2013 In A Nutshell

I waved 2013 goodbye with a heavy heart, knowing it was by far the best year in my humble lifetime.

How about we get all the ‘milestones’ out of the way first. Proud to say that I finally shed my Facebook 20, and dare say this shell of mine, after two half-marathons and countless torture sessions by Shaun T, is at her fittest condition yet. When one fine night I couldn’t zip up a dress bought in US, a time when I was supposed to be at the pinnacle of my weight, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Fortunately, as the exercise regime slowly became a habit and I was getting more motivation by improving performance, it was then I internalized the fact that working out is not a means to an end, but a lifetime commitment. After that, results naturally followed.

Another big milestone was paying off my student loan! This was one of my top priorities since graduation and how liberating it is to be debt free (for now)! That certainly deserved a pop of champagne, but there’s still a ton of work to be done in terms of managing my finances. Now I have to be serious about thinking of how to invest my savings.

Having said all that, a great year isn’t great because only good things happened. There were certainly tears here and there, but nothing seemed as bad as when it happened in hindsight. When my move didn’t work out back in June, I was rather devastated. It took alot not to be bitter and to respond like a real adult, especially when you were the victim of other people’s poor expectation management. I’m glad I was able to be a bigger person in this whole episode. And what I learned about myself was that when push comes to shove, when an undesired situation arises, I have the strength and perhaps the right morals to respond with the right attitude. Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.

The past two years at Facebook were nothing short of incredible. The experiences and exposure I got boosted my self-esteem and confidence to unparalleled levels. For the first time in a very long time, I had the real courage to experiment new things and be less of a control freak who needs to perpetually have a plan for everything. It was liberating to start breaking out of the conservative and risk adverse Asian mentality I was brought up in. This could also be one of the reasons why my five and a half year relationship just didn’t feel right anymore – that’s a story for another time. A friend told me I am a real life Benjamin Button, seeing as I only going through certain life experiences at this age. Hey, better late than never!

One thing I am most grateful for, always, is the people that I have the privilege to be surrounded by everyday. I believe you’ll have to be rather blessed to be able to work with people that you can call your friends and family. And that is exactly how I feel. Blessed. Sometimes I wonder what did I do to deserve this. Perhaps I did something right in my past life, not that I believe in reincarnation. Then again, I should just graciously accept the gift of life and continue to pay it forward.

2014 is a brave new world.

The Fault In Our Stars

Quotes from ‘The Faults in Our Stars’ – John Green

“We live in a universe devoted to the creation, and eradication, of awareness. Augustus Waters did not die after a lengthy battle with cancer. He died after a lengthy battle with human consciousness, a victim – as you will be – of the universe’s need to make and unmake all that is possible.”

“My thoughts are stars that I cannot fathom into constellations.”

“We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants…I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. she walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. She knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either.”

“People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism?”

“The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.”

“I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.”

“There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There’s .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I’m likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.”

“Some infinites are bigger than other infinites.”

“The marks that human leave are often scars.”

“I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is inprobably biased toward the consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it-or my observation of it-is temporary.”

“I thought of my dad telling me that the universe wants to be noticed but what we want is to be noticed by the universe, to have the universe give a shit what happens to us- not the collective idea of sentient life but each of us as individuals.”

“There is no glory in illness, because there is no meaning to it. There is no honor in dying of.”

Find your ‘Passion’; Do what you ‘Love’.

Today, the ‘Me-generation’, where many of us have at least a college degree, no longer just want a normal job, we want a career, something that will give us job satisfaction, money, power, and prestige. We’re proselytized to chase after our dreams since … we are exposed to American values*. During our parents’ generation, the purpose of a job is to put food on the table, to make ends meet. They traded what they wanted for options for us to choose, so that we can pick what we want to do with our lives. But how many of us, freshly out of college, really know what is the right choice to make?

In Singapore, alot of people**, at least those within the proximity of my social circle, have an eye on that 100K/year banking career. Pursuing your dream, doing what you love, in this country, more often than not, means accepting a drastic pay cut, and working in a less prestigious or obscure even industry. When it comes to applying for a job, many (many, not all, so I don’t fall into the sweeping statement trap) of us face the dilemma of choosing the high paying banking job or the ‘follow your passion’ route.

My intention is not to further propagate the importance of following your passion, doing what you love. Thanks to the Internet, we can now find proliferating articles telling us just that: how fulfilled you’ll feel, how you’ll find true happiness only by following your passion, how you enjoy it so much you won’t think it’s a job. Then when this tune is slowly becoming a passing fad, some would come in and replace it with a different tune, for example: to find happiness, we should forget about our passion,instead, we should be finding big world problems to solve.

I honestly don’t think we need anymore guys like Oliver Segovia, (who’s essentially reiterating the same rhetoric) to teach us how to live our lives. They all convey the same message. Problem is, we jump on the bandwagon and start abusing buzzwords so fast that we forget to ‘think’ and to ‘understand’. Doing what we love, and solving world’s problems are not mutually exclusive. Saying that shows a lack of real understanding of what the word ‘love’ means. What’s the subtext behind this ‘love’ of ours.

This ‘love’, should be real, pure, and selfless. If what we love doing, risks hurting other people, be it our family, our friends, make us feel selfish and guilty (sometimes), then this ‘love’ could be false love, it is not pure, because we don’t love every part of it. We should also never mistaken pleasures as love, because the former is ultimately fleeting and unsatisfactory. Real love is enduring, we love it during the bad times, as much as the good times. For example: when an entrepreneur says he loves what he’s doing, it encompasses both success and failure, and he never gives up easily (that’s different from pivoting). The reason why it’s enduring, is because it’s worth fighting for, we derive meaning and purpose from it – it not only feels good, it also do good. By doing what we love, we are serving a purpose that’s larger than ourselves, we produce things that make the world a better place, and in the process we provide inspiration to others. If we’ve found this love, there’s no longer the need to balance between doing good and feeling good. This love connects the self, society, and environment.

Of course, I’ve described all these in the most idealistic way. And reality is anything but idealistic. But this post will serve as a reminder to myself that this is a worthy goal to work towards to, and in whatever I do in the future, to consciously reflect on whether it is pure love, or just another fleeting pleasure of mine.

*Most Asian parents that I know still want their children to become doctors, engineers and lawyers.

**I am straightly referring to friends and acquaintances I know. It might apply to other people, it might not.

My brother earns less than RM2000 a month as a fresh graduate in Malaysia. It’s peanuts, many would think. But upon receiving his first salary, he gave my mom RM600 to pay for his car installment, and another RM50 to my dad as allowance.

Sometimes, one doesn’t have to look too far away for people to look up to.

Happy Birthday, Malaysia

Beneath those wrinkles and scars, etched not because of age, but a result of those who cannot overcome each other’s differences, you’re still beautiful.

Remember me? The bright-eyed and bushy-tailed small town girl who used to believe in the dream of Wawasan 2020? Now she’s standing just a narrow strait away, in a foreign land she’s trying to call home, looking at you with a mix of emotions -more disappointed and disheartened with each glance, while hanging on to that thin thread of hopefulness.

Never mind how she got there. We all know the story. It’s been told so many times by so many peers who are your children too. While I do appreciate the numerous desperate efforts your politicians put in to try to encourage us, who had fled the country in search for a greener pasture to return home, I don’t think I’m ready yet. I wonder if I’ll ever be ready?

Sometimes I asked my friends back home, “Why don’t you try working in other countries? Why stay in Malaysia when there’s better opportunities out there?” Their faith in the country, and their indefatigable desire to contribute to the Tanah Air is admirable. Are your politicians doing anything to retain these talents? Or are you merely taking them for granted? The best strategy is to lower the annual diaspora moving forward, not bringing that one, two persons back from overseas by offering them feeble perks.

I used to think, if I view the world as one single entity, and that all human beings, regardless of race and nationality, are all brothers, the in-and-out flow of human capital is simply a reshuffling of resources. Citizen A who had gone to Country B is contributing to the Country B’s GDP, while citizen B does the same for Country A. At the end of the day, the net effect to the world will be zero, if not, positive even.

It wasn’t until BERSIH 2.0 that I realized one missing important point – the sense of belonging. On July 9, 50,000 fellow comrades, many clad in the now banned yellow color, braved through stinging tear gas and chemical laced water, to march for a purpose that is bigger than ourselves. In the week leading up to the rally, and the week following after, I fanatically and religiously followed every available update, watched every YouTube video posted on Facebook and read every single international and local op-ed article about Bersih 2.0. Angry at BN’s grotesque, impudent, and accusatory behaviors; deeply moved and inspired by fellow Malaysians who risked their lives in order to uphold the integrity of our country’s democracy, and worried when they got hurt. Truth is, it didn’t matter what they were walking for, at the end of the day, their courage had provided the impetus for a better Malaysia, and more importantly, awakened every single Malaysian to the meaning of people power.

Perhaps what hit me the hardest, was that I know I will never ever feel this way for any another country, be it Singapore, India, or America. The sense of belonging, the sense of pride, the urge to say, “Look! This is happening to my country! This is where I come from!” and other inexplicable feelings that came with it. It’s then I realized, no, the world is not one entity, really. Or at least I have not yet reached the stage where I can view everyone as my equal brother. It’s not simply a reshuffling of resources, and the net effect will not be zero, because we have not taken the sense of belonging into account.

All brothers are equal, but some brothers are closer than other brothers. Please give me enough reason to come home.