Dear friend,

Recently, I’ve been feeling a little down. Not all the time nor most of the time. Just sometimes when I was by myself, commuting or trying to sleep. It’s been a long time (almost a year) since I last wrote at Not Alone Club. A lot have happened. At times, I found myself wanting to tell you something, then realised there was a lot of contexts you need to know to understand that “something”. So, most of the time, I just didn’t write at all.

For most of Not Alone Club, I was a student. From my times in A-Levels (back when it was known as thomasforearth) to my journey through university as an engineering student. I have always felt the need to do something different. To be different.

In 2019, the drive to strive took the front seat when a young entrepreneur came to my college and gave a talk. One of the lines he left us with was inspiring yet scary at the same time. Paraphrased,

Look around you. Your peers, same course or not, are going to be your competitors in a few years. You may be eyeing for the same jobs. Same companies. Same resources.

What makes you different?

What makes you different?

I can’t tell if there was a pivotal moment that sparked my desire to be different, but this would be the catalyst.

I remember writing for Asian Scientist Writing Prize (ASWP) and stupidly submitted a word doc instead of PDF because I thought they would want to edit it just in case. Well, I doubt I would have made it past 400+ other entries even in PDF. But I was glad to have done it.

Later that year, I remember having the courage to knock on a professor’s door on an unscheduled visit (context: we don’t know each other. I stumbled upon his office and tried to meet him a few times but kept missing him) introducing myself, and asking for an unpaid, voluntary internship at his research centre on carbon capture and utilisation. All while being a pre-university kid who knew nothing technical about that topic and didn’t need to do it anyway.

I remember starting writing online at thomasforearth, driven heavily by Thomas Frank’s blog post on building a personal blog and some relevant content by Ali Abdaal.

I remember seeing people my age or younger doing great things in the world. I read about a few of them when drafting for ASWP. There was a sense of inferiority and restlessness on wanting to be someone like that. To be different.

Of course, life got in the way. As an amateur in coping mechanisms, I often chose doom-scrolling and/or binge-watching to chase after pleasures or - as I eventually learned from Dr. K - to chase after the absence of pain. Ups and downs. Sometimes coherent and productive. Sometimes fearful, stressed and retreating back to the poor coping mechanisms which served yet numbed me.

That went on to university days. Both the drive to strive and be different, and the imperfect journey of handling negative emotions and shits that happened in life.

As the four-year chapter at university came to an end, I felt a little disheartened, tinged with fear, from time to time.

I

I remember learning from a podcast somewhere that being in university is easier than “entering society”, as one puts it. While college isn’t for everyone, it is far easier for most because we have a common goal clearly defined for us — to graduate and to do it well.

How well depends on the student. It could mean the academic excellence of getting on the Dean’s list every year, undertaking an internship every semester break, and graduating at the top of the class (or at least first class) with your professors praying for success in your future endeavours.

It could also mean making good memories with peers, going through the good and bad times of being a student, venting about your uncooperative teammate(s), working on assignments late at night with your friends, and generally living your best uni life.

No matter what, the end goal is always the same — to graduate and to do it well. You don’t need to come up with it. You don’t even need to consciously make it a goal. It is a given fact that no one has to bring up.

But when you step into the real world, the society, the “big bad world” as my professor likes to call it, you may realise that the end goal becomes less clear. For some, it is to earn good money to do what they want, whenever they want, and wherever they want. For others, it is to have their dream jobs and do meaningful things that make life worth living.

The point is, the options of end goals are generally far greater than studying at university. Depending on what kind of life you are living now, your goals may vary by a huge degree. In fact, the higher you are up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the greater the things you want to do and can do.

Coming out of university, the questions shifted from:

“What modules should I take?”

“Which assignment should I do first?”

to:

“What do you want?”

“How do you live?”

II

Many things have happened since I last wrote here. I did an internship in a cool company with great people who taught me that data is what guides meaningful changes. The good old, “In God we trust. All others have to bring data” — I learned that from Don’t Trust Your Gut by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, then coincidentally hearing the same thing from my director of engineering department.

Completing the uni life in June and, as my personal tutor at university said, “finally able to do what you (I) want”, I took a break before taking up a short industry experience project consulting for an Australian agri-tech startup. It was my first official step to learn more about data. The first shot at climbing the mountain called data science.

Knowing me, learning data science and languages like Python by myself would be a sprint that would end in failure. Remember, poor coping mechanisms. I’m still dealing with them. Add a mix of procrastination, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome — and nothing meaningful would get done.

So, I signed up for a government program aimed to get youths (like me) into tech. I took up a certification on data analytics with Python for a month (still completing it because, remember, poor coping mechanisms and…you get it now). The program has a unique element that requires you to complete an attachment (traineeship) with a company for three months thereafter. You learn as you work in the tech field of your choice in the real world.

That’s what I’m doing now. As a trainee in data engineering and AI, I’ve been learning a lot that it surprised me sometimes when I thought about trying Python for the first time back in August.

Alright, I believe I have digressed and build enough context to make a full circle in our story.

Let’s start again.

III

Recently, I’ve been feeling a little down. Not all the time nor most of the time. Just sometimes when I was by myself, commuting or trying to sleep. It’s been a long time (almost a year) since I last wrote at Not Alone Club. A lot have happened.

As I’m slowly becoming an ex-trainee and thus jobless, I wonder what I can do next. It’s funny to think about how, back in university, I was the guy who desired freedom and being different. My personal tutor even left me with a positive message of “you can finally do what you want”.

I felt both thrilled and afraid.

When I came out of university, out of a relatively structured environment with a clear end goal, I desired a similar structure in my life. I wanted to know what to do and where doing it would lead me to.

Perhaps, joining the Australian consulting project was an example. Joining the government program was another.

It was the hypocrisy of wanting freedom from structures and wanting structures in freedom.

I wonder what I can do next. What I should do next.

Getting a good job is the most obvious answer. But what kind? What is a good job? (Spoiler: check out 80,000 Hours). One that pays well? One that lets you “follow your passion”?

Lately, I have been browsing LinkedIn feed on my phone (though not addictive enough to doom-scroll). Remember when I read about people my age or younger doing great things in the world? I still see people like them and feel similar to back then.

Sometimes I get pumped up and do something. Sometimes I feel dejected and wonder if I am doing enough. Because when I look at others, I don’t feel that I am.

The good, old act of comparing oneself to others is never going to go away. I try not to think much about it. I try to write more positively but it’s two in the morning now since inspiration came knocking a little past midnight.

Still, let’s end this story on a good note.

Am I doing enough?

On one hand, there is a notion to appreciate being enough. “You are enough” is one of the popular lines in the world of mental health and self-care. A similar version is “just be yourself” because you are enough just the way you are.

While I get the intention, the idea can be detrimental. If one, for (an extreme) example, thinks living off their parents forever and doing nothing meaningful all day is enough, that is a terrible use of “you are enough” and “just be yourself”.

Zooming out, the world will cease to progress if everyone thinks this way. As Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money (and recently The Art of Spending Money) said in a podcast not long ago, which I paraphrased,

The world is a better place because there are people in this world who wake up and feel that this is not enough.

So, how do we solve this? How do we appreciate being enough while, at the same time, fulfil our desire for a better world and a better life, because they are not enough?

As I write to this point, I remember watching an anime that left a mark in my life. A Place Further than the Universe (宇宙よりも遠い場所) was the anime that made me cry the night before my IELTS exam. After finishing the series, I watched a few videos about it to reminisce, one of which highlighted the main character, Kimari’s great fear.

Am I doing enough?

To that, the narrator said,

I keep coming back to my original question, “Am I doing enough?”. Enough according to who? Myself or these external pressures? It shouldn’t be about easy A’s or ticking off life benchmarks like a shopping list. Kimari didn’t go to Antartica to measure up to the people around her. Quite the opposite. She embarked on this journey because she wanted to, she had to. And in doing so, discovered her place within herself.

Maybe you don’t have to travel to the ends of the earth to locate that. Even so, we all have to find that place, our place, further than the universe.

“Am I doing enough?” is a flawed question, that is, if you don’t know what “enough” means to you. Its definition can vary with time, the context or the area of life. Like the meaning of life, you can’t live a meaningful life if you don’t know what “a meaningful life” means to you.

You can’t feel enough if you don’t know what it means to you.

While you and I are leading two different lives, I find Derek Sivers’ words applicable in most of our lives.

Never forget why you are doing what you’re doing. Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn’t that enough?

It reminds you to define your “enough”. It also gives you some ideas of what “enough” could mean when viewing your life as a whole, and when struggling in the face of adversity.

With this in mind, I feel better. I hadn’t thought about that line before we came to that point in the story. I forgot. But writing this somehow reminded me about it.

It’s not about building a strong LinkedIn profile or landing a dream job. It’s about building great relationships and maintaining them, doing things that could sustain yourself and perhaps your loved ones, and making good memories together.

In my journey of trying to live a better story, that is what enough means to me.

So, when shits happen, when things don’t go your way, the first line of Derek’s words come into mind,

Never forget why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Remember what enough means to you, ignore the bells and whistles, and make sustainable progress towards it while enjoying the journey along the way towards the destination.

And when you get there, when you get to where “enough” means to you, cease and appreciate. For both the journey and destination are equally meaningful parts of a good story you’re trying to live.

—Thomas

P.S. Have a good life ahead.

Okay, this may sound a little far-fetched. A little cringe, if you will.

”What The Three-Body Problem Taught Me About Life” was the initial title, but I left out the last two words as every time “life” was mentioned I would feel the “self-help” type of cringe. It's an overused word.

*Edit: I put them back in.*

Okay, it’s just me.

Lately, I started reading The Three-Body Problem trilogy by Liu Cixin. I had watched some movie adaptations and reviews about it but never the books. As a fan of sci-fi and fantasy, it was a great read to end 2024 with.

Finishing the read on The Dark Forest (second book), I couldn’t wait and just binged through the plot summary of the final book on Wikipedia. Worth it.

*Spoiler ahead (?)*

Anyway, the three-body problem was first brought up in the first book of the same name. There is a galaxy about four light years away from our solar system, with three Suns orbiting each other.

In a n-body problem, having three bodies (here, the suns) is chaotic.

With two bodies, given some initial conditions (like, the same mass, stationary, etc.), you can easily predict how they will move in general — there is a general solution (mathematical equation) to a two-body problem.

As of writing, the three-body problem has no general solution (watch a TED-Ed video), which means you can never predict how the three bodies move.

What you can find is the “specific” solution. A bunch of it. It means you can tell how the three bodies move in some cases. It’s just that you can’t generalize it and always be right.

🏠What this taught me

Okay, getting into the cringed part.

As I munched on a sponge cake in the morning of 2025, I realized something.

Isn’t life just like the three-body problem?

In the first book, the protagonist was in a VR(?) simulation game experiencing the Trisolaris (the planet in the galaxy with the three suns). A bunch of players were attempting to solve the three-body problem, each with amazing ideas that my low-dimensional mind could probably never think of.

Though promising at first, everyone failed to wholly predict the movement of the suns. As my low-dimensional mind could understand, the general approach was to collect data and come up with a model — based on those historical data — that is always right in its predictions.

To picture this, we can imagine every solution as a number. Say, in random order and given an initial condition x, the numbers you see are as follows: -

4, 10, 8, 256, 2, 98, 94, 4, 2, …

Chaotic. But, ignoring the order, you can tell every number is an even number. Hence, given an initial condition x, the general solution is (or can be) 2x.

That’s your general model. No matter what x it is, you can always predict what the outcome is. An even number.

Maybe I over-simplified this, but you get what I mean.

In the game, some people tried to identify patterns in historical data and propose general models, but all failed.

Because historical data doesn’t tell us everything. If the system is a bitch, it can surprise you one day with an odd number in your set of historical even numbers.

Then, your general model falls apart.

In the three-body problem, at least in the simulation game, this is what happens.

Except that it is much, much more chaotic.

So that brought me to think, again,

Isn’t life just like the three-body problem?

But much, much more unpredictable, if not similar?

If you wrap up the thing we call “life” as a whole, and try to come up with a general solution to — for lack of better words — “win at life”, can you?

Should you eat the cake?

What to do after graduation?

What is the meaning of life?

…

Is there a general model that always tells you the right answer to every problem in life?

As far as I know, likely no.

In some cases, maybe. I suppose the people who came before us — our ancestors, our parents, and society in general — have tried to solve this “life” problem.

And in their countless attempts, since the beginning of mankind, they came up with some specific solutions (“advice”) to some specific cases in life, based on historical data which my low-dimensional mind calls “experience”.

You shouldn’t eat the high-sugar cake (specific solution) when you have diabetes (specific case).

Well, you enjoy cooking and you went to a culinary school (specific case), try becoming a chef (specific solution).

To serve your god(s). For my cat. For good food. Loved ones. Books. Traveling. Blablabla.

As much as you hear these specific solutions (“advice”), I believe someone also once told you that,

“There is no right or wrong.”

“Everyone is different.”

To me, this is saying,

there is no general solution to the “life” problem.

Just like the three-body problem.

Nice. In a way.

Because, as hard as it sounds to be true, you have the freedom to decide.

Just make sure you can deal with the results.

However chaotic.

Happy New Year!

—Thomas🦙

👋 Hey, you little stranger

I started writing again🎉

After the last story in May 2024, I decided to take a break which somehow took me into 2025. All this time, I kept telling myself to have more drafts ready to publish first before I started posting again.

And that never happened.

I also put off my little #buildinpublic project on LinkedIn for as long. I told myself a similar thing. Be clear about why I am doing that and have a plan before getting into posting again. That never happened, too.

I guess life, in general, doesn’t always turn up the way you predict it to be. Just like the three-body problem. The idea to write this just came up to me eating that sponge cake on the first morning of 2025. I just found myself writing it down, which eventually became a story worth publishing.

Maybe that sponge cake has something in it.

What’s next on Not Alone Club? Well, I haven’t thought about it yet. Just wing it as usual? Probably not. I want to enjoy writing again. With 88 readers now (damn, that’s surreally awesome!) and a recent domain (notalone.club) renewal, I want to write more (and make my money woof worth).

There is no general solution for this.

Let’s try some specific ones.

Thanks for reading, and have a great year ahead!

🏆 Weekly gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a video that blew my mind. Here’s the gold this week 👇

Around an hour into 2025, I was reading How Was Your Day by Boey, the author of the When I Was a Kid series. I ended up finishing it in one sitting and went to bed around 3 a.m.

Calling it beautiful doesn’t do it justice enough. In Boey’s own words,

Ive never worked in an office. Not the types i see when i go to a government building, or when i get a chance to visit work places (I was lucky- i found work in animation making video games overseas and it was a lot of fun). During the pandemic I got to know a girl from malaysia who was nervous about starting her job back home, and i was secretly writing about her first week at work to present to her as a gift, kinda like a “you made it thru week one” thing. But a week turned into two, two into a month, and soon i found myself wrapped up in her world. Unfolded over a series of text, this is about navigating a terrible job, managing family expectations, money, seeking love, feeling lost, and wanting a better life elsewhere. It was way more than i was prepared to write.

Best book to start 2025 with.

🎁 Credits

• Liu Cixin — for writing The Three-Body Problem trilogy.

• TED-Ed — for Newton’s three-body problem explained.

• Llia Yu — for the cover image.

• Boey — for writing How Was Your Day.

• Friend — for the sponge cake.

I had a call last week. It was a quick chat with a recruiter from the company I had applied to intern in.

I woke up and saw the invitation for the call scheduled in the afternoon. It was exhilarating, as the company has been one which I wish to spend my three months interning in. One that would likely end my Internship Hunt project by achieving its goal — "get a good internship".

I was thrilled. Yet beneath those feelings of joy and excitement, there lay nervousness. I told Tortilla that I had - for many times in the past - cherished something too much that I lost it as a result. Tortilla responded by ignoring me and continued doing his own cat thing. He probably thought I was being ironic and counterintuitive too.

But I remember back in A-Level (AS specifically), I prepared a lot for the Pure Mathematics 1 paper, which was easy, since I often scored well - sometimes 100% - in the mock exams.

I hoped it would turn out well. Yet within this hope lay the fear that things may not turn out well.

What if I messed it up?

What if I made careless mistakes?

Ironically, it was the fear that things may not turn up well that led to things not turning up well.

I had high expectations, and thus I got nervous. In the end, 61/75 for that paper.

A similar thing happened to the short call. I was hopeful that it would turn out well. And within this hope, yet again, lay the fear that things may not turn out well.

Even when I tried to calm myself down, even as I tried to retain a rational mind and prepare well (and talk to Tortilla the cat), I was still feeling insecure deep down.

When the call came, I messed up the first impression. It was a rookie mistake of a formal interaction where you were being passive and answered with short words that left the other side needing to carry the conversation.

I had a lot of wasted words. It was not really mumbling. It felt more like beating around the bushes with words to stall yet didn't answer the questions. I probably spoke louder than I needed to, too.

Most importantly, I likely misrepresented myself. There were things that I said that weren't entirely true. Not because I lied, and the content wasn't right. Rather, the content was right, but the way of presenting it made it sound as if I meant something else.

For instance, when I was asked to give a quick self-intro, I mentioned that I chose this course at university because of the scholarship. Although I followed up immediately by stating the actual intention - wanting to be in the community that drives real changes towards a sustainable future than merely advocating for it, I messed up. Because the way I said it - the order, the words, the intonation, etc. - it was as if I did it solely for the money.

Even though there was no restriction on the type of courses in the scholarship application. Even though I secured it because the interviewers back then liked the intention and were confident from the things I had done to back up that intention — to drive real changes than merely advocating.

That's one example.

I came out of the call feeling disappointed. I thought I had gotten over the phase. The phase of not being able to present myself coherently. I could give spontaneous presentations. Having many late-night talks with friends has improved and proven my articulation. Writing at Not Alone Club and journaling daily have strengthened and proven my articulation.

But I was wrong.

🌓 Expectation vs reality

"Was it your first phone interview?", Slothy asked.

Indeed. It was. I thought back to the first time I prepared for an interview. It was back in the days when I applied for universities. When a friend mentored me with mock interviews, I realized that I couldn't present myself well, too. I struggled to speak coherently. I couldn't answer "tell me about yourself" without stumbling and forgetting what I could talk about.

Back then, I thought the same. I thought listening to podcasts daily had given me the confidence and ability to speak well. But doing it actually? Disappointing. It made me realize that being coherent and articulative in informal, day-to-day life is different from being coherent and articulative in formal scenarios like an interview.

Simply put it, you can speak well to a close friend. But you probably never needed to answer "tell me about yourself" with a friend. Let alone in a formal setting.

Looking at these points, things became clear.

🙌 Don't be serious. Be sincere.

I remember the kind recruiter gave a warm piece of advice,

You don't need to take it seriously. It’s not an interview. It's just a small chit-chat session to get to know each other.

Indeed, she was right. I suppose she felt it, too, that somewhere during the call, I was taking it too seriously.

When drafting this story, I thought about the evidence that mistakenly taught me that I can speak and articulate well.

The spontaneous presentations.

Late-night talks/debates with friends.

Writing at Not Alone Club and journaling daily.

Some of them were informal. They had low to no stakes to worry about. However, some were consequential, like a university scholarship interview I went through before securing it.

Why did I do well in them?

What sets them apart?

To answer these questions, I went on the time machine once again to the second phase of A-Level (A2). There was a paper called Pure Mathematics 3 (P3). It was several times harder than Pure Mathematics 1 (P1) which I messed up with a 61/75.

But, in that harder paper, I scored 75/75.

Sure. I prepared well. But didn't I do the same (or even more) for P1?

Being in a Further Math group back then, surrounded by all the Math Gods, I saw my self-esteem plummeting many times. Math became a subject I feared because I couldn't be sure I was right when solving a problem. I couldn't understand as quickly as all the Math Gods did.

Still, I did well.

Because, as our boy Ali Abdaal put it, I took it sincerely. Be it the 75/75 paper or the scholarship interview, the stakes were high, yet I took them all sincerely.

No one wants to play Monopoly with someone who takes the game too seriously. We've all played those games; the serious person cares a little too much about winning, and they suck the energy out of the room. Their obsessive quoting from the rulebook regarding whether you're really allowed to collect £200 for passing GO via a Chance card gets in the way of everyone else's fun.

But neither do we want to play a game with someone who’s completely uncaring. Those people don't engage with the game, and don't make an active effort to play to the best of their ability. They don't congratulate you when you manage to get out of jail, even though you refused to pay the £50 exit fee and instead went for the bold, daring strategy of rolling a double. They're no fun either.

No, the most fun people to play games with are people who play sincerely. They take the game seriously enough to be fully engaged in the experience, but not so seriously that they become fixated on winning or losing. They're able to laugh and joke around, to make light of their mistakes, and to enjoy the company of their friends without becoming overly attached to winning (or the rules).

—Ali Abdaal, Feel Good Productivity

In the times when the stakes were high, yet I did well, I did not worry much. The worries were still there, yet I focused on the tasks at hand and the journey, rather than being engrossed with the result.

The funny thing is Ali's book gave a good example that hits home with every word.

If you were approaching a job interview sincerely rather than seriously, then instead of becoming overly nervous and stressed about the outcome, you might focus on being present and engaged. You might also try to connect with the interviewer on a more personal level, rather than simply trying to impress them with your credentials.

By doing so, you might be more likely to approach the interview with lightness and ease, and to come away from the interview feeling more confident and satisfied with your performance.

Had I chosen to do that, the short call would have come off as natural. Rather than saying words to score brownie points, it would be as natural as talking to a friend.

Honest, genuine, and sincere.

As if there was no fear. No worries. No stakes.

And when you can do that, the outcome takes care of itself.

—Thomas🦙

👋 Hey, you little stranger

Being on an unannounced break for a month now, I have begun to accept one thing.

Consistency isn’t about the streak, but the trajectory.

Some days are going to be bad. Sometimes weeks. Sometimes months. Life and work get in the way and *poof*, we must choose what to sacrifice to keep moving forward.

In the past month, I decided to let go of weekly publishing to make time elsewhere. And now, with finals coming up in late May, I wonder if I should keep this break going or get out of it.

Then again, to slightly modify James Clear’s words in Atomic Habits,

You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results streak.

If I have a good story worth publishing, I put it up. Even if I only have one, and not enough to fulfill my dream of “write many in one go, and schedule the publishing in advance”, it’s okay.

Because consistency is less about getting a post up every Thursday. To me, now, it’s about ensuring I don’t abandon writing for too long that it becomes forever.

Let’s keep going! 🦦

🏆 Weekly gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a video that blew my mind. Here’s the gold this week 👇

🎁 Credits

• Recruiter — for the kind advice and bearing with me.

• Cover photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash.

• Ali Abdaal — for writing Feel Good Productivity.

• Slothy — for lending an ear.

There were times when I thought going to university was inefficient. Because all systems — including that of education — are often “one-size-fits-all”. Hence, some of us fit in well and thrive, while some are left behind.

But there were also times when I cherished this stage of life I was blessed with. Not because of the knowledge acquired within the classroom, but far beyond it.

How you handle difficult projects.

How you lead a disciplined life when no one is watching.

How you interact with people and build relationships that last forever.

These are lessons you never see in the learning outcomes of a university program, but lessons that — in my opinion — matter so much more.

This story is about one of them.

🙂 I was mad

My third year as a chemical and environmental engineering student started with a bang. Bang-ed by an engineering design project called DPX.

(D)esign (P)roject. Get it?

As for the X, I have no idea what it means. It's probably there to make it sound cooler. But I'm starting to think it might have meant e(X)treme or something.

Nice try, professors.

Each team was assigned an acid to produce. Not literally, but as though you were real engineers tasked with designing an acid manufacturing plant in real life.

Process synthesis, market analysis, site studies, equipment design, process control, heat integration, etc. A bunch of work that made me believe that X indeed stands for "extreme".

Along the way, a teammate made a terrible mistake. For the lack of better words, a mistake that “pissed me off greatly”.

Imagine mediocre writing that needed intense quality control (QC), i.e., rewriting. Imagine going to a meeting and playing games on the phone. Imagine doing literature studies about using benzoic acid to produce something else when the assignment was to produce benzoic acid.

Do they justify my choice of words, "pissed me off greatly" now?

I was mad. My team lead knew that.

He tried to resolve it by organizing QC sessions to guide that friend in fixing the work live.

Yet I was still upset. Not at my team lead, but at the fact that the work needed intense QC in the first place. It took up time and resources that would have been better spent elsewhere.

I vented my frustration at the team lead, arguing that the problem existing in the first place was the problem itself.

Why do such people exist?

Why must we suffer from their existence?

My team lead acknowledged it. He saw what I saw. He felt how I felt.

Still, he went back to ensuring the QC was done and the work was submitted on time.

👁️ Did you see it?

Did you see what I was highlighting here?

I was mad, and I believe my team lead felt the same.

However, one thing sets us apart — our approach to the problem.

I was focusing on the problem, while he was focusing on the solution.

When writing this story, I reflected on my approach.

Was I wrong?

No. Not entirely.

There is nothing wrong with looking at a problem and feeling upset about it. For I — like you — am a human capable of emotions and shall remain one for the rest of my life.

But what I did wrong was being too engrossed with the problem.

We have all heard of "prevention is better than cure". Being fixated on a problem is along the line of "prevention". You analyze it to figure out why it has come to be, as to prevent it from happening next time.

But when shit has already happened, you really should solve it first before thinking about preventing it.

Did you get what I mean?

My team lead did well in this. He was one step ahead — acknowledged the problem, then put the emotions aside to focus on solving it first, before coming back to review why it happened and how to prevent it next time.

To me, it was admirable.

🪴Takeaway

If you have a flat tyre, you may react with frustration. It’s also a natural tendency to wonder why it happened in the first place.

Was it a nail? Did someone sabotage you?

But focusing on the problem now — the flat tyre and not being able to drive — won’t get you anywhere. The only way out is to focus on the solution first — changing the flat tyre.

In the end, our problem was resolved, albeit with struggles.

Since then, I learned that this friend who "pissed me off greatly" wasn't the right person to be responsible for writing. As such, in the latter part of the project — which we’re working on now — he was assigned to what he does better.

It was another lesson to know what someone is good at, and let him/her shine.

This is prevention. Here, “prevention is better than cure” is right. Because you are now analyzing the problem retrospectively. You are focusing on the solved problem to prevent it from happening again.

But when the problem is yet to be solved, it helps to focus on the immediate cure — solving it — and leave the post-mortem to a later date.

Which are you focusing on now?

—Thomas🦙

👋 Hey, you little stranger

Although I missed the deadline by a day, I’m glad to publish today, especially during a period when work piles up and deadlines loom.

May we do well in these trying times.

See you next week!

🏆 Weekly gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a video that blew my mind. Here’s the gold this week 👇

Since this week’s story mentioned anger, I revisited this story from a year ago. I often found myself remembering it whenever I was upset about something unfair someone seemingly did.

It calms the mind, letting the anger subside while allowing empathy to seep in and preventing you from overreacting.

Hope it helps you, too.

🎁 Credits

• Sebastian Huxley on Unsplash — cover photo.

• He who “pissed me off greatly” — content idea.

• My team lead — for teaching a valuable lesson.

• Going to university — for making this possible.

It was 10 p.m.

Sitting on a couch at university, I wasn't feeling great.

Today was a day to write. A day to tell a story. But I couldn't make it.

I had spent the past hour racking my brain, rummaging for something I would be satisfied with, yet to no avail.

3 meters away, a guy was speaking on a phone. One seat away, two people were talking to each other. I was distracted. I was low-key annoyed. But not at them. I was upset because I was right there — 2 hours before midnight — yet felt so uninspired to write that I could be easily distracted by my surroundings.

*Sigh*

Let's go home.

🏠 And home, I went

Reaching home, I felt disappointed. It was painful to miss a publishing deadline. When my housemates were chilling in the living room, I tried to do the same. But the disappointment and the "pain" eventually caved in, and I felt mentally disturbed.

Why did this happen again?

Wasn't it my goal to batch-write and schedule ahead, so that the stories could still be told even if I was busy?

Didn't I take the two-week hiatus partly to do that?

Ah shit, the bathroom light isn't working.

After dealing with the bathroom light, I took a shower. In the shower, I thought about this obstacle I was facing.

Three years since the start of my writing journey, I have tried to hit each deadline and failed several times. Sometimes, missing one would take a toll on me — I would fall into a slump and couldn't get anything done the next day. Sometimes, I would disappear for weeks or months, convincing myself I was taking a hiatus, albeit unannounced.

Then one idea hit me.

This is a good thing to talk about.

🧗‍♂️ The obstacle is the way

Lately, I have been reading The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday. The idea is as simple as the title suggests. To help you understand it, what's better than a little story Ryan told?

There is an old Zen story about a king whose people had grown soft and entitled. Dissatisfied with this state of affairs, he hoped to teach them a lesson. His plan was simple: He would place a large boulder in the middle of the main road, completely blocking entry into the city. He would then hide nearby and observe their reactions.

How would they respond? Would they band together to remove it? Or would they get discouraged, quit, and return home?

With growing disappointment, the king watched as subject after subject came to this impediment and turned away. Or, at best, tried halfheartedly before giving up. Many openly complained or cursed the king or fortune or bemoaned the inconvenience, but none managed to do anything about it.

After several days, a lone peasant came along on his way into town. He did not turn away. Instead he strained and strained, trying to push it out of the way. Then an idea came to him: He scrambled into the nearby woods to find something he could use for leverage. Finally, he returned with a large branch he had crafted into a lever and deployed it to dislodge the massive rock from the road.

Beneath the rock were a purse of gold coins and a note from the king, which said:

"The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition."

It was a great story to sum up the book. While we cannot change what happens to us, we can control how we perceive them. And, as a result, how we respond to them.

When we perceive obstacles as opportunities, how we respond to them turns from whining and doing nothing to feeling excited about capitalizing on them. In other words,

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.

—Marcus Aurelius

🦙 What does it mean to me?

In the shower, I was happy I finally had something to talk about. But more than that, I was excited to practice "The Obstacle Is The Way".

Meeting a publishing deadline has been an obstacle for me. I remember it being on Sundays, and me writing at night with few hours to go. I was rushing things and what came out didn't feel great.

Today, it felt like a pain. It paralyzed me as I hit writer’s block. It threw me onto an emotional rollercoaster that only seemed to go downhill yet not in a fun way.

However, I remember the book. I remember seeing obstacles as opportunities I could take advantage of.

And what did I do?

1. I turned it into a story.

It inspired me to open my laptop at midnight and type up the complete essay in one go.

Missed the deadline by a few hours, but it felt good to have a nice story to share.

2. I seriously thought about why.

Why was this an obstacle in the first place?

Why did I always feel relieved after publishing a story every Thursday, then get stressed out as the next Thursday approached?

The answer was, I was not doing enough. At the beginning of the year, I identified "self-imposed expectations" as an obstacle. So, I experimented with publishing two stories a week in January, then one story every Thursday in February until now. By the way, I still owe you a review, don't I?

*nervous laughter*

But I wasn't doing enough. While I had never broken a Thursday streak; while I usually block out Wednesdays and Thursdays to write, it was "living life on the edge".

Because on weeks — like this week — when I was so busy that those writing days were occupied, I would fail to hit our lovely deadline. Facing this obstacle is a good opportunity to try other ways and harder if I want to keep Not Alone Club going.

I should really batch-write and schedule ahead.

I told myself that many times. But feeling relieved after publishing often turned me away to do other work and/or relax, until the next Thursday came and "ah shit, here we go again".

Hence, with a slightly less busy next week, I will try "batch-writing and scheduling ahead". Let's see how it goes.

3. What do I do when I really can't make it?

3 years into writing online, I realized I didn't have a backup plan if I missed a deadline. I didn't know what to do if that happened.

Sure, I could tell you that I couldn't make it. But it wasn't a natural thing to do. It was "feeling disappointed", "being quiet about it", and "going to bed hoping that nobody noticed it".

Facing this obstacle today gave me a chance to clarify — if life happens and I really can't make it, it's fine. I will have a template ready. I will announce when I can. I will figure out how to do better next time.

No pressure. Because writing here should be fun.

🪴Takeaway

2.26 a.m.

I wanted this to be a simple, mini-story. I guess I went overboard a little.

The turn of events led me to pick up Ryan's book. Although I haven't finished it, its core message gave me a way to see things differently and for the better.

Still, I am not perfect at this. Like the writing obstacle today, I still feel bad when bad things happen to me. But I have come to appreciate this — “the obstacle is the way” becomes natural the more you practice it.

Slowly but surely, it is changing my life.

Hope it does for you, too.

—Thomas🦙

👋 Hey, you little stranger

This little section is like the “P.S.” you sometimes see at the end of a story here, but it now has a home of its own🎉

I sometimes talk a little bit about the story above, make an announcement or just a tiny update on what I have been up to.

April and May are busy months packed with university assignments, especially when I am also writing stories weekly and (trying to) keep Graduate with Me going.

Oh, internships. Almost forgot about them /_ \

Graduate with Me is now put aside until I have time to make a good idea of what I want out of it. It doesn’t feel right to disappear after a month of active presence, but it’s better than doing a project without a clear purpose.

That’s all for this week! Hope you had a great one so far :3

🏆 Weekly gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a video that blew my mind. Here’s the gold this week 👇

It’s April, so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

*cries internally*

🎁 Credits

• Andrea De Santis on Unsplash — cover photo.

• Ryan Holiday — The Obstacle Is The Way.

This week, let’s do things a bit differently.

To write a story, I usually capture ideas when they strike, and process them when it is time to write. However, reading through the ideas for this week’s story — the lines I wrote, they look more like diary entries than captured ideas.

Hope you like them as they are.

🍂 23 December 2023, Sat

“Regret can take years to get over,” I said. “And those are years you’ll never get back. So I’m just going to do what I can while I can.”

—Luciel, The Great Cleric Volume 6 by Broccoli Lion

🎓 29 December 2023, Sun

I remember watching Mark Rober’s address to the MIT Class of 2023.

He mentioned naive optimism. About how the students wouldn’t have stayed on if they knew it would be this hard. Enrolling, they hadn’t known what would come next. But this naivety that things would turn up fine kept them going. It got them through thick and thin until the day the graduation caps went up high in the sky.

If naive optimism exists, I wonder if the opposite — naive pessimism — does, too.

I

Recently, I was hit by a sudden wave of doubts.

Should I graduate early?

Get a Bachelor’s degree in engineering (BEng) of 3 years?

Or stay on for a Master’s degree in engineering (MEng) of 4 years?

Even if I wish for the latter, could I do it?

I wondered about it in classes when I couldn’t understand things easily. When a professor said that if we couldn’t stand the stress now, we wouldn’t be able to do so in the workplace. When he said we should just let him sign the form and leave the university and everything behind.

Harsh.

Yet reasonable.

In that period, I felt the presence of doubts. They come now and then, like waves drawing close and pulling back.

Drawing close and pulling back.

Maybe it’s normal to have these doubts. I’m sure many of us did and still do. Surely, we’re all just figuring things out as we go.

II

At one point, I remember picking up a book at an airport — What You’re Looking For Is In The Library by Michiko Aoyama.

Every chapter, every story, they spoke dearly on many things I thought about but couldn’t figure out.

Fear was one of them. The fear of uncertainties about what the future holds, and if I could make it when it comes.

“You can decide things, but there’s no guarantee everything will go as planned. It’s just that—“ Kiriyama’s voice breaks off and he pauses. “In a world where you don’t know what will happen next, I just do what I can right now.”

I just do what I can right now.

That went straight to the heart.

Warmed as it enveloped.

Hummed as it whispered,

🍃 14 February 2024, Wed

I first worked on this story when I started my third year at university. It had been a tough ride before then. A long, tough ride.

Coming off it, I decided to get the 4-year MEng done. Even though I had doubts later in some classes, and when the professor said those words.

Fear was the biggest driving factor.

Not the fear of whether I could make it.

But the fear of what the future holds if I quit it altogether.

And now, months later, I am faced with the quest of finding an internship to progress into the final year. I felt discouraged that the process was tedious, and filled with uncertainties of what would happen. Or so it felt on the surface.

Worst of all, I can’t be sure what I want to do. Perhaps I do. I just don’t know how to walk the path ahead to reach there.

And I feel overwhelmed. With things that I must do. With those I want to do. Lurking around were pessimistic thoughts — likely naive — that the path ahead is to work for decades and surrender the control of your time to others, only to retire at 60 with little time to truly live the life that the decades of work have provided.

It feels sad and dull.

Maybe that’s why people hate the thinking that everything has been decided by whatever gods above. Knowing how your life would play out is like knowing how a movie would go before you watched it. It is spoilt and less worth watching.

🪶 16 February 2024, Fri

🐟 4 March 2024, Mon

📚 17 March 2024, Sun

It has been a long time since I finished a heavy novel. “Heavy” because of the deep lessons that come with it which makes me think.

I often only read fantasy at bedtime. When I read the heavy ones instead, I would stay up late and finish them.

Tonight was no different.

There’s No Such Thing As An Easy Job was written by Kikuko Tsumura. As an aside, I always enjoyed Japanese literature. They carried the kind of vibes that I’m not sure how to describe. Sobriety, perhaps. Yet not from alcohol, but from any emotions you’re feeling. You become clearheaded enough to think about things without the emotions getting in the way.

The novel was a good read. It tells the story of a lady who burned out from years as a social worker. We followed her journey as she went through multiple short-term jobs. Each one was an interesting read. Most were uncommon. Some were filled with suspense that made you keep reading to find the truth.

I find that most of us would remember the final job. Because it connects all the stories (jobs) to one lesson that Tsumura was hoping to convey.

At the end of the book lies that very lesson.

The time had come to embrace the ups and downs again. I had no way of knowing what pitfalls might be lying in wait for me, but what I’d discovered by doing five jobs in such a short span of time was this: the same was true of everything.

You never knew what was going to happen, whatever you did. You just had to give it your all, and hope for the best. Hope like anything it would turn out alright.

Finishing the ending, I realized I hadn’t read books like these as much as before. Fictions that carry deep meanings in them. Deep, heavy fiction.

They are different from non-fiction. You get invested in characters who don’t exist. In a world that isn’t real but one that slowly materializes within your mind as you imagine it while reading. The stories spoke closer to the heart this way. Somehow.

🏕️ 27 March 2024, Wed

At a time when things are piling up on the plate, I hear commitments materializing as debt collectors knocking at the door. Some are approaching from afar. Soon, they will join the others.

As I stopped writing and closed my eyes, I saw fires here and there. Voices telling me to put them out now. Yet I don't know where to begin. They all look urgent and important.

And a wave of doubts hit.

Will I get a good internship?

Will I get through the rest of Year 3?

Will I graduate without losing myself?

Will I live a good life? Will I tell a good story?

Reading the diary entries, I still don't know the answers.

But I have come to learn that, maybe, admitting defeat is the better option.

In the face of uncertainties — the fear of what the future may bring, accepting that you can’t fight against them is perhaps what keeps us going.

I don’t know what the future holds. Neither do you and everyone else.

But I know that uncertainties don’t mean harm or good. They don’t mean things will turn up badly. Neither do they mean things will turn up well.

We fear uncertainties because we can’t be sure.

But within this fear, I see the freedom we wield.

We could make things more likely to turn up well. We could choose how to look at things even if they don’t turn up well.

So I guess, there’s no need to fear.

We just do what we can right now.

And eventually, everything will connect.

If we have the courage to see it through to the end.

—Thomas🦙

👋 Hey, you little stranger

I am back from a two-week break!

During the break, I thought about why I was doing what I was doing. Be it studying at university, sustaining Graduate with Me, or writing here.

I must say, it matters a lot to take a step back from time to time. To see if you are on the right track or just wasting time on things that don’t matter in the long run.

At this point, with work piling up on my plate, I am uncertain if I could get through everything, and if the way I am approaching them will work well.

Writing this week’s story reminded me to just do what I can right now. Take a step back to recalibrate if I need to. And even in the face of uncertainties, to continue doing what I can without getting paralyzed by them.

Hope you feel the same way, too.

🏆 Weekly gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a video that blew my mind. Here’s the gold this week 👇

🎁 Credits

• David Marcu on Unsplash — cover photo.

• Broccoli Lion — The Great Cleric. A great bedtime read.

• Mark Rober — his address to MIT Class of 2023.

• Michiko Aoyama — What You’re Looking For Is in the Library.

• Alessandra Olanow — I Used to Have a Plan: But Life Had Other Ideas.

• The Woke Salaryman — The Life Lessons I Learned From Pokémon.

• Kikuko Tsumura — There’s No Such Thing As An Easy Job.

• Slothy & Leni — idea validation.

An hour ago, I came out of a career fair. It turned out that diving straight into doing work after networking with people was a bad idea.

I felt drained out. Doing anything productive was the last thing I wanted. As “a result-driven individual with extensive experience leveraging tech to get things done” (OK, that’s enough CV writing), I asked “Chad Gippity” how to deal with this.

And so I decided to take a walk.

Stepping away from my carrel on the highest floor in the library, I walked towards the exit. Right there, I met eyes with a few juniors from the same course, so we chatted.

They talked about what they were working on (and struggling with). A design project I experienced in my second year. Coursework on sustainability with a deadline a few days after the project. Studying for exams. Applying for internships.

I was surprised.

But not at what we talked about. Even though it was related to "work", I was surprised that it wasn't as energy-draining as networking. Rather, it was refreshing. I came out feeling less exhausted and more ready to get things done.

Moving down some flights of stairs, I walked towards a couch, sat on it, and felt ready to write this story down. Five words in, a wild Pokemon friend appeared.

We talked about internships (again), his final-year project (and how it was failing *cough*), and the photos he hadn’t sent to me since last week (he did today #yay).

A bunch of random things.

Like the conversation with the juniors, it should have been tiring because I was actively using energy — talking, listening, and thinking.

🍃 But I didn’t feel so

At first glance, it’s easy to tell the difference. Talking to people at the career fair is networking. Talking to my juniors and that friend is socializing.

But why is it so easy to tell the difference? What makes them different?

Why does one drain energy while the other replenishes it?

Is networking tiring because you’re actively carrying yourself professionally?

Is socializing relaxing because you don’t have to do that?

What is networking anyway?

🦆 Networking as we misunderstood it

The activity of meeting people who might be useful to know, especially in your job.

—Cambridge Dictionary

Someone once wrote that she hated the term "networking". It sounds as if you only engage with people because you want something from them.

Looking at its definition, I can see what she meant.

But that could be an extreme interpretation. Networking could be as simple as meeting like-minded people. What’s wrong with talking about things you’re both excited about? What’s wrong with helping each other out as a result?

Sure, you might network while expecting to benefit from it. But both sides usually get something out of it, don’t they? A jobseeker gets a connection. A recruiter gets a potentially good applicant.

What’s wrong with a win-win situation?

What is wrong is caring more about the outcome of the connection than the connection itself.

I wonder if this is why people are getting lonelier these days. Growing older, we meet fewer and fewer friends who are as good as back in childhood and adolescence.

As you get closer to adulthood, most relationships you form likely come across as shallower and less genuine.

Talking to each other becomes "networking".

Helping people makes them cautious about your motive.

Slowly, life resembles a rat race where everyone is a rival.

An enemy to beat.

A LinkedIn connection to make.

A stepping stone to get you ahead.

If the goal of networking is to benefit from the connections made, then we would tend to put up the best version of ourselves to increase our chances of forming such connections and benefiting from them.

Even if the best version isn’t what we truly are.

Wearing a mask all the time, it’s no wonder networking can be tiring.

🪴Networking as it should be

Remember Leni from The Sleep-Fun Dilemma?

A few days ago, she talked about Steve Willis, a guy she met over a farewell lunch linked to her final-year project at university.

Steve is cool. A chemist. A chemical engineer. A director of two startups working on tackling the climate crisis. He even recently published a novel — Fairhaven: A Novel of Climate Optimism — which "offers a hopeful glimpse into the future, exploring a world where humanity has come together to tackle the climate crisis".

Cool, indeed.

According to Leni, Steve is an interesting guy doing interesting things for the world, specifically in the field she is also interested in.

In the world of networking, this is gold. It is a good connection to make that could benefit her, be it a job opportunity or some career advice from a veteran.

But, lo and behold, that wasn’t in Leni’s mind.

When “networking” with Steve, it was Steve and his work she was intrigued by.

Not a job opportunity.

Not a LinkedIn connection.

Not what she could gain from knowing Steve.

She was merely engaging with an interesting person doing interesting things she was interested in. She didn’t expect anything from it.

That — my friend — is what I think networking should be.

Networking — as we misunderstood it — tells you to care more about the outcome of a connection than the connection itself.

Networking — as it should be — tells you to care more about the connection itself than its outcome.

Sure, connecting with Steve — even without expecting anything in return — could still benefit Leni in the future.

But the biggest difference lies in the intention.

When you focus on the connection rather than its outcome, it shows in the way you act and speak. It comes across as genuine and interested — rather than inauthentic and desperate — because you are genuinely interested.

I thought about the encounters with my juniors and the Pokemon friend. I didn’t expect anything from talking to (or networking with) them. I doubted they did, too. Hence, neither side came out feeling tired. We felt refreshed and inspired instead.

Just like back in childhood and adolescence.

You most likely didn’t befriend someone to benefit from the friendship.

You most likely didn’t befriend while expecting something in return.

You just want to be friends.

When you focus on the connection rather than its outcome, you can build relationships that go beyond a mere job opportunity.

And you don’t have to worry about where these relationships would take you, and if they would benefit you.

As a three-time Super Bowl winner Bill Walsh once said,

The score takes care of itself.

A genuine, meaningful relationship will naturally benefit both sides.

And it’ll be less tiring and lonely, too.

—Thomas🦦

P.S. A note from the future in July 2025.

👋 Hey, you little stranger

*Exhale* The past few weeks have been tiring. I missed our Thursday deadline by a few hours (ouch).

But I just checked the calendar and we are 10 weeks into 2024! That means Not Alone Club has been active for 10 consecutive weeks this year. That’s crazy!

To celebrate, I am taking a two-week break (so I don’t break *cough*) starting next week! This is my first announced hiatus ever — I previously just disappeared without notice hohoho.

Thank you for joining me on my little navigation through life. No matter what kind of journey you’re on, I hope the stories you read here make it a little better.

See you in two weeks :3

🏆 Weekly gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a video that blew my mind. Here’s the gold this week 👇

One of the songs I used to listen to when getting ready to bed. Picked it back up today. Old, but gold.

🎁 Credits

• Cover photo by Austin Kehmeier on Unsplash.

• My juniors & that Pokemon friend, for chatting with me.

• Leni, for giving me content to write about.

• Steve Willis, for doing what he does.

• Slothy, for helping me to structure and validate the idea.

• James Clear, for quoting Bill Walsh in Atomic Habits.

• Me, for networking and feeling drained out.

When 2024 first began, I wrote about wanting to enjoy writing again. So we started a little experiment to publish every Thursday and Sunday.

A month later, we switched to gear one by trying out Thursdays only.

As February came to an end, what do you think?

🦦 Would love to hear from you!

While Not Alone Club is a little hobby project of mine, I want it to be enjoyable for you, too. What is it that you love about this club? What should I improve on?

Let me know! You can:

1. Leave a comment by smashing the button.

2. Reply privately to this email.

Leave a comment

I will read all of them :3

✨ In case you missed it

Here are the stories in January.

And here are those in February!

—Thomas🦙

It was Day 20 of 2024.

I had dinner at six, then spent an hour on YouTube binging from Fireship making A.I. influencers to a 1bil. US embassy fortress in London and an ice-cream-making robot in Japan.

*inhale*

Calm down, Thomas.

*exhale*

I was working on the first part of The Sleep-Fun Dilemma, but writer’s block hit me where the sun does not shine. Closing the YouTube site, I wondered how to get over this feeling of being stuck.

Then I remembered something👇

To keep the morale high and boredom low, creators can switch between content to work on.

—Ev Chapman (paraphrased)

So here I am, switching to write this story when the other wasn’t done yet. It worked. Thanks, Ev.

Let’s get started.

🎈What is intentional fun?

I first knew about this in a conversation with a friend David. Back in 2022, I was building Creator’s Manual (CM), a curation of the lessons I learned when making Notion templates, tweeting, and writing online. Though it now feels like an “I don’t know what to do with this” thing.

Well, I do have an idea. It’s on my to-do list somewhere near the stove where the backburner is. #seewhatIdidthere. Maybe I should put it on a website rather than selling it as a product. Oh, turning it into an email course would be great!

Okay. That’s enough topic-switching (not now, Ev!).

I was building CM. David was one of the creators I reached out to for some quick Q&A. Here is a question I asked.

How do you work a full-time job as a doctor, while still having enough time & energy to run your YouTube channel? What about the time for socialising & personal entertainment *cough* anime *cough*?

Here's a snippet of what he said:

There’s a concept I talked about a little while back which I just call “goodness density index”. It’s actually fine to do things like procrastinate; we need rest. But I wanted even that procrastination time to be on things I most enjoy.

Hence, I’ll do my best to actually use it to deliberately watch anime or play games, instead of mindlessly scrolling things. I’m not perfect at this, but it just takes the same amount of time, except you feel it’s way better spent.

Two years later, I’m starting to get what David meant.

😪How it applies to my dilemma

Last month, I wrote The Sleep-Fun Dilemma Part I: Understanding. Looking at it, late-night talks are unintentional fun.

Why?

Because most late-night talks I had happened on a whim. It was not planned but began when someone came home feeling tired and sat on the couch. Everyone just went along with it, started chatting, and *poof* there went the time.

The result? We would stay up late and wake up feeling terrible the next day while forgetting what fun we had.

These sessions were impromptu. Sure, impromptu fun can be nice, like road trips shown on TV where someone says, “Let’s go to Vegas!” and everyone goes “Yasssssssss!”.

There’s nothing wrong with it.

💡But it has to be intentional

The problem with unintentional fun — impromptu or not — is that it happens due to the flow of events. You don’t consciously make the choice. You don’t scream “Yassssssssss!” to your friend’s “Let’s go to Vegas!”.

You just end up in Vegas. Unintentionally.

Replace Vegas with TikTok, YouTube, and the like, and you know how “unfun” unintentional fun can be. Remember the last time you truly enjoyed doom-scrolling TikTok for hours? You likely don’t.

You just kind of end up there, chasing dopamine hits one reel after another. Quick to rise, yet quick to subside.

That's what David meant.

Because life has a finite end, you want to spend your precious time having the right fun that brings the greatest joy.

And intentional fun makes it possible.

🦦What to do then?

I would be an irresponsible ass if I just dump a "So, let’s have intentional fun" and pop a bottle of champagne to celebrate the secret to happiness. Rather, I would say,

Try to have intentional fun.

Because life doesn't always go the way you want it to. Even if you intentionally wish to have the right fun, things may go wrong that betray your intention (expectation). It might end up not being as fun as you thought.

"I'm not perfect at this," as David said and life dictates.

Still, it will be a good — and fun — path to take.

—Thomas🦙

🏆 Weekly Gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a video that blew my mind. Here’s the gold this week 👇

Inserting a bit of shameless self-promotion here…

Last week, I launched a #buildinpublic project to finish my degree in public✨

What does it mean to you?

Along the way, I will talk about what I did, the tools & resources that helped me, and the many, many lessons I learned. They would include the ugly mistakes made which you know to avoid when doing something similar.

This is a journey of intentional fun. Because I want to make getting a university degree a fun thing to do.

And I want you to join me. To see how I eff around and find out. To grow and learn together. To make things fun and simple.

Let’s go to Vegas.

Follow the journey at LinkedIn

Follow the journey at X (Twitter)

🔗 Other Credits

• Cover photo by Joakim Honkasalo on Unsplash.

• The Reitoff Principle by Ali Abdaal.

  When they actively decide that a day is going to be a write-off, it gives them the mental space to enjoy themselves guilt-free.

The last time I wrote something like this was in 2020 (published in 2022). Back then, I was doing my dishes when I saw four construction workers carrying a long rod. It somehow inspired me to talk about leadership. Surprised? I felt the same way too.

In hindsight, I noticed how ideas like this come only when you’re being mindful. When you don’t think about anything other than the present. When you just let your gaze wander into the physical distance yet unlike a thousand-yard stare into nothingness.

Last Sunday was one such day.

🚶To “staircase” or not

Chinese (Lunar) New Year was over. The holidays, that is. I was traveling back to the university to resume the semester. It was a long train ride with ~300 passengers, the bulk of which would get off at the final stop — the central station where all transit lines connect.

It was underground.

To get to the ground floor where the exit ticket gates are, we could take either the stairs, the escalator, or the elevator. Typically, elevators are reserved for people with special needs. That’s reasonable. Hence it left us with either the stairs or the escalator — if you think about it, the latter is also a flight of stairs, but moving.

Most people would prefer the escalator because it’s the most convenient option. Just stand still and let the engineering magic do its thing. It’s the more obvious choice if you’re carrying heavy luggage.

Minimal effort. Maximum comfort.

But there is always a tiny group of people who like stairs. Oftentimes the reason cited is health, while some prefer going up quickly rather than having to wait in line.

As one of them, I was looking forward to it.

But…

🤯Something blew my mind

The stairs were sealed off.

The only way up was to wait in line for a single escalator. Crowd control was in place such that you could only go up in batches. Remember, the bulk of the train — assuming 200 people — got off here. Imagine the line.

I was confused.

Why bother sealing the stairs? They look fine. No hazard as far as one could tell. Is it just an “admin” mistake? Like being engrossed with getting something done that you end up not thinking and just picking the most inefficient way to do it?

Up the floor, I asked an officer-in-charge what the flying flamingo was going on. Paraphrasing what he said,

Yes, it’s for crowd control. If we didn’t limit the way up and before the limited exit ticket gates upstairs, 300 people would get suck on the escalator.

Don’t forget that thing is moving.

*realized*

“OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH”

Now that was one misunderstanding cleared up. I could imagine a few people getting grumpy and blaming — in their hearts — the authorities for the waiting time, while they were just trying to save their asses from falling like dominoes down the escalator. If that happened, it would escalate quickly (#punintended) and the authorities would be blamed for not carrying out their duties.

What a tough job.

❎But was it the best way?

Was limiting 200 passengers to a single escalator the best solution?

I remembered a concept from my “beloved” chemical engineering (CE) course at university — process scheduling.

It means scheduling multiple processes — carrying a few at the same time or overlapping parts of them — to maximize productivity (hence, profit). It is similar to “batching” in the world of productivity where Ali Abdaal and Matt D’Avella live.

What if we use that here?

What if we maximize productivity — the number of passengers going upstairs per unit time, leading to lower waiting time and higher satisfaction — without compromising on safety?

Getting on (yet) another train ride, I thought about this.

☝️Case 1: Free for all

Both the stairs and the escalator are open. Passengers are free to choose which they want to use. This is the choice the authorities avoided in the first place. But what was wrong with it?

In the world of habit building, there’s something called the Law of Least Effort.

We will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work.

—James Clear, Atomic Habits

Between stairs and an escalator, you will naturally pick the more comfortable option that takes a lower amount of energy to reach the same goal. Of course, there’ll be odd ones who enjoy taking the stairs. For simplicity, let’s assume:

• Number of people going up: 200

• Number of people taking the stairs: 40 (20%)

• Number of people taking the escalator: 160 (80%)

I’m not an escalator specialist, but I’m pretty sure you can’t fit 160 people on a standard escalator at a time. Hence,

• Number of people on 1 step: 2 side-by-side

• Height between floors: 4 meters

• Riser (height of step portion you see): 0.2 meter

• Total number of stand-able steps: 4/0.2 = 20

• Max. number of people using at a time: 20 x 2 = 40

• Adjusted max. considering luggage: 30 people

In other words, 2 rows of 30 people altogether (with luggage) can go up a time, while the rest must wait in line for the next batches.

Oh, wait. Don’t forget there are limited exit gates.

• Number of exit gates: 4

• Estimated duration to pass through one: 10 seconds

The first 4 people will arrive and take 10 seconds to pass approximately at the same time. The waiting time for the next 4 can be reduced by the time to (a) go up the escalator, (b) get off it, and (c) walk towards the exit gates. It means that when the next 4 reach the gates, they just need to wait a little before their turn.

This is just a rough analysis. The point is that there’s an ideal scheduling with minimal waiting time at the exit gates and a low risk of the “escalator dominoes”.

That also means the time between batches going up is minimal. Hence, people wait less for the escalator.

Even if the waiting time is significant, the dissatisfaction can be mitigated with the offer of the staircase, unlike in the actual case where it was sealed.

What could go wrong?

Don’t forget the “disturbance” — 40 staircase people.

The number is notable enough to prolong the wait at the ticket gate and break apart the ideal scheduling we talked about. And what if there are more people? Because it is a free-for-all, you can’t be sure.

10 seconds at the gates.

30 people up the escalator.

40 people taking the staircase.

These are some assumptions we made just now. You cannot base safety on uncertainties and assumptions.

That’s likely why the authorities did what they did, even if the cost was inconvenient due to longer waiting time.

✌️Case 2: Controlled staircase only

What if you switch it? What if you close the escalator and direct the ascent up the staircase in batches?

The result? You’re just going to make everyone hate you more.

Consider this:

1. Waiting + using the escalator

2. Waiting + using the stairs

By the Law of Least Effort, which path takes the least effort?

Option 2.

In this case, you are asking everyone to take the harder path. Even if more people can fit the staircase at a time — hence less overall waiting time, you’re just going to piss many people off by forcing them to take the stairs.

👌Case 3: Controlled staircase & escalator

In the actual case, one officer controlled the size of each batch — the number of people going up the escalator at a time. At the top, another officer would signal his buddy to let the next batch up when the current batch was almost done exiting the ticket gates.

What if we do the same thing for the staircase too? Does having more space to go up reduce the waiting time?

I thought this would be the best way. But it likely wouldn’t be.

The problem is at the exit gates

More specifically, the limited number. 4, if I’m not mistaken.

Even if more people could go up at a time, they would still be limited by how many could pass through the gates at a time, and how fast. In other words, there is an optimum number of how many people could go up — staircase, escalator, or both — without overloading the exit gates.

Me: Oh! Oh! Didn’t we assume only 30 people can go up the escalator at a time? What if the optimum is more than 30? Won’t opening the staircase help to supplement the number?

Also me: If that’s the case, why don’t just increase the size of each escalator batch? Instead of the pain of taking the stairs, you allow more people to enjoy the escalator comfort.

Even if you fix the escalator batch size at 30, the number supplemented by the staircase batch won’t be helpful. Because the optimum number is likely not far from 30. Maybe 35 is the optimum, so the staircase only supplements 5. You may need extra manpower — cost — for crowd control for a small improvement.

🏡Afterthought

Phew, that was intense. I even missed my commuter’s stop when writing this. Ouch.

Editing this essay reminded me to live in the present. Because worrying about things while doing something else — like walking, eating, having fun, etc. — is just gonna make life more stressful and less enjoyable. And good ideas won’t come easily, too.

—Thomas🦙

🏆 Weekly Gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a video that blew my mind. Here’s the gold this week 👇

Feeling a little overwhelmed recently. Then I realized that I hadn’t been listening to music that often lately. Feels good to do it again :3

🔗 Other Credits

• The officer who explained why it happened when asked.

• KONE’s planning guide for escalators and auto-walks.

Whenever I am on a long ride — especially alone — I tend to think a lot. Not in the sense of overthinking, but of being reflective about things that I don’t often look into. They include my choices — how they led me here and where they would lead me in the future.

I write a lot, too. On Sonder and Being Kind is one such example. What you’re reading now is also being written on a train ride. Like writing a diary, I have no idea how it will turn out. Some random thoughts here and there, probably.

Let's see how it goes.

I

Last night, I had an evening walk-and-talk with a friend. Let’s call her Slothy🦥.

At one point, I told Slothy it was a blessing that all of us ended up living together. A series of choices and events led us here. That we could have conversations like this every few nights is something to be grateful for.

I brought up the transient nature of human relationships. In simpler words, fate comes and goes. A relationship brought together by fate could come to an end quickly. But some could last for a long time. Maybe years. Maybe a lifetime.

I’m not sure how long our fate — the encounter it brought about — will last. But while it still does, I’m glad it happened.

II

To some extent, I’m worried about heading home.

As mentioned in When Stuck, Read, I fear my childhood home as a cage of comfort. A cage because of the lower connectivity between home, libraries, and parks when compared to living near the university. “Of comfort” because — for many years — the house has been registered in my mind as a comfort zone. A zone with a high tendency to be a potato. Stay home for a long time and my perspectives towards many things become narrow. That’s how lockdowns break some of us, remember?

In the past, I would go for a swim and hit the library after taking Mother to work in her car. If I didn’t do that, I would be stuck at home all day alone — the perfect condition to waste time away.

That’s why I’ve just messaged Mother that I will be following her drive to work tomorrow. To the library or somewhere outside where I can work.

It’s a form of self-binding — a self-restriction put in place in advance so it is harder for me to justify my way out tomorrow morning.

Why?

Mother once said that I lack self-discipline because I can’t do work at home alone. As a little protest here, accepting that it is harder to make home conducive to work and putting self-bindings in place by working away from home is self-discipline. Take that, mom.

And because of this, I must practice what I preached by actually going outside tomorrow. Otherwise, my credibility would drop and I’m just going to get another “I told you so”.

III

I wrote before that the world is beautifully huge. It’s really easy to forget that as you get too enveloped in the flow of events, the environment you are in, and the people you are with.

Tunnel visions. Thinking about life on a minuscule scale encourages you to enjoy the journey and take things one at a time. But not taking any step back to reflect from a larger perspective and you will end up somewhere you don’t want to be.

If you value the wrong things, it doesn’t matter how hard you work or how productive you are, you’re going to end up in the wrong place.

—Mark Manson

Being on a train ride often makes me think on a huge time scale. Because I’m traveling, my environment is ever-changing and so are my perspectives towards things. I tend to get disengaged from the physical present and look at life as a whole.

What do I want?

Where do I want to be?

Am I getting there? Why not?

How am I feeling? What is troubling me?

Oftentimes, I would end up remembering that someday, someone I love will die and that many things don’t matter as much as I think. While it may appear to be nihilistic or irresponsible, I beg to differ.

To appreciate living in the present, one must look backward to connect the dots and forward to embrace life in its entirety.

With that, even a long train ride alone can be beautiful, too.

—Thomas🦙

🏆 Weekly Gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a video that blew my mind. Here’s the gold this week 👇

Picked up Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday. Came across this on the first page.

It reminds me of the line “they have it easy” when referring to “successful” people — that they must have faced fewer challenges along the way.

But it is often a misconception that I fall into. Because we are not them, we could never know and experience exactly what they have been through.

Neither can they know and experience ours.

Other credits:

• Cover photo by Masaaki Komori on Unsplash

I forgot to review the January experiment to enjoy writing again. Two posts a week, remember? As we enter the second week of February, I wonder how I should best approach this…

Let’s ignore it and start a new experiment! ╰(*°▽°*)╯

Okay, hear me out. This month (though it’s a little late to announce already *ouch*), I’m trying out one post every Thursday. Coincidentally, we began last Thursday — the first one this month. The end goal is still the same — to enjoy writing again, sustainably. At the end of February, we will have two publishing cadences to compare for the best one.

For now, let’s enjoy this week’s story :3

I am in the library.

For 30 minutes, two guys have been talking out loud with each other. Remember, I am in the library. I am also using the present tense because I am writing this story while they are still on it right now.

They are at fault. Library, remember? What's the right thing to do?

1. Ask them politely to go outside and take a walk (a.k.a. fuck off)

2. Report the incident at the front desk.

3. Just bear with it. They will stop soon.

Now, 40 minutes have passed since they stuck together so much that Uranium-235 and Uranium-238 are child's play. Oh, they have just stopped, finally. But they are still sitting there so it may continue soon.

At this point, you can guess which path I chose. Yes, the third option — I tried to bear with it.

In the 40 minutes they were talking, there were points in time when it felt unbearable. Once, I stood up from my seat and walked from my carrel towards them. They stopped immediately. Note that they could not see me as we were separated by some bookshelves. So, they stopped likely due to the sound I made when leaving my seat and walking towards them, or my killing intent.

I would like to think it was the latter.

Halfway through, I abandoned the mission (a.k.a. chickened out) as there was no immediate evidence to shut them up. It would be better to tell them off in the middle of their loud feat. I walked between the bookshelves and then to the toilet. I washed my hands and looked at myself in the mirror.

Yeah, I'm a chicken #confirmed.

Then, I went back to my carrel and they began talking again. If I'm a chicken for chickening out, they are chicken poo-poos for talking out loud in the library.

At this moment I try to guess what you are thinking.

Why are you being such a wimp?

Why are talking bad about them now? Why didn’t you tell them earlier?

Why are you mad? Didn't you write before about dealing with anger towards mean people, like those two chicken poo-poos?

Yes, I am mad. It is one of those times when I wonder if working hard to “save the world” is worth it when it also means saving this kind of people. Sorry. I'm taking this too far. As if I'm a superhero/god and they are disgustingly bad people only god can deal with.

In Why Are Some People So Mean?, I quoted two lines,

If you are willing to look at another person's behavior toward you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time cease to react at all.

—Yogi Bhalan

No matter how much you hate some people, remember that they could never run away from being them.

These helped to bring down the surging rage in me. But I still felt unsatisfied.

🕊️ Is having peace better than being right?

I considered another line I came across many years ago when Facebook still existed (oh wait it is still here #amjokingplsdontsueme).

Having peace is better than being right.

Back then, I couldn't understand it. It's like telling someone who sees wrongdoing to keep quiet for "peace". It is wrong. I'm sure somewhere in the legal world not reporting a crime is a crime itself. Even if it's not, it is still morally wrong.

Even now, I still find the line unfair. Does that mean I should bear with those two chicken poo-poos even if they were at fault and I would be right to (politely) tell them off? Should I have chosen to be wrong for the sake of peace?

But I did not have peace, my friend. During the 40 mins, at least.

All of a sudden, it became my fault.

🦄 It was indeed my fault

I wasn't the only one in the wrong, though. They were at fault, too, for talking out loud in the library. But I was also at fault for not speaking out — hence I had no right to complain when smelling the chicken poo-poos.

So when I think about the line "having peace is better than being right" again, I feel that it doesn't apply here. I should have told them off (politely). Maybe they didn't know they were too loud? Well, I'm giving them the benevolent benefit of the doubt here. Who doesn't know not to talk loud in a library? Oh, right, chicken poo-poos don’t.

I should have at least tried that. If they didn't care, then I could have reported the case to the front desk and let them handle it.

Why?

Because there was no peace by not being right, at least in this case. It doesn't feel good to suck it up when you're clearly in the right and someone is clearly in the wrong. And because I didn't tell them off, I denied them the chance to know they fucked up and learn from this social embarrassment of being chicken poo-poos in public. They could have learned to be more considerate next time.

So, I was at fault, too. Urgh.

⚖️ It is not an absolute law

“Having peace is better than being right" is not a law you must follow, but it is still a good piece of advice sometimes.

How?

Say, a service crew (waiter/waitress) gets your order wrong. "Having peace" means not telling him/her about it and just accepting the wrong order as is.

But this is when the law doesn't apply. Because

1. You likely don't feel peaceful eating something you didn't order, especially when you have to pay for the wrong order, and

2. He/she might also mess up the following orders, like serving the next customer's food with your food.

Then, how does this law help?

In the same example, it means telling the crew about the wrong order politely and not being an angry ass just because you are right. To me, this is what it means by “Having peace is better than being right”.

🍭 Maybe I'm just sugarcoating it

Okay, here's a better example.

Imagine you are in class. The professor made a little grammatical error in his/her words. "Being right" means pointing it out in class because you are "right". But my friend, it's a Math class, not an English class. The error is insignificant compared to the knowledge you should be paying attention to.

This is when the law applies — you don't be an ass. You have peace by ignoring this insignificant mistake and focusing on the actual meat of the class.

But didn't you say that not speaking up means denying someone a chance to learn?

Well, you can always tell the prof about it after class, if you want to. But remember, it is an insignificant problem. Being right in an insignificant problem is insignificant, especially when having peace is a significant return.

Alright, let's do one more.

Your best friend's dog just passed away. When consoling your friend, you remember that he/she still owes you $10. "Having peace" means not mentioning it and getting the money back now.

Why? Because it is not the right time, you little chicken poop! Having peace is better than being right in this case.

👌 Let's make it less confusing

The law — in its original form "Having peace is better than being right" — is flawed.

It is confusing. Most quotes are also confusing.

"Never give up"? Does it mean I should never give up? Never means forever, you know. Does it apply to smoking? Never give up even when it kills and breaks your life apart? Never give up on a relationship even when it is toxic?

No, you little chicken poo-poo!

Most quotes are confusing because they are quotes — words taken from somewhere. They are short but appear to be absolute and comprehensive. However, they are not meant to be. No law, principle, or advice is meant to be absolute and comprehensive. It depends on your interpretation and the context you are in.

Okay, before I overthink it further, let's improve the law.

Having peace is sometimes better than being right.

This sounds clearer, doesn't it? Adding "sometimes" reminds you to stop being a lazy chicken poo-poo and think about whether the law/principle/advice can be applied in your context. Don't just take things as is.

If we modify it further,

Being right doesn't mean you can be an ass and not settle things peacefully.

Don't be a chicken poo-poo.

—Thomas🦙

P.S.

Okay, that was a wild ride. For some reason, I feel that “f**k” is more offensive than “fuck”. At least it has some elements of “duck” in it, which lowers the offensiveness and makes it…well, cuter.

Sorry for the language 🦆

🏆 Weekly Gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a video that blew my mind. Here’s the gold this week 👇

Other credits:

• Cover photo by Jeffrey Hamilton on Unsplash

• Those two chicken poo-poos, for giving me a content idea.

• Leni, for sharing a friend's “wrong order” story and how he handled it.

• Slothy, for sharing her service crew experience and why wrong orders should be brought up.

If you haven’t read Part I, check it out :3

Previously on How I Met Your Mother The Sleep-Fun Dilemma,

• Late-night talks are fun.

• But, past a certain time threshold, the fun diminishes and harm sets in.

• The goal is to replace late-night talks with good talks that don’t sacrifice good sleep.

After some trial and error, I found three paths lying ahead of me.

Ready for a deep dive? Let’s go.

🌄 Path A: Morning Walk-and-Talk

I talked to Leni a few weeks after our last conversation. I told her that, instead of late-night talks, we could do them in the early mornings. That means no talk sessions at night — we would do our work, go to bed, and wake up early the next day for a walk-and-talk in the park.

Remember how every choice comes at a cost? The same applies here. Before trying, I knew it would be different because the vibes wouldn’t be the same.

Unlike the hustles of daylight, where life demands you to go, go and go, evenings are when time slows. Quiet and soothing — perfect for a lovely heart-to-heart.

However, I believed we could still get returns in terms of joy — just a different kind of joy from a different kind of vibe. We wouldn’t get physically exhausted. Rather, we would have rested well enough to enjoy the session. Our day wouldn’t be wasted, and we would feel better having started the day well with good people around.

The greatest bit? We would remember much of it. I didn’t foresee any way that could override the fun. It would be a memory worth writing in a diary and a moment worth reminiscing in the future.

At least, that was the theory.

For a few days, we tried. Did it work? Well, it felt different. While the “not tired” and “worth remembering” benefits are there, it was different in that it couldn’t entirely replace a late-night talk. As another member of our “late-night talk” group said,

We just talked about random, shallow things. #notdeepenough

If I must say, mornings symbolize beginnings. It is synonymous with planning and analyzing with the rational mind. Meanwhile, evenings symbolize endings. It is when your thoughts slow and you reflect on things from your heart and listen to words that come into your heart.

Conclusion: This is not good enough.

🛑 Path B: Controlled Night Talk

This deals with the concern in Path A. It is like late-night talks but done under controlled conditions. Here is how it works.

1. Declare the intention. This is key because you don’t want to get swept around by the flow of events (or vibes), and subconsciously go past the time threshold. Have fun, intentionally.

2. Decide the start and end times. Before starting, finish the go-to-bed prep (shower, brush teeth, etc.) to reduce the friction of ending the session later.

3. Set one or two alarm(s) to signify the end. For instance, the first alarm can be the soft threshold, while the second can be the hard threshold.

We tried this for the first time last week. Remember the graph for the Law of Diminishing Returns? It is real! One big finding was,

• Any time before 1 a.m. yields positive returns.

• Any time between 1 and 2 a.m. yields diminishing returns.

• Any time past 2 a.m. yields negative returns.

Between 1 and 2 a.m., you start to feel tired and the conversation slowly turns shallow. Past 2 a.m., you just don’t know what you’re talking about. Even if you do, and even if it was fun, you likely couldn’t remember it.

Seriously,

Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.

Here are some other findings:

🪨 Easy to start, hard to end

In Part I, I mentioned the comfort of coming home from university and just chilling on the couch. This is more attractive than showering and brushing your teeth — a key step before starting the controlled night talk.

In other words, you may skip this step and just start the session. The problem is that it becomes harder to end the talk because continuing is now more attractive than showering and brushing your teeth. Friction.

🙌 It takes group commitment to end

If everyone ignores the end time, it will turn into the late-night talk we are trying to avoid.

📉 The later you begin, the less effective it is

Imagine working on your assignment. It’s midnight and you finally got it done. You want to reward yourself by revenge procrastination because sleep isn't the most attractive reward, but having a night talk is.

So you chose Path B: declare the intention, decide the start and end times, and set the alarms. If an hour of fun is enough, that’s good. But what if it isn’t? You might postpone the end time until it is past the threshold and voila — the usual late-night talk.

Conclusion: The sample size is limited. Need more testing.

🌌 Path C: Night Walk-and-Talk

I like this the most.

Like Path B, it has the same benefits as late-night talk. Yet unlike Path B, it solves the first obstacle. Here's how it works:

1. Declare the intention.

2. Decide the start and end times.

3. Set one or two alarm(s) to signify the end.

It’s literally Path B. But what makes it different is you don’t get ready to bed first. Instead, you reach home and go for a walk naturally.

Why does it work? Because it obeys all the Four Laws of Behavior Change. James Clear must be proud.

1. It is obvious. We usually come home after dinner feeling full. That is the cue.

2. It is attractive. Talking > showering + brushing teeth

3. It is easy. How hard can it be? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

4. It is satisfying. A talk session is satisfying in itself.

Hang on. Am I a little biased here? Isn’t a “lying-on-the-couch-and-talk” more attractive, easy, and satisfying?

Indeed, it is. But their difference is negligible. The cue — feeling full after dinner — combined with a little push from your prefrontal cortex, a walk-and-talk will always win.

Nevertheless, it has its flaws.

🙌 It still takes group commitment to end

It’s easy to end the walk itself, as you will get tired after some time. But what stops us from returning from the walk and continuing on the couch? A group commitment, like with Path B.

📉 The later you begin, the less effective it is

Same as with Path B.

⛈️ If it rains…

You can’t do it.

Conclusion: It is the best overall path.

⛰️ A struggle towards the heights

Even if something is good, it’ll be bad if you do it too much. —Leni

It would be great if Path C was the solution. But in real life, circumstances will change and your approach must change, too. That's the Goldilocks Principle (I love citing this shit) — a continuous search for the middle way via trial and error.

Sometimes, Path C is better. But sometimes, everyone would feel so tired that going to bed early for Path A — a morning walk-and-talk — is better. When it rains, Path B — a controlled night talk — is better.

Heck, even disregarding all the paths and staying up until sunrise is sometimes better. I hate to agree with this. But, if your best friend is leaving overseas soon and won't come back for a year, talking to him/her late into the night is worthwhile.

Balance.

It's about the search for it while acknowledging that a permanent balance may never be reached — it is forever changing. This may sound pointless, but the search itself is still worthwhile. As my favorite philosopher once wrote,

The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.

—Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

Let's keep trying.

—Thomas🦙

P.S.

Well, well, well. Look at my alter ego overestimating himself. I missed the Sunday deadline for a second time. Ouch. Noted down the lessons here.

🏆 Weekly Gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a YouTube video that blew my mind.

Here’s the gold this week 👇

I tried its image generation (Magic Media) for the first time. It amazed me. I could even “magically” edit the image. The 2nd guy in the illustration for Path B was wearing a green outer shirt. I used the Magic Edit and — *boom* — it turned into the blue you saw earlier. Crazy.

Other credits:

• Absurdism: Life is Meaningless by Aperture

• The Myth of Sisyphus by Alex Gendler on TED-Ed

• Is life meaningless? And other absurd questions by Nina Medvinskaya on TED-Ed

Some time ago, I had a talk with a friend — the same friend who sent me that picture of the night sky in Adelaide. Let’s call her Leni.

It was a little past midnight — often the comfortable time for a comfortable heart-to-heart.

We spoke about my concerns. About how it felt as though we had been going with the flow. Relaxed. Perhaps, too relaxed when it comes to hanging out and letting others or the flow of events dictate how we spend our time and — more specifically — when we sleep.

Moving into this house for the first time, with good people around as housemates, has been amazing. I enjoyed the times when we talked about things we wouldn’t usually bring up in a day-to-day chatter; when we just laughed at stupid things together.

These sessions often happened at night. There were times when we were so into it that we would stay up really late. Sometimes two in the morning. Sometimes four.

When it was the latter, everyone would feel terrible the next day. I would, too, feel tired and unmotivated, as if the next day was essentially lost.

After a few late-night sessions, I wondered if they were worth it. My few years of a love-hate relationship with sleep have taught me that sleep dictates many things in my life. Lose it and everything else falls apart.

If not now, eventually, it will.

⏰ I wanted to wake up at 5

I told Leni about going to bed early. I said I wanted to get up super early, like 5 or 6, in the morning — an hour or two before sunrise. I thought about using dinner as my cut-off time, after which I would stop working/studying, and slowly wind down for bed. I wanted to wake up before the sun rises; before everyone else, and hustle to build a life I desire.

Indeed, when I was in A-Level a few years ago, I did so for a few nights — going to bed around 9 or 10 p.m., and waking up as early as 5 in the morning. It felt really good, as though the world was still asleep, and you were given a head start in life. I would get things done and look at the time and smile that it was still early. I would get so much done and there was still so much time left.

But, as days flew by, I felt a surge of loneliness. Having a schedule like that — in a world where most people don't — meant having more time by yourself, and less time with others. When I tried waking up at 6.30 a.m. recently, I felt the same emotion welling up in me as I did a few years ago.

A tiny void within.

As though something was lost.

As though there was an unmet human need.

Sure, the world is still asleep. Sure, it feels great to be “ahead” and hustle to build a good life. Sure, I have all the quiet time I need to get things done without the fear of missing out or being distracted.

But the world is still asleep. It feels lonely to be the only one awake.

And it also takes a lot to hold back on late-night talks. Coming home from university and getting ready for bed immediately doesn’t feel as good as sitting on the couch and chilling and talking about life and stuff, even if it is late into the night.

Tell me. What should I do?

🆎 Every story involves choices

I wonder if “the work it takes” includes sacrifices. Because every story — good or bad — involves choices. And every choice comes with a sacrifice for the other. Some are easy to make. Some are difficult.

Waking up at 5 means skipping the late-night talks to go to bed earlier. Choosing to indulge in late-night talks until early morning means waking up late, or waking up early and feeling like a total mess.

I said to Leni that I’m not sure. On one hand, I really want to build a good life, and getting good sleep is the prerequisite. On the other, I learned that your interpersonal relationships are the best indicator of happiness, and late-night talks have shown to help us cultivate a strong one.

To this, she said,

The connections you would make by spending more time “hustling” — at expense of close-knit relationships — are likely “professional”.

Professional relationships are nice to have. They can be like-minded people sharing similar visions and interests. You can get inspired by each other and grow together for the “good life” you desire. They are the unfair advantage you can capitalize on. You are the unfair advantage they can capitalize on.

But they are unlikely to be your “3 a.m. friends”.

On a number of occasions, friends have surprised me by calling me in the middle of night with a crisis. Perhaps they needed someone to support family members waiting tensely in an emergency room. Perhaps they were torn between a job opportunity and pursuing their dream. Perhaps they only needed to share a secret tearing them up inside. 

I've come to realize that it is an honor to be trusted in moments like that. When someone shares their vulnerability, they are inviting us to know them in the solemn way.

—Charles Vogl, 3 a.m. Friends

I came across this idea some time ago. Thinking about it makes me wonder how terrible it would be if one doesn’t have any 3 a.m. friends. Not having people like that; not being one like that for someone else, must be scary. One must feel so lonely in this world.

But does it mean I should keep things the same and indulge in late-night talks without holding back?

To this, Leni added,

If talking late into the night makes you and your friends have a bad lifestyle and can’t do well the next day, it’s not worth it.

It seems like we are going in circles with no solution. The point I’m trying to make here is that every choice involves sacrifices. The key lies in making the best choice that makes the sacrifices worth it.

To do that, I have come to realize one thing.

📉 The Law of Diminishing Returns

In one of Ali Abdaal's early videos, he shared an underrated idea (probably quoted from How I Met Your Mother),

Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.

It wasn't life-changing, probably because I never had to deal with this "sleep vs late-night talk" dilemma. But now, I resonate with it. What Ali meant is the same as I do now.

In all late-night funs, there is a time threshold beyond which the fun diminishes and the harm sets in.

This is the Law of Diminishing Returns. There is a point when spending an hour chatting at 3 a.m. is less fun than at 11 p.m. It also goes beyond that — the return (fun) will turn negative (harm), possibly leading to net harm (if not a very little net return) to everyone involved.

What's the harm?

We talked about how staying up late makes you lose the next day. But it goes beyond that. For many times, I have found my thoughts becoming more extreme or pessimistic, owing to bad sleep. Losing clarity doesn’t feel good, because it leads you to make bad choices. It makes you do things that hurt yourself and say things that could hurt other people.

In other words, you sacrifice sleep to build strong interpersonal relationships, only to lose them as well in the long run.

What could be worse?

🍂 You won't remember much

This was in my diary a week ago.

I had my second late-night talk since coming back to this shared house about a week ago. This time, it began from 1 a.m. to 2.42 a.m. Why wasn’t I asleep? Because there was another late-night talk that happened from 10 p.m. until the time I joined. It could have stopped. It was my fault to join in that late.

It felt like a hangover (Never had one but it just felt like it). I thought it wouldn’t be that bad, then I woke up feeling like a mess. No matter how much I slept in, I still felt super tired. And I couldn’t remember much of what was talked about last night. I remember we had a small debate on education systems, but I don't remember much of the content, the process and the feelings.

I’m more convinced that this late-night talk format brings more cons than pros. It gives short-term, immediate pleasures but long-term suffering.

One reason I enjoyed reading Donald Miller's book was the way he started it.

The saddest thing about life is you don't remember half of it. You don't even remember half of half of it. Not even a tiny percentage, if you want to know the truth. I have this friend Bob who writes down everything he remembers. If he remembers dropping an ice cream cone on his lap when he was seven, he'll write it down. The last time I talked to Bob, he had written more than five hundred pages of memories. He's the only guy I know who remembers his life.

He said he capture memories, because if he forgets them, it's as though they didn't happen; it's as though he hadn't lived the parts he doesn't remember.

I don’t remember why I started journaling, but hoping to capture memories was one reason why I still do it. Donald highlighted the uncomfortable truth — you won’t remember much of your life.

That sucks. It sucks more when what we end up remembering turns up to be “bad” ones.

One well-established mistake is that we often judge experiences mainly by their endings: if you missed your flight on the last day of an enjoyable holiday, you’ll probably remember the holiday as bad.

—80,000 Hours, What Makes for a Dream Job

I thought about this. What if not remembering the fun isn’t the worst part? What if the worst part is remembering fun memories as bad because we passed the time threshold? Wouldn’t that make the first few hours of fun meaningless?

Unfair.

📌 Conclusion

At this point, we have come to an understanding.

Late-night talks with good people are fun, but past a time threshold, the fun diminishes and harm sets in, turning it into an overall bad experience with long-term consequences.

It is a problem that needs to be fixed, which is coming up in Part II this Sunday (28 Jan). See ya!

—Thomas🦙

P.S.

Well, well, well. I missed my Sunday (21 Jan) deadline a few days ago. This post was supposed to be a standalone work, but it got so long that I couldn’t get it done on time. I even ended up splitting it into two (maybe three). Urgh.

Writing this was a challenge, especially when figuring out how to piece the ideas together without sounding forced. Part II will be more of an in-depth analysis. I’m a little worried that it may not be a story worth reading. But I’m excited to see what comes out :3

P.P.S.

It’s me on Jan 30. Missed the 28 Jan deadline :/

🏆 Weekly Gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a YouTube video that blew my mind.

Here’s the gold this week 👇

I was introduced to this song by a friend (another one). Recently, it has been the first song I play when opening up Spotify #notsponsored. Love the vibes.

Other credits:

• Cover photo by Kevin Erdvig on Unsplash.

I got on a train.

There was an old lady in my seat. The seat I had bought a ticket for. Stunned, I hurried out and checked if I was in the wrong coach.

Nope, I was right.

I went in and checked the seat number again. Yup, I was right again. Approaching the old lady, I asked her and her husband (probably) if that was her seat. Her hubby (let's call him that) showed me their tickets and yup, I was right once more. That was my seat. Hers was just to the right side of his hubby, though separated by the walkway.

The old lady got up immediately to get to her actual seat. Part of me wondered if they had known, but just wanted to sit together. Well, I didn’t mind. I told her it was alright and suggested to swap with her. They were happy. Hubby put a hand on my shoulder with a squeeze and whispered,

I'm happy, too.

I

That was an event I encountered on a train ride from home. I noticed how being on a long ride like this, especially when I'm alone, prompts a lot of good stories to write about. That was one of them.

As I sat on my new seat, I thought about a teacher of mine — one who taught me Further Math in A-Level and some great lessons in life.

He was the kind of guy who would thank the janitors whenever they came to clean the classroom he was in. A simple task like changing the rubbish bag would get a "Terima kasih, kak (thank you, sister)” from him. He always received a lovely "sama-sama (you're welcome)" from them.

As unusual as it was, I could see it made the janitors’ day. It made mine, too.

II

It was the year 2021.

I was walking along a long link bridge from my college dorm to the library (probably). It was morning. The sun was shining but not so much that it was blistering. It was a long walk — the kind you could see someone walking towards you from afar. So could the other person.

My introverted self would always feel awkward here. Approaching a person head-on, while you still have some distance between each other, is...weird. It's even worse when it's someone you know. Or kinda know. You want to talk but you can't because of the distance.

So what can you do? Just keep walking and staring at each other. Or walk faster while trying to look at the weird clouds in the sky or your phone for the time.

You get what I mean...right?

This was one of those moments. There was someone in front. I didn’t know him, nor was he walking towards me face-to-face. It was an old janitor sweeping the floor. Probably in his late 40s or 50s.

My introvert power activated, so I chose to go past him with a smile at most, as a sign of courtesy. Well, I was wearing a mask (we were still in a pandemic, remember?) so he couldn't have seen it anyway. Anyhow, it was awkward.

Slowly, we were getting closer.

Slowly, we were approaching each other's "talk zone".

Okay, look at the side. Look at the trees and the birds passing by.

Get ready for the smile. For the squinting eyes to show your smile (behind the mask).

Five more meters.

Four more.

Three.

Two.

I returned the greeting. That day became one of my good days with a good start.

III

Fast forward to 18 January 2024. As I write this story, the Mitsuha’s theme from Your Name was playing in the background. It is a special song — one that makes me think of encounters. Those with strangers that happen all the time and end with a tinge of bittersweetness, sometimes.

I used to listen to it during some of the nights in A-Level, when I would stroll around the campus with earbuds on. There would be very few people around. As if you were all by yourself in this world.

But it also reminds me that there are other people. People who, too, have their own lives. Their own worries. Their own stories.

Sonder.

I mentioned it back in a review of The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa.

The feeling one has on realizing that every other individual one sees has a life as full and real as one’s own, in which they are the central character and others, including oneself, have secondary or insignificant roles.

—dictionary.com

What does it have to do with those stories? The train event? My teacher? The old janitor?

I guess, sonder is a unique feeling. One that could make someone kinder. When you stop thinking about the world revolving around you, or rather, when you realize that everyone "has a life as full and real" as your own, you may feel...well, sonder.

You will probably have a desire to be kind, too. Because having lived your "full and real" life thus far, you probably knew it hadn't been easy. If others have been living their own “full and real” lives, surely they would feel the same and deserve some kindness you would like to receive yourself.

And I must say, kindness is infectious.

The kind appreciation that my teacher showed to strangers.

The “Good morning!” from the old janitor with a bright grin.

The old hubby who thanked me for the seat.

They spread kindness. It led me to be more willing to overcome my self-imposed social anxiety (sometimes) and try to greet strangers. I did a few times to some janitors before at my university, and they always returned the greetings with a smile.

The Mitsuha’s theme song reminded me of the event on the train. The latter then led me to revisit the two stories, one of my teacher and the other of the old janitor.

I guess I just want to say,

If your “Good morning!” can make someone's day, don't waste it.

—Thomas🦙

P.S.

I'm not sure if I did this story justice since it’s almost 2 am (ouch). I made some bad decisions yesterday that led me to this. It didn’t feel great trying to rush writing, especially when doing it late at night. Hope it still turned out well.

And yes, good morning to you :3

🏆 Weekly Gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a YouTube video that blew my mind.

Here’s the gold this week 👇

Can’t remember if there’s any gold this week, so I just made one myself. It’s a small reminder to get good sleep, because many things, if not all, fall apart with the lack thereof.

Sure, there will be times when it’s worth more to go to bed late. Like having a chat with a friend you haven’t seen for ages, writing a blog post *cough* or bringing your “explosive diarrhea-ing” cat 🐈 to the vet. Never experienced the last one. Never want to.

But on other nights, if you can get good sleep instead of doom scrolling or the like, do it. Because many things — health, opportunities, relationships, etc. — fall apart without it. Doom scrolling isn’t worth sacrificing those things.

Zzz I should sleep now.

Other credits:

• Cover photo by JuniperPhoton on Unsplash

It’s Sunday. I have another two days to go before my next and last exam for this season of finals.

The tension, the worries. They are here with me. It turns out that cramming isn’t a great idea. I knew it, and I also knew it takes more to make sure not to fall into this trap every time. I’m trying.

I was doing some past-year questions. After the first 2 hours, I decided to take a break and do some writing. Because the second post this week is due today. Being unable to bulk write and schedule ahead due to exams and other things on my plate is putting this “two posts a week” experiment on thin ice. Scary.

So here I am. Got out of the library, took a dump at the best toilet on campus, and sat on the sofa while typing this story with my two little thumbs on the phone. I washed my hands. Trust me.

However, as scary as failing the “two posts a week” experiment is, not getting ready for the exam is scarier. I think my friends on the Dean’s list would be panicking now if they were me. So why am I not studying now? Why don’t I put this writing on hold and devote everything to the cram?

I guess, part of me is still thinking about exams not being the only means to a good life. And that putting resources here is a means too. But I suppose I should be a grave digger for being so good at digging holes for myself. Surely, I could have created a situation where there is no need to choose between studying and writing, but both, right?

Ouch.

🐄 Not gonna cry over spilled milk

In Rich Dad, Poor Dad, the author Robert Kiyosaki recollected having two dads — one who paid the bills first thing in the month; the other who did it last. Surely, the first dad is more responsible and thus “successful”, right?

No.

It turned out that the “irresponsible” dad became the Rich Dad. Every month, Rich Dad would pay himself first by allocating money to his asset column before his monthly expenses. That means investing the money first before settling the bills and — in Robert’s own words — “let the creditors scream”.

I like it when they (the creditors) get tough. Why? Because those guys do me a favor. They inspire me to go out and create more money.

Like Robert and his Rich Dad, I see my next Wednesday exam as the bills chasing after him. Writing this post thus becomes akin to investing the money. Sure, it sounds crazy. Even I have a fear that it will bite me back next week.

But, like the creditors (my exam) screaming, I know wasting time under the current circumstances is out of the picture. I am compelled to use my finite resources well — less on inefficient studying and more on work that actually gets me ready for the paper.

At the same time, it counters Parkinson's Law — the all-so-famous law about work expanding to fill the time allocated. Limit the time and you shall get unexpectedly good results in less time than expected. Awesome, …right?

⚖️ The caveat and the potential

In my case, the idea of paying yourself first has a drawback: The less time you have from “the creditors”, the heavier the toll it takes on your morale. Seeing the limited time I have left and the amount of work I must do is discouraging — making it easy to run away into the comfy embrace of doom-scrolling and the like.

That's why I called myself a grave digger; I have dug a hole for myself. The ideal option is always one where I could do both “getting sufficiently ready for exams" and "writing” without having to resort to this. Alas, it's better to focus on the solution now than the (lactose-free) spilled milk on the floor.

That makes me wonder.

What if you have reasonably enough time from “the creditors”?

Say, you have two things to do:

1. Learn Python programming.

2. Finish an assignment due at a reasonably distant time from now.

The latter has a deadline, while the former is what you probably want to do as a hobby and an investment — nothing bad will happen even if you fail. Common sense tells you to get that assignment done so you can enjoy your Python learning later without guilt. Sounds logical, right?

But will you?

Without the need to learn Python, will you do it? Without “creditors” screaming at you, will you avoid Parkinson’s Law and complete the assignment efficiently? That’s a topic worth spending some time deep-diving into. Time which I don’t have much now. *sob*

Gonna get back to studying!

—Thomas🦙

🏆 Weekly Gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a YouTube video that blew my mind.

Here’s the gold this week 👇

Spot on. My latest experience happened to this blog post itself. After spending an hour on the couch writing on my phone, I hit writer’s block where I didn’t know how to continue. The ideas stopped flowing and I was just beating around the bushes.

Then I stopped writing, got up, and walked back to the library. The idea came to me during this walk. I’m amazed.

Other credits:

• Cover photo by Yusuf Yassir on Unsplash.

• Sam’s book notes on Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

The other day, a friend sent me that picture from Australia. It was the night sky in Adelaide. The white specks? They were stars peppering the sky in ways that I had never seen before.

I

When I was a kid, I still remember the joy of getting a chair out in our little front yard, sitting there, and looking up at the night sky. I don't remember what it looked like, but I knew there were stars, sometimes the moon, sometimes clouds, and how amazing it felt. It feels even better when — in your field of vision — you don’t see any buildings, streetlights, trees, or people — anything but the sky full of stars.

As if you are truly on a planet. On Earth. Wandering around in deep space at a crazily high speed unbeknownst to you.

It feels surreal. I can't explain it as well as you experiencing it yourself. But it is as if the lots that life throws at you slowly fade away and don't matter. As though time has come to a quiet halt and you slowly remember how tiny you are, how delicate and futile your existence is in this vast universe which you will never, ever, have the chance to see it all.

But here you are — alive and well. That's crazy. That’s something to take pride in. To have a pat on the shoulder for. To be thankful for.

I like how that friend sent me the photo that night. It was timely, as it gave me the idea to write this story and to tell you and me that the world is huge. That many things are happening at the same time all over the place. Many lives are happening. Many stories are being told and lived. When I first saw the picture, a thought came to mind,

The world is beautifully huge, but it's very easy to forget that.

II

Looking back, I learned that your perspectives could slowly get limited by the four walls surrounding you. Whether it was spending time largely in my dorm and avoiding people back in my early A-Level/university days. Or lockdowns. Or being back at my childhood home where my family is — a good, old comfort zone.

Lately, I have been feeling that way. The four walls of my house — albeit protective — were blinding me from seeing what I should see. The realization that I was slowly reverting to the old self I had been trying to move on from scared me.

From experience, I knew this had something to do with staying in a comfort zone for too long. Because, when I saw a photo like that — sent by someone I know — I could sense the metaphorical walls breaking down. I felt a similar way when I started getting back on X (formerly Twitter) after a year-long hiatus. When I saw the creator-friends I knew who were still working hard consistently to realize their dreams.

The night sky. The creator-friends on X. They truly made me feel the massiveness of this world. And the beauty of many things happening around you.

Even as you spend hours doom scrolling, there are people seeing the world for its gifts, living their lives like movies worth watching.

It feels like a waste not to do that, too.

—Thomas🦙

P.S.

Just finished an exam today (I’m a chemical x environmental engineering student, by the way). Had some mixed feelings as I walked out of the exam hall.

Did I do my best?

What does “best” even mean?

Writing this post is a good reminder that the world is huge, and so are the opportunities you can create and capitalize on. This may feel a little like self-consolation or the story of the fox and the grapes, but while acing that test is a means to a good life, it is not the only means.

At least, that is what I would like to think. It is liberating.

🏆 Weekly Gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a YouTube video that blew my mind.

Here’s the gold this week 👇

This blew my mind. It reminds me of Mark Rober’s speech to the MIT Class of 2023 where he mentioned “naive optimism” — a (sometimes) unrealistically positive mindset that everything will turn out well because one hasn’t known the struggles it would take to get there.

When a commitment is some time away, it sounds like you can do it. Maybe, it is because it is still some time away that you can leave the hassles to the future you. That’s akin to naive optimism. But, as Jack wrote, adding a bit of urgency brings the commitment to the present to show you what fulfilling it would be like.

And if the struggles are still worth it, you can say “yes”.

Brilliant.

Right after editing the last story, a wave of self-doubts came crashing down on me.

Previously, I revealed my plan for writing consistently this year, because I want to enjoy writing again. But I wonder if it will do fine. In less than two weeks, I will be sitting for my Autumn finals in my third year at university. The problem? I am not ready.

Sure, I have done something in the past few study weeks. Sure, one can never be fully ready — no amount of revisions is ever enough. But I knew my preparation was really not enough. The worst thing is that part of the reason was losing a few days to procrastination and escapism, which I talked about in some of the old stories.

I thought about my dear Goldilocks Principle again. I adore the idea of trying something new if the current methods don't work until you find the middle way — the Goldilocks — that will finally change something for the better. I even have the tagline on my laptop wallpaper.

Nothing changes unless something changes.

And it has actually helped me so far. I haven't gotten stuck in the YouTube rabbit hole for about 100 days (at the time of writing) — a long time, considering I would relapse every few days in the past. I also haven't lost myself reading manga excessively for an even longer time.

But, still, I messed up a few times recently. It’s not because The Goldilocks Principle wasn’t working, but because the principle was working. Remember, nothing changes unless something changes. If the circumstances change, so must you in response to keep the Goldilocks, Goldilocks.

And I did not make any changes even as my environment changed.

When the study weeks began, I went back from university to my hometown, and — boom — I was back in my comfort zone. I lost the streak of "no reading manga excessively" for a few days, and then slowly changed to reading novels on my Kindle too late into the night. Like, “until 2 to 4 am” kind of late. Then, I would get up around 11 am or noon.

At one point, I sensed the same feeling I had back in my old intense "waste man" days, the times when I would get up in the afternoons or evenings (yes, you saw that right).

The day has already ended when you want to begin.

Besides, I am in an engineering competition to design a process to manufacture sustainable aviation fuel. The first deadline? In less than two weeks, too. I also dared to update one of my Notion templates and devote attention to this blog. Oh, don't forget the internship applications I must work on. All these while having to prep for my important finals.

Waste time? What some balls of audacity I had.

As the clock ticks away, I find my available time shrinking, yet my pile of worries remains the same — growing. Honestly, I'm grappling with the idea of whether I can publish two posts a week this month (Jan 2024).

I felt stuck.

🔄️ The turning point

Just days ago, I was doing fine, steering clear of my old, destructive habits. But a nagging insecurity lingered.

How is this possible?

What is helping me out?

Are the changes in place now really Goldilocks?

I felt insecure. I don’t know if this brief period of “sobriety” will last. And I was right because I relapsed again shortly after.

That was when I remembered a tweet by Alex & Books:

It blew my mind.

Why didn’t I think of this?

Why did I forget something so obvious?

I realized that I lacked the information needed to make changes. And not just any changes, but those that move the needle towards sustainable "sobriety" and, at least, getting ready for my finals.

I immediately got Ali Abdaal's Feel Good Productivity. It opened my eyes and gave me the sudden inspiration to write I Want to Enjoy Writing Again & this post. In one single night. Crazy.

I'm diving into that book, among others, on a quest for those hidden gems that could help piece my life back together, again.

It’s painful to write the word “again” here. But I guess that's what the Goldilocks Principle is all about — it's a marathon, not a sprint. It's all about finding that balance for a lasting “sobriety”, for a life that's a story worth telling.

And let's be real, spending my days lost in manga or tumbling down the Reddit rabbit hole until the wee hours won’t help.

But reading the right books will take me there, closer.

—Thomas🦙

P.S. That's the first week of "two posts a week" done. It's looking promising, but this is the point where it is most likely to fall apart. We’ll see🤞

🏆 Weekly Gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a YouTube video that blew my mind.

Here’s the gold this week 👇

There are two golds this week, as I find them closely related. Yi Hui put the thoughts about what writing means to me into apt words, while Laurita reminded me about writing what you resonate with, rather than what’s trending to get likes and stuff.

Great pieces to end the week with.

Other credits:

• Blaz Photo on Unsplash, for the cover photo.

When reading Ali Abdaal's new book, Feel Good Productivity, I had an epiphany.

What if I write mini-stories on a quasi-daily basis?

I remember Seth Godin who writes and publishes a blog post every single day (about 8000 days so far). Sometimes they are as short as a few lines. Sometimes they are long-form content. But what matters is he has been doing that daily for more than 20 years.

As I read Feynman's story in Ali's book, I recollected the reason I started writing online. It's not to produce long-form content that looks nice and pretty, but for the joy of sharing ideas and stories. This is my biggest driving force.

When I reflected on my writing journey since 2020, I saw an unsustainable path. Having made and sold some Notion templates myself, one of the lessons I learned is that consistency is what separates a good creator from a bad one. It's not that the latter has terrible ideas and produces terrible templates, but that they — including myself — aren't consistent in doing it. We would pop up now and then with good products, then disappear after falling into (possibly) burnout and self-doubts. And repeat. Eventually, we might quit altogether. I had this revelation in Kevon Cheung's writing.

Imagine going to a Christmas party hosted by a new friend you met. When you enter the party, you get super excited. Not only is the place fully decorated, but it is also packed with interesting people with great vibes. You’re getting curious about this new friend.

But throughout the evening, you see her sticking to her closest friends at the corner of her flat. She even disappears from her place from time to time. How do you feel about this party? This host? About getting to know her better? You’re likely okay about the party, but you’re not so sure about the host.

Maybe you are also feeling something similar about this blog.

✍️ How will writing mini-stories quasi-daily fix this?

The first step towards a problem is knowing what the problem is. That's the first step of any scientific experiment and the first thing I learned in science back in secondary school — identifying the problem.

What could that be? Self-imposed expectations. Back in On Writing Well, I wrote about my tendency to write good long-form content because I had written good long-form content before. There's nothing wrong with setting standards for yourself. But what is wrong is the self-imposed pressure to produce good long-form content in the first draft itself. I don’t enjoy that pressure. But it is there. It is there in the first draft, the second, and the editing stage. It sometimes made me wonder if I would lose the ability to write as well as before. Scary.

The best way to fix this? Write more.

And not just writing more, but publishing them frequently and consistently. I have a feeling that it won't work by writing and keeping it to myself. That's the role of journaling. That's another story.

I remember reading somewhere that you never truly overcome the fear of, say, public speaking. It was there before, and it will always be. But what changed is your acknowledgment of the fear and your likelihood to face the fear. In other words, courage. Experience breeds courage. And in this case, writing and publishing more frequently breed experience, leading to courage.

🎯 The goals

There are two things I hope to get out of this.

1. Reduce the friction.

2. Keep the blog alive.

Because there will be mini-stories published every 1-3 days, I am forced to look at my self-imposed expectations in the face. Remember, the more I experience the fear (or pressure), the more likely I am to face it regardless. At the same time, the friction of getting started drops. That's the hypothesis.

Achieving the first goal will make the second — to keep this blog alive — possible. Remember again:

Consistency is what separates a good creator from a bad one.

A great example is Oversimplified, an awesome YouTube channel that explains history with wonderful storytelling and apt animations. It doesn't publish weekly or monthly, as it takes a long time to research and animate. Even so, it doesn't make Oversimplified any less amazing, because its viewers know it has consistently come back with great content, at least yearly. Oversimplified has a sustainable model, I believe. And sustainability breeds consistency. Consistency breeds greatness. There's a lot of breeding today, huh?

That consistency, however, isn't seen here. Because you won't know when my next story is coming. I once had an "every Sunday" schedule, but it slowly changed to "every Monday", then fell apart with a long break. If I were the reader of this publication, I would wish it published more frequently, or at least show some consistency. Well, I do have the consistency of being inconsistent. Oh, well.

🤧 But...

Mini-stories. Quasi-daily.

That means a post almost every single day.

One concern I have in mind is, that the "email newsletter" side of this blog may make it feel like spam. Nobody likes that. What is quasi-daily anyway? Sometimes daily? Every two to three days? Every five days? What are mini-stories? How long should they be? I haven't given them much thought.

Then, I considered putting these mini-stories under paid subscriptions, for those who enjoy the high-frequency, mini-content enough to pay a few bucks for them. But there comes my next concern. Will anyone want that? I doubt so.

And, the best rebuttal yet, which I vaguely remember an old friend of mine said,

If you can't even publish once per week, how can you expect to publish almost every day?

I'm beat.

🛣️ The middle way

In The Goldilocks Principle, I talked about the importance of not taking both sides of the extremes, but the middle path, when working towards a goal. It applies here, too.

Remember, the main goal of "mini-stories quasi-daily" is to reduce the friction by introducing greater time constraints which theoretically lowers self-imposed expectations. I suppose I failed "one post per week" because having 6 days at my disposal compelled me to write something of equivalent worth. Because I know you know I have 6 days at my disposal. That's how the expectations grow.

Besides, I envision an ideal mechanism of batch writing and scheduling in advance. This is to achieve the second goal — keep the blog alive — even when something goes wrong which renders me unable to write for a week or two.

So, after such a long analysis and consulting “chad gippity”, I arrived at the middle way.

Write two posts a week.

Why? Here's what "chad gippity" said.

Understanding that your struggle is rooted in self-imposed expectations during the drafting stage, particularly influenced by the perceived pressure of having six days between posts, adjusting your posting frequency could indeed have an impact. Let's explore how increasing your frequency from one post per week might affect this specific issue:

Reduced Time for Overthinking

With a tighter schedule, you may have less time to dwell on each post's perceived imperfections. This can lessen the pressure you feel to meet high self-imposed standards.

Normalization of Imperfection

More frequent posting might help you embrace the natural imperfections in each post, understanding that not every piece has to be a masterpiece.

Shift in Focus

A higher frequency can shift your focus from trying to create one 'perfect' post each week to producing regular, consistent content. This change can help realign your expectations towards gradual improvement rather than immediate perfection.

Of course, "chad gippity" was considerate enough to mention some possible challenges, including quality concerns, increased workload, and how the readers (you) would react.

Ultimately, it gave a well-thought-out conclusion.

Given your specific challenge with self-imposed expectations, increasing the frequency of your posts could be a beneficial experiment. It might help you to become more comfortable with the natural process of evolving and improving over time, rather than fixating on achieving a high standard with each individual post.

However, it's crucial to approach this change as a trial. Start by temporarily increasing your posting frequency to twice a week for a set period, say a month, and then assess:

• How has this affected your writing process and the pressure you feel during drafting?

• What impact has it had on the quality of your posts?

• How have your readers responded to the change?

Based on these observations, you can then decide whether to continue with this new frequency, revert to your original schedule, or find a middle ground that better suits your needs and capabilities. Remember, the ultimate goal is to find a balance that allows for consistent, enjoyable, and quality content creation.

So, I'm gonna try posting twice a week for a month, every Thursday and Sunday. When February comes, we'll see if we wanna keep it going after that.

Let's see how it goes!

—Thomas

P.S. Thanks for reading this far! Here's your cookie🍪. As you munch, feel free to answer this poll below to let me know if this is a great idea. You can also leave a comment below or reply to this email. You may get a second cookie🍪 and a bonus llama🦙.

🏆 Weekly Gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a YouTube video that blew my mind.

Here’s the gold this week 👇

I have enjoyed Susan’s work since reading her book Quiet, which appreciates the strengths and contributions of introverts “in a world that can't stop talking”. When I had doubts if moving to this new platform was the right move, finding her here was reassuring.

Her post on focusing on joy was timely, too. As willpower is like a muscle, it gets tired and can only get you so far alone. I’m exploring more on this in Ali’s book, Feel Good Productivity.

P.P.S. She liked my restack! *gasp*

Other credits:

• Steve Johnson on Unsplash, for the cover photo.

• Substack, for a smooth transition and first publish.

Over the past few years, my reading journey has been nothing short of an adventure. Along the way, each book I encountered has left an open window, not just to another world, but to new ways of seeing our own and ourselves. Through these windows, I found not just relatable characters and fancy plot twists, but lessons that no classrooms could have taught.

On the power of habits;

On the courage to be disliked,

On the beauty of stories and those who write them,

And so much more.

Some nights ago, I finished a book that taught me the meaning of sonder. To be kind and empathize, even when you don’t know what someone is going through, or rather, because you don’t know what someone is going through.

Towards the end, it taught me the courage to say goodbyes. To accept each parting with a smile of understanding, that all things in life — good or bad — will come to a definite end.

This is a review of The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa, translated by Philip Gabriel. There will be spoilers, but, as is often the case with great literature and films, the joy of the journey remains, even when you know the destination.

Let’s begin, shall we?

🍂 Afterthought

There are parts that I cringed at, like when Satoru (protagonist) had conversations with his cat, Nana.

But, this book has left a deep mark on my heart. It is one of those I will remember for the rest of my life.

Satoru’s story was saddening. He lost his parents so young, only to later discover that they weren’t his birth parents. And the real ones were terrible enough to almost kill him.

He also experienced the pain of losing his childhood cat, Hachi — one that he had back when his parents were still alive — and of not being able to see it one last time before it passed. His life, marked by loss and farewells, ended prematurely due to illness, separating him from his second cat, Nana, which he adored.

But Satoru was also dearly blessed.

With kind people around him.

With Hachi and Nana.

He wrote letters to people he was close with, and requested his guardian, Aunt Noriko, to contact them and personally thank them after his passing. More people than those contacted reached out to Aunt Noriko about Satoru. Even the people at his former workplace. Even the teachers of his former schools.

Satoru may have lived an unfortunate life on one hand, but he had surely lived a good story on the other. Because he had left behind so many people (and cats) who would remember and cherish the memories they made together.

Even as I didn’t get enough sleep last night; even as I’m feeling somewhat numb to my surroundings as a result, I could feel emotions welling up in me. When I found out that Satoru’s parents weren’t his birth parents. When his life must come to an end. And when Nana the cat talked about the memories they shared.

This book has left its trace in my heart, and on it, lies the final passage narrated by the cat itself.

It is one that I remember the most. Because it talked about the end of a journey where we must say goodbye. Just like how Satoru must say goodbye to his parents. Just like how Kosuke must say goodbye to Hachi. Just like how Nana must say goodbye to Satoru.

And just like how, when summer comes, and when my good friends are graduating soon, we must say goodbye to each other. I feel sad about it. I’m surprised that I do. But I’m blessed that I could.

But, as Nana the cat said, it’s not something to be sad about.

Because someday, we will meet all those people again, out beyond the horizon.

Happily ever after.

✒️ My favorite lines

“My Hachi died. Back when I was in high school. Your Hachi, Kosuke, is still alive.”

“Mom and Dad said they’re getting divorced.”

“Is that right?” his grandmother replied.

“I don’t know which one I should live with.”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter, because you can live with me.” Yoshimine felt a huge lump in his throat. “You have a good friend here, too, Daigo, so it’s all okay.” You have a good friend here. It’s all okay, his grandmother murmured, over and over, as if reassuring herself.

There’s a proverb that says a child is the glue that keeps a husband and wife together. A child who was never any trouble might keep things peaceful from day to day, but when push came to shove, that child would finally come unstuck. Maybe the kind of kid who needed more parental affection and made trouble would have been the glue that would have held their marriage together.

“There’s no point in going to Kokura now,” Satoru said, and gave a faint smile. Chikako interrupted him. “You really should go. Save up your money and go over there to say good-bye.” Satoru blinked in surprise. “You have to mourn your cat properly, or you won’t get over it. Don’t just sit here fretting about being too late. Go there and mourn him. Tell him you’re sorry you didn’t make it in time, that you wanted to see him.”

I have everything I need in life, so why am I such a mean, small person? Why can’t I be kinder than Satoru, who has so much less?

“You’re going to find out eventually, so I’m going to go ahead and tell you now. Satoru, you are not related by blood to your father or your mother.”

Reality is reality. That was her way of thinking, but when she saw the look on Satoru’s face when she told him, she realized she’d made a big mistake. Satoru grew pale, and his face contorted in shock. It was the same blank look he had had after his parents’ deaths. As he approached the two coffins set up in the local community center, he’d looked as if he had lost everything he had in the world.

Even a tactless person like her knew instantly that in a matter of seconds, because of her, Satoru had lost everything all over again.

“Can I—” Noriko spoke before thinking. “Can I bring in the cat? Satoru’s cat?” She’d never made such an absurd request in her life. “Please—let me bring in the cat.”

“Please don’t ask!” the matron scolded. “If you ask, then we’ll have to say no!”

As if propelled by a cannon, Noriko raced out of the ward. Ignoring the NO RUNNING IN THE CORRIDOR sign, she clattered down the stairs, two at a time. Then she burst through the front entrance. “Nana! Naaana!”

I waited at home while the funeral was taking place. I can't say I'm much interested in the ceremonies humans like to conduct. I was in the hospital to see him off. But he’s still here, in my heart, so I don’t need a ceremony to remember him.

Once Calico can make it on her own, I think I’ll set off on my journey. To this place I see only in dreams. Tell me, Satoru. What’s out there beyond this field? A lot of wonderful things, I’m thinking. I wonder if I’ll be able to go on a trip with you again. Satoru grins, and picks me up, so I can see the far-off horizon from his eye level. Ah—we saw so many things, didn’t we?

My story will be over soon.
But it’s not something to be sad about.
As we count up the memories from one journey, we head off on another.
Remembering those who went ahead. Remembering those who will follow after.
And someday, we will meet all those people again, out beyond the horizon.

—Thomas

P.S.

This is my first time reviewing a book here. I thought about rating it a 5/5 but decided not to. Because no two books are the same, and so they can’t be fairly compared to each other, even if they are both books.

But I would mention if a book is one that touched my heart, and one I would remember for the rest of my life. Just like this one.

Hope you enjoyed the review. 🍪 

🏆 Weekly Gold

Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a movie that blew my mind.

Here’s the gold this week 👇

This is the ending song for Yuru Camp Season 2, a drama-free, soothing anime about camping. It feels perfectly suited for this week’s essay because, like the book, the song is about goodbyes. It conveys that while a journey will come to an end, it's not a cause for sadness, because we will meet each other again.

Here’s what the chorus means.

"I'm home"

Have a good night sleep.

A little lonely and warm.

End of the journey.

I'll come to see you again.

—source

Credits:

• Cover image made in Canva.

• Atomic Habits by James Clear.

• Dopamine Nation by Dr. Anna Lembke.

• The Power of Habits by Charles Duhigg.

• The Courage to be Disliked by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi; and Ali Abdaal’s video about it.

• A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller, and Matt Swain’s book notes about it.

• The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa, and Philip Gabriel for translating it so well.

• My housemates and friends for making my time at university wonderful.