Expectation, Self-Worth and Why I Started This Blog

Welcome to the Dark Blue Journal!

I am Julie, the keeper of this journal, 32 years old, and quietly straggling in life. I’m the girl who stopped too long at a crossroad as my peers made a beeline for the ladder or the finishing line. The one who picked the road less popular because she saw something more to life and believes it is important to smell the rain and observe scurrying squirrels.

With every path, you gain some, you lose some.

I am from Singapore, and I’m currently in the United States because I fell in love with a man. For the past 7 months in the US, I’ve been getting to know myself better.

Back home, I held a 9-6 job, commuted daily, and bitched constantly about how I don’t have control over my own time. Now that I’m unemployed, I’ve learnt that having control over my own time is both a relief and a huge responsibility. (My reaction towards unemployment would be discussed in a separate post.)

In the last 7 months, I gardened, wrote, cooked, crocheted, learnt to communicate with my partner… I wasn’t idling. I enjoyed every one of those activities, but at the end of the day it felt like I didn’t accomplish anything or do anything constructive. Guilt bugged me endlessly.

It was a fight between my personal belief and how I was conditioned growing up.

Despite my belief that life is so much more than making money, I feel unaccomplished precisely because I’m not making money, and guilty because I’m enjoying myself doing activities that has no monetary value. The guilt makes my harmless little past times feel like vices. It’s weird and distorted.

It didn’t matter that I know what I’m doing is right for me – figuring out my next steps and doing what I want to do if money wasn’t an issue. I wasn’t allowed to work anyway.

I’ve simply been too conditioned to think that humans need to be productive and do things that would benefit our livelihood or future. Over and over, my parents and the society drilled that into me.

Somewhere along the way, I began struggling to feel okay with myself. I felt worthless once again. It wasn’t right.

Then, I realized that a lack of self-worth is simply a belief that one has fallen below expectation. Sometimes the expectation isn’t even ours. Since it’s only a belief, it didn’t matter what I do or not do if my brain believes I’ve fallen below expectation. That is why even high-achievers can have low self-worth.

Armed with that knowledge, I made it my aim to feel at peace with myself with or without accomplishments. It is difficult. Plenty of people struggle with this feeling, even those who are very accomplished.

But I want to drill it into my core that we’re fine the way we are, that we don’t have to feel compelled to do anything to improve our worth. We’re the way we’re supposed to be. We are already worthy. There’s no need to meet expectations.

Somehow it led to me starting a blog again, maybe I finally found a reason to do it.

I have started and abandoned many blogs because of fear. Fear of putting myself out there, fear of rejection, fear of failure. That’s exactly how I behave in life.

This time, I want to befriend that fear and write about my struggles with self-worth and progress in self-acceptance. Along the way, I’ll write about subjects that matter to me too. I hope it helps me to clear up my head, and I hope that parts of this blog help people who are struggling with self-worth see that they’re not alone.

Our worth is not and should not be hinged upon our actions.