Intensive Reading Question - Kai Xuan (9)

What are your thoughts and feelings about being depression, loneliness, heartbreaks, being different from your peers, and having to put up a front? How do/would you deal with some of these issues?

The reason why people have depression, loneliness, heartbreaks... etc is because people cannot handle life properly. We always think that we are pushed to the limit psychologically, but in reality the things that we do in everyday life like issues with studies, friendship and work are just touching the tip of the iceberg.

Think about seeing the problems in a macro view, there are a lot more people struggling with life. What people do not know is they try to conceal their fear in front of other people. This builds up tremendous amount of stress, once we reach our breaking point, things will spiral out of control.

I think having a positive mindset can really pull yourself out of the bottomless pit of fiery tarnation that you yourself had sunken in by your own actions. One very powerful technique to use is having a set of principles in life. For example: You eat to live, not live to eat. One should not take things for granted in life and keep on thinking everyone around you owe you something, instead give back and give back, show you care about those people who have problems. If you can help someone with something, chances are they are going to help you when you are in trouble.

Things can go overboard once people get obsessed with it, we must have a mind alarm that warn us of danger. If the main characters in the book Chicken Soup always think – I must toughen up, I must toughen up, I must be stronger than everyone physically and mentally. I think that is very wrong, although toughening up gives you the edge and advantage, however, it drives people to have evil thoughts, people will then start backstabbing each other, people will intentionally harm each other in order to survive. This is morally wrong.

In conclusion, we humans are social beings. If we live in this world, we must interact with people. If everyone can live in harmony, it can certainly bring more peace and prosperity to the world. Think about why people start wars, torture people and initiate homicide. Why bring destruction if you cannot bring construction?