I Just Do What I Can Right Now
Eventually, everything connects.
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,
It’s okay. It’s alright.
No two lives are born the same.
No two paths are walked the same way.
You have your time. I have mine.
It’s okay. It’s alright.
It will turn up fine.
🍃 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.