Put down the hammer and nails. These projects require different tools.
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Welcome to June! For many school-going children and youths in Asia, June is a month of pure bliss—a full month-long vacation break from the rigors of mind-numbingly long school hours and infuriatingly demanding educators and parents. Likewise for educators like me, June promises slightly longer periods of sleep, and the opportunities to report to work (yes, educators here don’t get month-long holidays) in more comfortable attire.
June, therefore, means that I now have a little bit more time to myself to dabble in hobbies and projects that I would normally be forced by circumstances to put on the backburner. After all, vacations are the best times to work on “manly” projects in the garage, isn’t it?
Hence, I got Google going and started reading up on the various projects that I can work on to plug the days of the vacation. Imagine my surprise then when I found that many online suggestions focused not on the typical build-a-motorcycle types of projects, but on lifestyle changes and self-growth.
Here are five of them that stood out for their exceptional relevance and importance in today’s world:
- Build a Better Rep and Drop Bad Influences
Nothing good ever comes from allowing outside influences to run his or her everyday life. Justin Beiber is a classic stellar example. By allowing juvenile-acting characters to wrap you in a cocoon of immature complacency, it is a ready-made concoction for a nuclear meltdown. As an adult, it should be high time to ditch the sophomoric friends who are dragging you down. Undoubtedly, it would be a bitch to break off these (usually) decades-long friendships, but life goes on and your personal and professional reputation would thank you immensely for it.
- Build a Better Lifestyle (and Body)
The perfect body is an illusion (and a fantastic marketing tool.) Even though modern science has made it possible to sculpt a Greek-God-worthy physique, there is still absolutely no perfect body. Therefore, why fight nature? Instead of fretting for the unattainable, why not focus your energies to eat well, sleep well, exercise sufficiently and live positively? A lifestyle that focuses on self-awareness and self-fulfillment goes a long way in helping a man accept himself, warts and all. After all, true beauty comes from the inside and not the outside.
- Build a Relationship (or Build Upon an Existing One)
It is really easy to utter “I love you” to any person, especially if you are properly inebriated. However, it takes true maturity and maximum effort to understand and practise the concept of love. Mind you, this is a lifelong practice and it should not stop at any point, for a genuine empathy for love could quickly become complacency if the process is taken for granted.
- Build a Safer Environment for Everyone to Express Themselves
In my society, an emotionally vulnerable man is still a sort of a rarity. We do show emotions, but we do so through a very narrowly-defined space that infuses this expression with a shot of passive-aggressiveness. Therefore, the lack of space to practise ensures we don’t always express our emotions constructively. In fact, in our societies, it is not uncommon to see men express themselves through a veil of anger and frustration. However, a truly mature adult man would know not only how to channel his emotions properly, he would do so in a manner that actually benefits those around him and himself. Once again, having such a firm grasp on emotions requires continual practice.
- Build an App
I would be the least likely person to say this, judging from the “F” grade I earned in my foundational computing class in high school. However, Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder once said, “I think everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer because it teaches you how to think.”
In this age of Internet of Things (IoT), the world has already embraced coding as an integral part of modern life. It is a fundamental literacy that all of us should be proficient in. Furthermore, learning to code now teaches us an iterative approach to solving problems and testing ideas. It is in actuality a fantastic launching point for critical analysis. Coding definitely is not particularly easy to learn, but that is exactly why it’s so valuable.
Fortunately, it has never been easier to learn how to code. There are now so many online courses and apps that teach the basics of coding in all popular languages. Currently, I am learning basic Java and SQL, and though it occasionally caused me no small amount of distress, I am hedging my bets that this knowledge would stand me in good stead.
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These are the five ideas that I could ‘build’ to instantly improve my life. Do note that these are not projects that you can pick up and stop at intervals. However, the vast improvements to your quality of life certainly surpass the efforts to continually work on them. In fact, it would gradually become second nature the more you ‘build’ these five ideas. How about you?
What five ideas would you ‘build’ to instantly improve your life?
Previously published on DanKoh.net
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Photo: GettyImages