putting things into perspective

In December about two years ago, I had the amazing opportunity to perform in hong kong with the Malaysian philharmonic youth orchestra (MPYO). It was a great learning experience and I have many fond memories from this time. Musicians in the orchestra had to audition for their seats in the orchestra to be decided by 2-3 MPO musicians and our conductor - no matter how many times I’ve gone through these auditions, they’re still daunting every single time. I remember I had practised really hard for this audition and it paid off, landing me a seat as co-concertmaster. Co-concertmaster meant sitting right in the front of the orchestra, second only to the concertmaster. I was horrified. I had always struggled with sight-reading in the orchestra and was hardly a consistent member in terms of skills and practice. There were so many other talented members that deserved this position I couldn’t help but think everyone else must have felt the same way.

Although I don’t tend to be a very emotional person, I sometimes still struggle with feelings of inadequacy and blowing things way out of proportion, especially with the unbelievably high academic standards medical school demands. I sat my first rounds of medical school exams last year and honestly didn't do as well as I had hoped; I started telling myself this story, imagining all the consequences and horrible things that could have gone wrong: all the if-only and what-ifs. But if I just had taken a step back, to contextualise what was actually happening, one realises that it is often our imagination, the voice in our head, that conducts the negative chatter - creating this 'suffering' out of - well - nothing much. My mum has a catchphrase for this: 'factualising™️'. The idea is that you take a step back and just state the facts of what happened, without attaching emotions or feelings to it. Forget about what you think, what others may think and just - look at it objectively - observe, not react.

I had practised hard for my audition, and the MPO musicians and my conductor had determined I was good enough to play for that position. Therefore, whatever I felt everyone else was thinking was irrelevant if not completely made up. When you begin to contextualise and put into perspective what actually has occurred objectively without indulging your emotions or the story you tell yourself, the feelings of inadequacy and overwhelm become pretty irrelevant. Whether I felt good enough or not didn’t matter and neither did what I thought other people felt matter. What matters is that I took this opportunity in stride and tried my best. Tying it back to my medical school exams - I realised how little my exams at this stage really mattered and this really helped put things into perspective. 'Factualising™️' is a step towards experiencing things the way they truly are rather than agonising over the little things. Don't suffer more in imagination than in real life.

A few notes:

Happy (belated) new year! This was more of a personal story and a lot less polished than normal but I felt it was something I really wanted to share. I was going through some of my old pictures and I stumbled across these pictures of us on tour and reminded me of this little story. My mum mentioned this idea of ‘factualising™️’ and I have no idea if it even is a real word but I couldn’t help but think this was a great catchphrase for one of the more important (and actionable) things she’s taught us. This concept is nothing mind-blowing but I hope this serves as a little reminder to put things into perspective when you feel overwhelmed or any of those funky feelings.  - Subscribe to receive notifications when I post!

P.S. Try spotting me in the picture up there!