2012 in review: a flying year against conventional wisdom

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, conventional wisdom is "the generally accepted belief, opinion, judgment, or prediction about a particular matter". But is conventional wisdom always true? should we always follow it?

When I look back my whole 2012, these two questions come out.

After 2011 "a year of changes", I continued staying in the same city and job in 2012. I started to feel the stable status of life. Temporarily I don't need to think about where I am going and what I should do next. Remaining calm is something I appreciate now. That's what people said about becoming old. It is the fact I cannot deny. Two of my best friends got married. I went back China in January to participate a male friend's wedding. Just a week later, another female friend announced that she got married, which was completely a big surprise among our friends. When I told my family, they all asked me when it is my turn. All conventional wisdom assume that girls need to get married before 30. It doesn't matter what this marriage is about, the importance is getting married. Me..obviously against it..but I guess that I just haven't met my Mr Right yet.

The first half a year was placid. Emotionally I controlled myself and didn't let myself fall into an uncertain involvement. But all conventional wisdom seems suggest people follow their true emotion. Should I? For work, I kept my own pace. I think I am not very ambitious and I do what I suppose to do. But shouldn't people at my age behaviour more aggressively since I am at golden age for my career? In life, I still keep my way of living, a lot of music, party and enjoyment. Shouldn't I be more responsible for my owe future?

In June I flied back to Marseille for my "important" birthday. I am getting old and I am afraid to accept it. Who told me "people get smarter as you age"? I was happy to get all the wishes from all over the world..but I was just not in a big party mood..birthday is just another day...nothing changes because of it. Marseille..a part of me gonna be stay there for ever..just in one year time..it changed a lot..from the part I knew and the part I never knew. Almost all the friends I used to have there moved somewhere, I guess I have almost no reason to go there. Better, probably, memory is always the best.

My family came to visit me in July, a big group of them. For my dear mum, it was her first time to come to europe. I was so happy to show her where I am living now. But for a person above 55 years, it is not easy to be open for every new things. All conventional wisdom they used to have seems not working in western way. They could feel fresh for a while, but not accept it. Anyway, we had very good two weeks time spending together.

In August, I did skydiving immediately the day after the opening of London Olympic game. People send me sms that night whether I got the inspiration from the queen. It was such a nice experience. The first time in my life I felt like I was actually flying. If it is not such an expensive activity, I probably already became addict to it. In that short almost one minute freefall, my brain was really empty. I wish I could always be like in that one minute, empty myself and be light.

In September, I quit facebook. I am a very procrastinated person. I was thinking it in June. But delayed,delayed, and delayed, finally I made the action. Facebook absolutely is a good tool for communication and keeping network. However, it is over rated. I got tons of useless information from facebook. My attentions was distracted much more because of it. I must admit I am not a conscious people, sometime I just go to facebook and browse like 30 seconds for no reason. I wanted to give myself a piece of quite time. Do we really need that much connections? These months passed, I wasn't alone all the time. Yes, I reduced my social activities. But I have more time to spend to those people I care. Am I going back? I never close the door..so.

At the end of October, I went to Cuba with a friend, short but amazing. There were so many stories happened during that 9 days. What I thought the most was similar to what I though when I came back from Tibet. Honestly, from our point of view, people living in Cuba are poor. I guess we use our standard conventional wisdom. But they seemed much happier than those people we met everyday. Come on, people in Europe they are complaining all the time and it looks like they are living in the hell; people in east Asia never stop to work and it seems like they only care about money; people in American they are competitive for everything, shall they just be released a little bit? Most Cubans are smiling all the time, willing to help, and loving to share. What we thought about development probably could make people living better, but not be happier. Should we really have to impose our way to them? Yes they could open their country, get what we call "democracy", kids will know ipod, sps, nds like kids on the other side of the planet, whether could they keep smiling like now or become like all the others never be satisfied?

At the end of year, I took a month off and went to New Zealand. What a fantastic trip I had! Beautiful landscape, friendly people, all kinds of outdoor sports, what else you want from a holiday? My favorite place during this trip was the lake Tekapo. The lake itself is with jade blue kind of color, surrounded by year-round snow-capped mountains. Any language description sounds so plain to describe the beauty of this area. I also saw one of the most beautiful star sky in my life. Totally opposite from the astronomy knowledge I had from the north hemisphere, I saw a completely different star sky. And have you ever realized that the north and south in the north hemisphere is totally opposite from the south hemisphere. Even for these simple facts, conventional wisdom works in a different way. 

On 21st December 2012, I went to sailing around sea side of Auckland. On the boat, my friend and I were the youngest. All the rest were much older. But they seemed having so much fun and enjoying every moment of the life. As you probably know, how I am afraid of aging. When we were in the sea, far away from anywhere, I had a sudden feeling that being old is never being a difficult thing. But honestly, when I got standing on the ground, it was gone.

21st December 2012, Maya's worst apocalypse, the much-anticipated date for the end of the world finally passed. The earth still rotated on 22nd December 2012 like an any other day; 21st December, an end of nothing, perfectly described my whole 2012. Just watched the last episode of How I Met Your Mother of 2012 yesterday, even Barney stopped playing. Should we follow conventional wisdom to do what we suppose to do at certain age?

2013, keep continuing!