Do you know what I love to do best? When the lecturer is teaching in class, I love to have one side of my headphone on and a sketch book to draw my cartoons on. When the pastor is preaching in church, I love to play games on my mobile and jot down writing inspiration on mini folded papers. When the management is having a meeting, I love to draw little flowers around my notepad and think about dinner at home. Now, what impressions have I just given you?

• A lazy bum
• A restless being
• Multitasker
• Playful person
• Childish and non-serious
• A hypocrite

I like the last one because I heard the word being used on me all the time. The hypocrite who says that one should concentrate in class but ends up listening to music instead. The hypocrite who says that listening to God’s Word is important but ends up playing games instead. The hypocrite who says that paying attention in a meeting is crucial but ends up decorating notepads instead. 90% of the people I know calls me a hypocrite and I have only myself to blame – I am always too lazy to explain myself.

The brain inside my skull is one that is capable of multitasking. It is almost an essential element through which I found myself unable to do just one thing at a time. If ever someone comes up and tell me, “Just do this and this alone,” – I’ll die… of restlessness. It’s almost like having my editors coming over and telling me – “This week, you have to write one lengthy article. Hand it up by Friday.” – I’ll probably end up staring at them with a that-is-boring stare or busy myself by writing three options for them. (Perhaps that’s why they never said such things to me)

My editors used to ask me why the articles I submitted sometimes are typed in orange colour (actually they warned me, not asked me). Here’s where I share my colourful writing process. The first draft starts with black, the second draft is red, followed by blue, green, brown, purple, orange and yellow. By the time I see myself typing in barely readable yellow, I know I am in a crisis. Either I am pushing myself too hard or I am facing terrible writer’s block. Though most of the time, different colours on the same Word document means I am working on multiple articles at the same time. (Usually, I turn the font back to black before I submit to my editors but sometimes I forget.)

Multiple articles? That’s my secret advantage. I cannot work on one article alone – it’s suicidal! And it doesn’t help me to expand my creativity when my focus lies solely on one project. Thus, I write many articles at the same time, which explains how I meet crazy impossible deadlines when I was a magazine writer. If there is any one of you out there who is able to write five stories at the same time, please drop me a note. I would like to get to know more of my kind – the weird ones.

Anyway, what I am trying to say here is people often judge you from your appearances and the physical things they can see. For example, the things you do, the way you walk, how you talk, etc. But the person who truly knows who you are and why you do things the way you do is YOURSELF.

Lecturers looked at me and thought lowly of me because I wrote poems and drew comics in class. But did they know that it was because I wrote poems and drew comics that I’ve given myself a chance to absorb the subject being taught? I remember the poem I wrote and then, I’ll remember the lesson. I remember the music I was listening to and then, I’ll remember the chapter. Same goes with sitting in church. You should hear my mom grumbling about me and my mobile games during Sunday service. It disturbs her much more than it disturbs me. My fingers may be pressing away but my ears are tuned in most of the time. I laugh when the pastor shares a joke and mom would give me the do-you-know-what-you-are-laughing-about stare. Of course I know, duh!

Meetings? Oh yes, my favourite spot to draw manga. I enjoy taking minutes and writing notes during meetings. But I also enjoy drawing graphics around my scribbles. Every picture I draw represent my thought and subconscious ideas/solutions. When I look back at the pages, I could remember exactly what the people are talking about and their expressions during the meeting.

So yes, I may look like a hypocrite but I really am not. It’s just that I have different ways of cultivating efficiency in my life, different ways of doing things. It may not be acceptable, I agree. That’s why I know my limits when people approach me to talk about things like these. If my explaination is not reasonable to them, then fine – I’ll just adapt to others. At the end of the day, I just have to remind myself that different people have different perceptions on things. You either let them hear you out, or you hear them out. But remember, what matters the most is how you perceive yourself. You know yourself best!

Originally written by Gina Yap Lai Yoong © 2007

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