Reflection: Getting Through Thanatophobia

[Death Anxiety] Also referred to as thanatophobia (fear of death), death anxiety is distinguished from necrophobia, which is a specific fear of dead or dying people and/or things; the latter is the fear of others who are dead or dying, whereas the former concerns one's own death or dying. - Wikipedia

I've been dealing with some less-than-happy thoughts lately. These unhappy thoughts have been plaguing me for months. Yes, my feelings are related to the quotation above. I've been having Death Anxiety. I'm scared about death and the process of dying not just for myself but for every one of us that has to go through with it eventually. It's driven me mad for the longest time but I think for now, I'm able to stop myself from spiraling out of control, hopefully for good which is why I'm writing about it. I'm no longer afraid to open up about what's really on my mind.

I started having Death Anxiety (or Thanatophobia if you want to get romantic) about a couple of months ago when I had to take care of my lola at her place. Nothing bad happened to her. She's still fine and healthy as of the writing of this blog post. But regardless, it was during that time I realized that life would not go on forever. I'm already 24. I'm no longer a kid. My parents are getting older and so are my sisters. Time is ruthlessly marching forward every second and we have to make every moment count. It was truly agonizing for me to learn of this because I've reached the point where I just want time to stop; I'm perfectly happy with where I am and my family are in life.

A long life is something we all desire (well, all of us that aren't suffering from feelings of depression anyway) but no matter how long we can make our lives be, it will still come to a dreadful end. And how dreadful it is when you think about it! Eventually, we'll all face a fate that I don't think any of us are ready for. None of us on planet Earth have been dead before except for the very few people that went through some sort of near-death experience. They may recall what it feels like to die, but even then we can't rely on their accounts of what happens because technically they haven't been truly dead yet.

I think my mental health medicines really worked me over. Instead of having suicidal thoughts, I've been afraid of death like it was a corona virus plague. Being dead scares me, and the process of dying scares me even more. Who's to say we aren't eternally trapped in suffocating blackness when we die? We'll be taking our last breaths after all. What does it feel like to slowly lose our senses over our bodies? At best there is an afterlife, but what if there isn't? Hopefully death feels like an eternal slumber if there is nothing that comes after death.

This lengthy blog post doesn't have to come to a grim end. I've learned a lesson from all my overthinking over this matter. For now I keep all these terrible thoughts buried away by keeping busy, and by keeping my Faith. At least these thoughts have motivated me to live my best life while I still possibly can. Be good to others, be great in what I do. I still think life would be so much more fun if it didn't have a deadline, but it does so we might as well enjoy it to the fullest while we still can.

Reflection: 2020 New Year Essay

Almost everyone has been posting their end-of-the-year essays on social media so I thought I'd write my own even if it's a couple of days late. If you're one of the people who wrote about their experiences with 2019 then chances are I've seen your essay on my news feed. I've noticed that depending on who you ask, 2019 was either a good year or a bad year. It was a good year for those who were able to achieve great things within the year, and it was a bad year for others because they lost loved ones. My condolences goes out to those who lost their loved ones in the last year.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, 2019 for me was a year that was full of ups and downs. So much so that the ups and downs balance each other out. That's not entirely true. What I said was a very broad generalization that doesn't even begin to cover what I've witnessed in 2019.

I've experienced hurt, joy, depression, anxiety, love, stability, instability, freedom and a dreadful feeling of oppression in 2019. Not necessarily in that order. The highlight of my year happened around August, ironically when I was sent to the psych ward. While others would call that a bad event in my life, I actually think that it was a blessing. Not only was I able to curb my awful behaviors stemming out from my deteriorated mental health after I got out of the psych ward, but I was also able to meet people just like me who showed me I'm not alone during my time in it.

My lowest point in the year happened prior to my incarceration in the psych ward. I blame my troubled mental health for causing such misery on my part despite being fortunate enough to be financially stable. I was seeing everything through dark-tinted lenses; it was so difficult for me to look at the bright side of things because I couldn't see any bright sides at all.

If I was to graph my experience with this year, I would say that the months of January-May are tumultuous but generally reaching very high and very low points, while the days from June-July is my lowest point, and then the days from July-August are the highest point. The rest of the year sort of plateaus in the middle.

Despite all this, I can fortunately say that 2019 has been a year to remember happily for me. The more I think about it objectively, the more I look at the year in hindsight through the pictures and videos stored in my Google Photos account, the more I see that there are far more good things that happened that outweigh the bad. I'm thankful for all the great things that happened and I hope that more great things will come in 2020!

A Happy New Year smile from me, my mother, and my sister! :)

Technology: Different softwares used in different companies

I'm someone who's worked in many different places. I've stayed in one large company for a long time but I've earned my keep in a bunch of other smaller companies as well. While there are clearly objective differences between my longest stint and my shorter stints, there are some things that I've noticed that people tend to not bring up when they move around different jobs. Here are some of the few things I've noticed when it comes to the tools.

1. Outlook vs Gmail

The large company I stayed at lived and breathed Microsoft's Outlook. Smaller companies on the other hand used Gmail to work. Outlook is arguably more outdated but it's more systematized. Gmail is more at the forefront but that doesn't mean the company itself is ahead of the game, especially if everyone is just using their personal gmail accounts instead of the business package that Google offers.

2. Internet Explorer vs Google Chrome

My old large company made us work on Internet Explorer, despite all the comments and jokes about it being so slow online. It's the default browser we use to access web applications even though Google Chrome does a better job at it. I reckon it's because IE is less hassle on the digital infrastructure of the company.

3. Emails vs Workhub Apps

My old huge company didn't have any Workhub Apps. All the work was discussed through email. Younger and smaller companies opt to use workhub sort of apps like Podio to communicate and get work done. Podio wasn't the only workhub I used mind you. Transcription companies have their very own specialized WorkHub apps that deal with audio files.


That's about all that I can mention right now. Why did I bring this up? Because I worked at my old job for nearly 2 years now. I can't help but notice how much I miss using those "outdated" tools like IE and Outlook. Maybe they weren't so bad regardless of all the complaints online. Sure I'd agree with those memes if I tried to work on my laptop, but the IT team at my old company found a way to optimize the performance of all computers in the office so that they all work well in unison.

I guess I'm writing this short blog post just to say I took them for granted. Moral of the story is never take things for granted. Thank you for reading.