Monday, April 02, 2007
Flowerpot Year
I now realise that I failed to write about my flowerpot year. Yes, you read it right. I declared 2007 my flowerpot year on the last day of last year. ‘I am 31 years old this year and I bloody deserve a flower pot year!’ To understand what a flower pot year is, one must understand the functions of a flowerpot. So what is a flowerpot’s main function? In short, a flowerpot is pretty. It stands in a corner and makes everything around it beautiful. And that’s what a flowerpot does. A flowerpot does not pretend to be anything other than what it is, which is being an object of beauty. And on my flowerpot year, I have decided to do nothing more than just being beautiful. I know, I know. It sounds absolutely shallow and indeed it is. I make no pretence otherwise. I have basically had it with everything around me. I have been told as a child that I should value education and independence. I was told to study hard and work hard. Be someone useful in society and contribute my share to the world. 30 years of drilling that idea of the modern day woman into my head later, I question my own happiness. Am I truly happy? Like many young women around me, I wake up to a battleground. I wrestle through terrible traffic and sit on my office table for a certain number of hours. I am told that I will be happy with the money I earn. It will make me feel independent and cherished. After work, society tells me that I should go out and have fun. I should have found my soul mate by the time I am in my late 20s and settled down happily into my domestic role as a woman. Courting days will be replaced with days of domestic bliss. Then I am told that I should have children. I will go out to work, bring home the bacon, have 2 children (preferably a boy and then a girl), sending them to tuition, enrichment classes whilst attending my very own Yoga and Pilates classes. I will co-own a house with a man I promise to share my life with and probably a decent car. Holidays. Oh let’s not forget the holidays. Now the definition of happiness includes two holidays annually. At least to Phuket, which is by far the nearest island where I can glamorously stamp my passport. While I struggle with so much to do and even more to achieve and live for, there is a genre of women who just spend their days shopping and flying to the next destination to shop. They might be named after the different expensive residential areas they live in (think of the ladies of Kensington) but they are all the same. They are rich beyond what this week’s It bag can possibly hold and they spend a career in being decorative pieces. These beings are almost like furniture but mobile with two slender legs that travel to exotic locations. I have met some who were so poorly educated to the point where they required help to fill up their immigration forms. They were flying to Paris for their summer shopping. You are laughing at this moment. I am sure you are. I know you are laughing because I have laughed too. How stupid can one be? Can’t even fill your own name and address into the correct columns? Phff! Then you, like me, sit in your office chair, surrounded by your four walls, on your high and mighty throne, thinking that you have achieved heck of a lot of things because you have an university qualification or the relevant experience in your chosen field. You spit at these women, the flowerpots, for being stupid and uneducated. But who is the fool? These women are flying from France to Australia, in pursuit of the latest fashion trend. They drink from the best crystals man make and eat at restaurants with so many Michelin stars, it’d send you spinning. And they did it all without slogging through final papers or squeezing blood and tears at some office table. What have you truly achieved? I have given up saving money this year. I have given up trying to be the smartest girl in the office. Or the best conversationalist at any given party. I have given up trying to carve a name for myself in the world. I have given up wanting to be independent and strong. I have given up being a superwoman. I just want to be a flowerpot. I just want to take it easy. This year is my flowerpot year and I am just going to celebrate being me. And what is “me”? I am a fluffy little bunny with cute bunny tail. So why don’t you come and love me?  *** Related Links
 Labels: life |
And they say "Ignorance is bliss"
^^
I think a lot can still be achieved, without striving so hard, as long as when in Rome, do as the Romans do.
I've learned that the hard way.
Dear Otto, I drop by this space almost everyday. Just quietly. :)
Being 18, I may not know what sort of life a flowerpot lives. All I have are an outsider's observations. But I know this: the grass is always greener on the other side.
For all you know, they wish they have/had the chance to actually squeeze their inspirations dry and slump over their work desks at the end of the day.
Have fun being a flowerpot and let us know how it goes. It does sound attractive, hehe..
I'm glad you're back =)
Didn't mean to sound so callous in my previous comment, I started reading your blog about 7 months ago and I couldn't quite understand how you could feel they way you feel, write the things you write.
7 months older and I feel different already! While I still do not possess the emotional depth you've got (I may never do), I think I've developed a little more capacity for thought and life, and maybe even love.
Probably because my love came in an instant, and was gone in a flash.
That's what I meant when I said that I've finally started to like your blog. It's me, not you. =P
Good luck to being a flowerpot! I'm guessing you wouldn't have to put in much effort for that =D
-Nixii-
Oh Otto, I'm so glad you didn't stop writing. :)
Being a flowerpot has it's perks and when you've strove on to try as hard as you can, you realize how much you're losing by just trying and not sitting back and taking in the breeze. :) I'm glad you've decided to do so, maybe then you'll find happiness? *hugs
Why be a flowerpot when you can be the conductor on the rostrum?
Glad to see a new post here. A flowerpot year sounds awesome. Have fun while you are at it.
Unrelated note : My AB and I have brought each other too much laughter and too much pain. But at the end of the day, we know we will still have each other's back. It's like trying to fall out of love with a best friend.
Anon #1 from the previous post.
:)
yayyy!! u didn't leave us in the lurch after all! 3 cheers for otto!
hey every girl needs to be a flowerpot once in a while, relish in your experience babes! may you be at your happiest, and yet let it be only a hint of what your true happiness to come will be like. :D
Since young, I've been taught to be an all rounder person when I grow up. And that's what I've been trying to achieve.
I'm young, attractive and caught in web of the working world. I don't understand why society has a perception that if your beautiful and you're on the top it doesn't come from your hard work but your looks?
This happens to me most of the time. These people only realise what a capable person after working with me. It annoys me tremendously. Even though I don't deny the fact that being pretty does help a little.
During weekends when I'm with my girlfriends or family, I release the pretty bimbo in me.
Bodicea
One tend to appreciate ignorance as one ages, I think.
See? I just did it. I don't really want to know if it's true. It's just nice to believe so.
Alynna
Dear Alynna, you are 18 and you are already far wiser than me in a lot of matters. The grass is always greener indeed.
Let's just all remember that everyone wakes up, choose a lifestyle they live and paid the price for it. You chose your life and paid a secret price. I did with mine.
Anon @ Nixii
You will be quite surprised how much effort needs to be put into being a flowerpot. I burst my card last month just being a flowerpot. Regret, regret...
Mae
May all of us find happiness. Isn't this what all of us crave the most?
Licko
I think sometimes women are basically creatures that seek protection and love. No matter how creative/successful/smart/dynamic/woman of the year a girl is, she would want to come home and be pampered and cherished by a man.
It is what makes us woman.
Anon
Boyfriends come and go but best friends are for life =)
Suicidal
Oh honey, I won't leave everyone in a lurch anytime soon. It isn't the most responsible thing to do, now would it?
Maybe I just need private time to deal with my own matters of the heart without having Alex read my thoughts on ANNN.
Unintentional Beauty
Born beautiful has its perks obviously. You get away with so many things, from traffic tickets to a larger ice cream scoop at your favourite ice cream stand.
There is always a price for everything. The same goes for beauty.