very little I can do. I am a pathological introvert and governed by a code of operation called assuming . I assume no one wants to make friends with me; I assume I was boring; I assume my shyness is adorable. I was assuming too much and this very activity was preoccupying my mind. In fact, I could look like completely idle when my mind is racing with thoughts and assumption. My minds are working faster than my actions and this is rather sad indeed.

As a chronic Infj, I wish I was the complete opposite. It sucks when you cannot communicate your mind well simply because meeting people drains your energy. I wish I were more outgoing, having more fun in my life. In reality, I love to spend time by myself reading books during a weekend when people are partying and meeting new people.

There are times I think that people can’t wait to get to their feet to change the way I am. A friend wants to coach me on how to approach men; An older lady from the church wants to hook me up with a divorcee; My mom wonders whether I should change my job to allow better opportunitiies at courting eligible bachelors and the last is my sister: she wants me to date a guy whose attention she is not very keen at.

But I was undeterred. I’d like to romanticise a scene where I accidentally bump into my soulmate in the most impossible setting. We would fall in love within the very first few sights and feel relief to declare to the whole world that we finally meet someone. This is silly. This scene is evoked straight from a Korean mellow drama episode. Mine is not so happy-ending, probably. At least I assume so.

Inspired upon reading: What you learned in your 40s