I don’t remember the exact words. But I do remember what it felt like.

Okay, it’s not like I am some perfect person and never got told off before. But this time I got blindsided because I thought things were going well.

Safe to say, I didn’t get anything else done that day. I’m not sure about others but when I get bad news like this, it should plays in my head over and over again. Like a really bad ear worm.

So, I went for a walk, thinking it would help. But I only had one thought in my head.

Is it bad? I don’t think it’s bad. But he thinks it’s bad. And he’s been doing this longer than me. Is there something I don’t see?

This shouldn’t have been such a big deal. I believe in my own work and I knew I am good at what I do. But as much as I tried, what my manager said did not leave my mind. It kept gnawing at me.

My mistake was thinking a bit of scrolling would give me the dopamine hit to feel better. I decided to scroll LinkedIn on the way home.

I have been trying to get my own consultancy up and running for a bit now but have been struggling securing a steady pipeline of work. So, LinkedIn is actually my platform of choice to find clients.

The first post I saw was from another “competitor”. I don’t remember the exact words but it was something like

“I never had more fun in my job until now and I have even made more money. Everyone should start their own business. It’s so easy!”

Okay, he probably didn’t say that but it sure as hell might have been. Here come the thoughts again.

Am I the problem? Am I just not good enough to work for myself? Why are other people finding this so easy? Is what my manager said correct? Is my work shit ?

I closed the app. Opened it again. Closed it again.

Maybe I’m doing it wrong. Maybe there’s something I just don’t get. Maybe I am just not good enough

Most advice in this situation tells you to believe in yourself. To trust yourself. That we instinctively know what the good thing is. But what happens if you don’t see any results? If you have doubt that the path you’ve chosen is even correct ?

Is LinkedIn the right platform for me? Is starting a consultancy here even right? Should I pivot into another industry?

Then you go on LinkedIn and see others thriving on the very thing that you suck at. You think, there must be something wrong with the way I am doing things.

So, you go on Youtube and find tutorials on the “best way to get clients” or the “best way to network” but none of them actually help, because they aren’t you.

But if listening to others doesn’t help and listening to yourself doesn’t help too. What the hell do you do ?

That was really the question that bugged me the most.

I think I am doing a good job, then WHAM, my manager tells me differently. I go on LinkedIn, thinking, okay reaching out is hard. Then, WHAM, you have someone that says “it’s the easiest thing in the world”. How am I suppose to think ?

Do I stand my ground and believe in myself ? Or do I listen to them and change ?

I am that type of person that tracks things.

I track how much sleep I get, how many sets and movements I do in the gym and especially how much money I spend.

I use an app called Budget. It’s the first system after trying many that actually works for me.

I set it up a few months ago and never looked back.

But my system only worked in Australia. And I am now in Singapore for the few months.

And for those first two weeks. I did not sleep well. I did not eat well. And safe to say it wasn’t a good time.

When it came to lunch or dinner, my heart raced and I always got sweaty. Then, my charger broke and I had to get a replacement which I put off until my laptop wouldn’t turn on.

Subscribe now

The cause of all of this ? Money anxiety.

I didn’t know where the money was going. Every tap of my card felt like a guess. And I don’t like guessing.

I started skipping things I actually wanted to try because I couldn’t justify the cost. I wasn’t broke. I wasn’t even close. But I didn’t know how all this sudden spending held against our savings account. The only sentence in my head was. you’re spending too much, you’re spending too much.

It felt like I would get a phone call from the bank, telling me that I have -3,234 in my account because I spent too much. I know how unreasonable that sounds but that’s what it felt like.

Then one day, while scrounging for the cheapest option, a colleague looked at me and said I was spending too little. That if he were in my shoes, he’d use every week left to actually explore. Try things. Eat things. Because how often does someone get to work in Singapore for a few months like this ?

That was enough. I took a good look at my account. Why am I stressing so much about this ?

Is being afraid of spending more really worth ruining this experience here ?

It obviously took me a few more nights to get used to this feeling. And I didn’t go and start fine dining every night. But I did loosen up a little. I started buying what I actually wanted to try without running the math first. Well, I still feel anxious spending money but at least I am not sweating anymore.

Yeah, I probably ate into my savings rate but the regret of coming all this way and scrounging felt worse than a number going down.

I guess sometimes you just have to just step outside of your comfort zone for a bit and let things be.

I tested this before I deployed it. I *know* I did. But here I am, 8pm on a Thursday, staring at “build unsuccessful” for what is probably the 134th time.

This is Jason’s fault.

Three weeks ago, Jason convinced the team that for a migration, we should just swap out the project file. “It’ll take a day,” he said. “I’ve done something similar before, it’s easy.”

I argued against it. I said we should take the time to understand *why* the old system worked first. Map everything out, then migrate it piece by piece. Yes, it would take longer. But at least we’d understand what we were touching.

Andrew, our team lead, liked Jason’s timeline better.

So here I am. Staying late to fix something I didn’t even agree with. Of course “just swapping out the project file” didn’t work. And Jason left hours ago. And Andrew is expecting a progress update tomorrow.

I keep scrolling through the logs, and all I can think is, this wouldn’t have happened if they’d listened to me. If we’d done it my way. If Jason hadn’t waltzed in with his “brilliant way” and handed me the mess to clean up.

I mean who does Jason think he is anyways. Sure, he may be more senior than me but he’s not here. He doesn’t have to tell Andrew tomorrow. I am the one that has to face him. I am the one that is on the hook for something that I didn’t even ......

Something catches my eye, I found a “50” instead of “5.0”. I rebuild.

Fuck me.

It works.

The next morning, Jason messages me. “Hey, sorry I had to leave early. How’d you go with the migration?”

I tell him about the small setting and some changes I made.

He replies: “Man, sorry about all the trouble. I really did think it would have been easier. These things always have some weird edge case.”

Thanks Jason, now I feel like shit.

Jason didn’t care whose idea it was. He just wanted it to work. And it does.

It was just one late night.

I think the only thing that was actually broken was my attitude.

But I’m the kind of person who gets “partially” sick. Not sick enough to lay in bed the whole day, but sick enough that focusing on anything feels impossible. It feels like I have enough energy to do some reading or some light work but really, when I try, I just can't.

Even writing this now is a struggle. It's that weird situation of having enough energy to watch TV or play games but not enough to actually do work. It's the perfect excuse to just relax.

But when I'm sick, what strikes me is how much I want to be comfortable. Having a lozenge in my mouth for 24 hours just to keep the pain away. And once something offers me that comfort, I just want more. Instead of letting the sickness wash over, I keep reaching for ways to fight it. It feels like an addiction, being pain-free feels amazing, so I keep wanting more of that.

It makes me wonder how much of life is just that?

Not about that unbearable pain, but about avoiding the small inconveniences. Especially problems that you can solve with money.

Imagine you start cooking at home, to save money or something. A new air fryer will solve the inconvenience of deep frying things plus it's healthier too. A new wooden chopping board is cleaner and better for the knives too. Oh, hey speaking of which, shouldn't you get a new set of knives too ?

All of this because it feels inconvenient to use what you have now. It's funny because they were never problems until you started cooking.

Why can't we just let these problems be ? Yes, they are nuisances but does solving them lower our tolerance for inconveniences ?

It feels like a justifiable hedonic treadmill because each purchase feels justified, like you're actually solving a problem. But you know, the problems don't go away.

So being sick eventually passes, so painkillers and lozenges make sense. But outside of that, I wonder how much of my energy goes into fixing things that aren’t really broken, just inconvenient.

Subscribe now

Lately, because of company politics, I’ve been pulled into doing structural engineering. That’s not what I was hired for, I’m a computational designer.

The past few weeks have felt like purgatory. I’m doing work I have little experience in without much support. It also feels like I am just fooling around here and I know it's not going well. My manager calls it a “great learning experience,” but every time he says that, my body tells me to run further.

My manager isn't the only one, the whole company thinks I should lean further into structural engineering. And logically, I can’t give them a logical argument against it. But I know it’s the wrong move. My intuition is screaming at me, this isn’t the path I want.

It's hard to uphold that too. I may be able to fend them off today, but next week when I am tired or if they dangle the carrot of a higher pay, I may just cave in.

It’s exhausting, because even thinking about this feels like a distraction. I’ve already let go of the 9–5 as my future. Yet here I am, stuck playing by its rules.

I think I am starting to understand the real price of building something of your own while still working a 9–5. The loneliness. That feeling that you are not like the others and it's a constant battle to defend what you think is right.

But I still rather follow my intuition to my north star than get caught playing games that don't matter.

An experiment of daily writing and publishing for 30 days. I am doing the cliché thing by writing about my experience on the 30th day itself.

Well, it's a cop out for actually having to write something today, but I think it's worth reflecting on it.

Here's some useless stats

• 12631 Words (including this post)

• 1038 Sentences

• 11 Posts about work and career

• 9 "Emotional" posts

• 4 Posts written and edited on my phone as I was traveling

• 1 Post gone horribly wrong (published on the wrong newsletter, because I was rushing)

P.S. I always wanted to do that, to pull stats from something

When I first started this experiment with , I had many thoughts about what I wanted to write. I wanted to write about coffee. About fitness. About finances. Because the goal of this experiment was to write things outside computational design. I'd been so used to writing for a purpose that I wanted to write about all the other things in my life.

And in a way I did that. But I didn't get to write about coffee or fitness. Instead I wrote about how I felt and my thoughts at the time. Because it turns out writing about coffee feels absurd when I am thinking about [[Career]]. It turns out, I didn't have the headspace to write about anything else. So, what I written was always a reflection of what was happening around me.

I's been great to have a place to write these thoughts down. A lot of it has helped me think through some of them.

Like writing Fool thought me a lot about why I am insecure about driving. [[Reminder]] actually made me tear up as I wrote it but it was a strong reason on my current path to independence. Controlling the itinerary made me think through what it would be like to actually own my time.

And there was "fun" pieces too. Like Fear was a piece that I'd been wanting to write for long time now. I played Subnautica about 3 years ago but I just had no place to publish it.

I really like this format. Because my thoughts now feel like they have a place to live. Even if it was sometimes a burden to keep up with the daily deadline. I've always loved doing "morning pages" but writing with a goal to publish is even more effective. It keeps what I write about intentional and I can look back at them and tie them to a specific theme / topic.

So, I am going to keep going for as long as it's possible.

I might lower it to 3x a week instead of everyday if I think it's too much of a time suck. And I am going to write some mini-essays to understand certain topics.

Subscribe now

The 9–5 is not the game I want to be playing. Yes, it’s hard work building something of my own. Yes, it's almost impossible. But, the alternative, is a bad deal.

So why does it still feel horrible? Even though I’ve chosen not to care about this game anymore, I still feel annoyed and left out.

Lately, it feels like I’ve been handed the short end of the stick. First, I was thrown onto a project just to put out a fire. My days was just pure stress and I even got told off for something that wasn’t my fault. Then I moved to another project where I worked 60 hours that week with no overtime pay. Now, I’m playing pretend as a structural engineer because there aren’t enough real ones, making decisions on models I really shouldn’t be touching. It's scary and I have no idea what I am doing.

Meanwhile, everyone around me seems to be having a much better time. They’re engaged, solving interesting problems, and don’t seem to hate life as much as I do.

But seriously, why do I care? I’m annoyed at them for not including me, then annoyed at myself for wanting to be included in the first place. It’s a system I’ve already rejected, so why does it still bother me?

I know these are the costs of playing the long game. The cost of trying to make it on my own and for standing out. But lately it feels like those costs are being rubbed in my face.

Want to make it on your own? Well, you’re not one of us then. Why should we give you the cool stuff?

Part of me is also annoyed because they don’t actually know I’m trying to make it on my own. I’ve hinted at it. I’ve written about it (not that they read what I create). But I’ve never said it outright, so they should treat me as if I’m still playing their game.

Times like these suck. There’s no way around it. Even reminding myself of the long game only helps a little.

But I need to remember the long game. That these things are just distractions and are the cost to pay when trying to make it on my own.

Subscribe now

I am in the room, on the bed. I have a cup of tea next to me. It's just peppermint. I still do plan on sleeping tonight, so I can't have any caffeine.

With my laptop open in front of me, I am putting the finishing touches of this article for my newsletter that goes out tomorrow. I should have done this four days ago but time got away from me.

But honestly, why am I even doing this?

I mean, I am don't make any money out of it. My company thinks I am wasting my time with LinkedIn because "Australia is all about who you know personally not online".

I may have people reading my work but missing a week wouldn't hurt. I mean they wouldn't even notice it.

Okay, enough ranting for now. Just get the work done. Then, finally get some sleep.

The next day

My mom was packing her bags, she was telling me how worried she was that her luggage was two kilos over the limit.

I made a sarcastic comment that got me a thump in the shoulder. Then, I told her not to worry. I told her that they only care if you are five kilos over the limit.

I was wrong.

At the check-in counter, the agent wanted to charge us for the extra weight. I mean, two kilos, come on. Luckily, my mum had some space carry-on weight, so my brother and I shifted the heavier clothes to her bag and we made it through. two kilos man, I mean, give me a break.

At immigration, we said our goodbyes. My feet wanted to follow her but because of "airport rules", they wouldn't let us go further. Dumb airport rules.

We hugged and then we were reduced to waving. And we kept waving long past she disappeared behind the gates. I remember trying to hold back the tears.

And that's when I remember why I put up with the late nights.

Why I spend my time outside of work, working.

It's why I want to be independent and own my time.

So that I can spend that time with the ones I love and not have to negotiate leave with my company just because I want to see my family.

Subscribe now

I’ve built one for notes, one for finances, one for tasks… They’re not perfect, but they get the job done. They help me do the work that I need to do.

Still, every so often I’ll stumble across an article or a YouTube video that convinces me I can do better. Next thing I know, it’s 2 a.m. and I’ve got a hundred Notion databases trying to track what the amount of magnesium I eat everyday.

It’s addictive. Fun. And can be a complete waste of time. There’s just something oddly satisfying about turning the chaos of everyday into order. But honestly, the perfect system is a fool's dream. It's as addictive as any other thing.

Just one more tweak, one more database, and I’ll 100x my productivity.

None of that is true. There is no one system to rule them all.

But a system can't stay the same forever either. Our lives evolve and things change, the systems we use have to adapt to that too. Not always a full overhaul, but constant tweaking to improve it.

So yes, maybe I’m just spinning the wheel again. But I’m excited. And if I’m motivated to tinker, why not follow that for a bit? But to stop me from getting too carried away this time, I have put some limits on myself. Like I'm giving myself 3 days max to tweak my current personal finance spreadsheet and then I'll stop. Hopefully that's good enough.

Subscribe now

The team's swamped, so I've been helping with work outside my usual expertise. I'm a computational designer, not a structural engineer. Sure, I can help because I’ve got some experience but not enough to be making structural decisions alone, especially when mistakes can be costly.

It was hard getting started. No one seemed to be worried about the model. I didn’t know what to do when things went wrong, and everyone was too busy for me to just ask questions on the spot.

My model wasn’t solving and I didn't know why.

Oh, we use metal tubes. Will making it bigger solve our problem ?

Maybe I should try a thicker tube

How about a square tube ?

I really had no idea what I was doing. I was just trying to get the model to solve. It was really upsetting. Because I didn't know what to look for. and I felt stupid.

But then I finally got a call back from the lead engineer. The idea was to fix this model together and give me some direction.

The first thing he asked me was "did you try a thicker tube?"

I laughed. I wasn’t upset anymore. It reminded me that no matter how senior we get, most of us are still figuring things out. Yes, I know, it’s a bit hippy-dippy.

But it was a good reminder not to take myself so seriously. I know I don't have to know everything. But you'd think that a few years of experience and you have this expectation that work shouldn't be uncomfortable but being uncomfortable is part of learning.

And even though I’m a computational designer, stepping into a structural engineer’s shoes every now and then isn’t such a bad thing.

But It was a reminder to not take myself so seriously sometimes. That I don't have to know everything. That even though I am computational designer, doing some structural engineering every now and then isn’t a bad thing.

Subscribe now

No one’s really reading these (how could they, it’s every day), but I’m enjoying the process more than I expected. I think there are three reasons for that.

First, it feels liberating to write without constraints. My computational design newsletter has a clear theme, so people know what to expect which is the point. But it also means I can’t just write what I want all the time. Readers expect computational design, writing about trauma or some other thought will just confuse them. Here, I can go anywhere.

Second, showing up every day feels incredible. I’ve learnt that I have more thoughts worth expressing than I thought. Some long, some incomplete and some misunderstood. Daily writing gives me a time and a place to explore them. Even if it's only for a short while. The only problem with writing daily is that some ideas deserve more time (like unpacking how childhood fears still affect me today), but without a forcing function like this experiment, I’d probably never hit publish. This experiment has forced me to dedicate time to exploring my thoughts regardless of the outcome which I think is equally as important as everything else.

Third, writing like this feels honest. With themed writing, I still aim for authenticity, but the tone always shifts to fit the topic and persona. Like with computational design, I always aim for a more "senior consulting" kind of tone whereas here, I can joke around one day, be super somber another or just be truly serious. Here, I get to bring more of me.

As I hit the final days of this experiment, I’m wondering how to carry more of that honesty into other parts of my work. I’m not about to drop trauma essays into my computational design newsletter, but maybe there’s another way.

One thought I am playing around are short videos where I just talk to the camera. That feels like a step toward showing up as my whole self while still keeping on topic.

Subscribe now

Most of us know this with people but it applies to yourself too. In fact, maintaining trust with yourself is even harder. Screw something up once and your friend may let it go but your conscience? Oof, good luck with that. Talk about a constant reminder.

It might even start affecting your judgement. The next time you're in the same situation, you might hear that little inner voice that says "you messed this up last time, who are you to do it again?" and you freeze up. Which just leads you on a downward spiral. I definitely feel this with driving.

The answer, it seems, is as cheesy as it sounds. Forgiveness. It means forgiving yourself for past mistakes. It's to get up and move on because, really, what's the alternative? You can't stay here forever.

You can't run away from a broken trust with yourself. If someone else did it, you can cut them off. But you can't do that with yourself. You can try to shut parts of you away, but that’s just living with the world tiptoeing around you. And can you really call that living?

Self-forgiveness is one of the biggest lessons over the past decade. I've learned to trust myself even after mistakes and the shame comes along with it. It's to trust that I can deliver on scary, hard things even if there's a chance I'll mess up again. You know, to do the hard things more often.

Oddly enough, the more mistakes I’ve made and pushed through, the more confident I’ve become that whatever life throws at me, I can figure it out.

All this self-forgiveness though, doesn't make failure any less scary. I still cower sometimes. But it does mean that I can use my past to give me some courage to tackle these problems.

It's still scary, but I'm more willing to face it head-on because again, really, what other choice is there but forward ?

Subscribe now

I think about focus a lot when it comes to starting new things. Because it’s always between choosing whether to stick with what’s already working or shift to something new. A tension I’m sure everyone faces.

My current Big Hairy Audacious Goal is to own my time. And there are infinite ways to do this. The “route”, if you can call it that, I’ve chosen is the “content / consulting route”. Where I create content to promote my work (and because it’s valuable) and let that content lead to consulting projects, where I think I bring the most value.

The problem with content, though, is the endless choice of platforms and formats. I’ve stuck to LinkedIn because that’s where my audience is, and Substack because I love to write. But lately, making YouTube videos is looking really tempting.

I am really proud of the work I have done on my current platforms but it always feels like I could be doing more. I start to think that a YouTube channel will propel me into my dream life. I don’t think that’s true but maybe it is ?

Well starting a YouTube channel isn’t that scary to me but it cost a lot of time. With a 9-5 job, an active LinkedIn account, a weekly newsletter, and trying to live a normal life, there’s not much space for another long-term commitment. And these things are long term commitments. It has been said that it takes months, sometimes years, before results show up.

But what I am learning to understand is that it all of it doesn’t have to happen at once, even though it always feels like time is running out.

I think that is what it means to focus. To ignore everything else and do the work. Then, when I have the bandwidth, look to explore other things. The real question though then becomes how do you know the next thing you choose is the right one?

Is there ever a truly right thing to work on ?

Subscribe

6:00   Wake up

6:30   Coffee and breakfast

7:00   Push off for the city

8:00   Bus to the port

10:00  Cruise around the island

13:30  Lunch

14:30  Zoo

16:30  Bus back to the city

18:30  Home & cook

20:00  Dinner

21:00  Clean up

22:30  Bed

This was one day on my most recent trip with my mom and my brother. We planned it just the day before. We did a lot but we enjoyed everything and didn’t feel rushed. We even accounted for some periods of rest (time on the bus for quick naps) throughout the day.

It made me wonder how much more I could get done if my days were planned like that more often. Not just go go go, but also have times for rest and other things in-between. Even if I end up deviating from the original plan, at least there is that sense of direction for the day.

It’s why I usually spend my sundays planning for the week and figuring what I need to do for each day. I know that it’s a well established fact that planning in advance increases productivity because we spend less time deliberating what to do. But planning in advance also gives me a direction.

The problem with the usual 9-5, is that, no one works that way. Everything is urgent. And everything is always on fire. Also, not every task is meaningful. Some might be busywork to keep the company running, whether you want to do them or not. In a 9-5, it’s hard to understand the why of things.

Owning your time is different. Every task has a purpose, even if they are the ones that you don’t want to do (like balancing the books), they all still serve your own purpose and when you can see that clarity, it motivates you. At least it does for me.

I am by no means a control freak but life feels better when I can control the itinerary. I can fill it with things that matter and pace it the way I want. I think that is what it truly means to own your time.

Subscribe

There are many benefits to studying abroad and staying there. Better education, independence and a wider experience from living somewhere new. But there’s also this feeling of not fully belonging anywhere.

I’m Malaysian, but am now too “Australian” to live back home. And yet, I’m still too Malaysian to be fully Australian. I’m always half in, half out.

When I say “home,” I don’t just mean family. I mean a place where I fully understand the culture. In Australia, I missed the high-school years that seem to be the glue for so many friendships here. In Malaysia, I missed the college years that form the core of most social circles. So I end up a stranger in both places.

It's probably why I see many Malaysians in Australia hang around each other a lot. Well it happens for any immigrant regardless of country. At first, I thought they just clung to what’s familiar, rejecting the “foreign” culture, but now I understand it as a place of belonging. Because the ones that truly understand how we feel are other immigrants in the same country.

It’s been about a decade since I came to Sydney, and I still get pangs of longing sometimes. But I’ve started to accept that not fully belonging to one country might be okay. That it’s alright to have friends scattered across the world, even if distance makes them feel less close.

Maybe, just maybe, being a stranger in two worlds is its own kind of home.

Subscribe now

Not a trip. Not some fancy dinner. Just being together. Maybe watching some TV, it could even be just doing our own thing but in the same room.

It’s probably the worst part about moving to another country. You lose that everyday time with family. And it’s really hard to get it back. There’s no “how was your day?”, only “how has work been?” or “have you been well?”

And those are big questions to cover for a call that happens once a month of some times even every quarter. I usually just say, "Work's good" or "not bad, just been busy lately." because I don't know where to start. That random call never feels like the right time to share the "small" stuff. There’s somehow the pressure to only share “big” news.

What’s worse is that, whenever we are together. There’s this unspoken need to do something. To “make the most” of our time. Which often always means traveling.

Which, sure, is run and makes our time together feel more important. We still get to talk and we still get to do things together. But it also means we skip over the quiet, ordinary moments that used to fill our lives.

Some of my best conversations with my family have been from doing errands together. Or just lounging around together. We talk about random things and sometimes that leads to deeper conversations.

I envy people who live near family. Who can just pop by on a Saturday with no plans or itinerary and just hang.

Since I came to Sydney to study and stayed, I’ve don't know what it’s like to be an adult living near family (they’re all back in Malaysia). No weekend drives home. No casual Sunday lunches. And visiting between countries just isn’t the same.

Sometimes I wonder if I can bring back some version of that “how was your day?” moments. I think it means calling more and doing it consistently, not just when we have news to share. I'm hoping that when we have nothing to talk about, we’ll go back to sharing the “boring” stuff more.

I like the idea of a private social feed just for family. A place to share photos, little updates, and snippets of daily life in the moment. Just so they can see the small things too, the ones that often get lost between visits. Almost like mini-vlogs, that might help stitch back some of the everyday. I have been using WhatsApp (that's where we normally chat) for this but there should be a better app for this.

Subscribe now

While traveling around Australia, I realized the one thing I’m oddly insecure about is driving. And I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s because, in that moment, everyone in the car is silently judging my performance. And maybe it's some lingering trauma I haven't sort out yet.

It’s a surprisingly vulnerable position. At work, I can hide behind context. I can blame other things. The project conditions weren’t right, communication broke down, the deadlines shifted, etc. But with driving, there’s no one else to blame. It’s just me and that is terrifying.

It's not like I have been in accidents and I am safe driver. What’s strange is that I’m fine being wrong in other areas of my life. I don’t mind being corrected at work. I don’t even mind being wrong most of the time if it leads to something better. Sure, being wrong still sucks but I'll get over it. I may get defensive or even argue but I'll still get over it. I am okay with looking like the fool most of the time.

With driving though, it’s bad, I am genuinely scared to drive. And when I do, I am nervous and afraid all the time. When I think of the shame, I just freeze up.

It’s not a mystery why I don’t drive well. I grew up in Sydney where public transport is everywhere, so I never drove much. I can drive, but I don’t have the hours that most people my age do. Everyone around me understands that, and they’re fine with it. But for some reason, I find it shameful and embarrassing to not driving well.

It bothers me so much that when I _do_ drive, I overthink every little move. The whole experience becomes less about getting somewhere and more about proving to myself I can “drive”. Whatever that means.

I need to spend some time undoing this notion of mine. Maybe spend more time driving and just being okay with a bad “drive”.

First, you need to understand geometry, things like meshes, surfaces, curves. Then you need to be able to script or visually program those geometries using tools like Grasshopper. And finally, you do all this in service of an industry. For me, that’s the AEC: Architecture, Engineering, and Construction.

There are others that do computational design for jewelry, product design (like shoes or speakers), even game environments. It’s a weird, fascinating niche. Some of the problems I get to solve are incredible and I am really proud of the work I do.

But it’s also confusing. Well, no, it's confusing as hell. Most companies don’t know how to categorize us, pay us, or evaluate our work. There’s no benchmark to compare us to.

I have been dealing with that uncertainty since graduating. Because people don't know how to value us, we tend to get pulled back into conventional jobs. I have my company "encouraging" me to be a structural engineer when there are no computational jobs to do. On the other hand, my inner critic tells me I should go all-in on becoming a better software developer, except I’m not a pure developer, and improving those skills doesn’t necessarily make my work easier.

It creates this constant friction, what should I actually be doing with my career?

Some days, I see the value I bring and love every second of it. Other days, I wish it wasn’t all so undefined.

My answer to this so far is that I don't have to know. I don't have to know what niche I belong to or what I do for work. That’s why I’ve leaned into doing things that matter to me. Like writing, starting my newsletter, and trying to figure out how to own my time. I have no idea how they would fit in my future but they feel important to me now.

The next few years might still be foggy. But as long as I don’t get complacent and keep doing the work, I think I’ll find my way.

Subscribe now

It let's me see how other people live, maybe learn a thing or two about the world outside mine. The best part is I get to cherry-pick the best bits and bring them into my life. It can be an idea or philosophy. It can also be small physical things.

Like these snack tongs from Disneyland Tokyo. Totally unnecessary, but offers a superior snacking experience to chopsticks. Now, I don't have to worry about chopsticks rolling off the table.

But what I love most is the perspective. My brain gets so caught up in planning and navigating that work completely disappears. And when I come back, I often feel rested, like my sense of wonder has been reset. Something about being yanked out of my normal environment that resets my way of thinking. When I come back, the world feels bigger.

Now, the bad part.

For one, travel is no cure of the mind, some people use it as an escape, thinking it’ll fix their problems. I see this a lot with friends and other people but I am glad to enjoy my daily life that I don't think that way. To me, travel is a hassle, but a necessary one. It's a break and a way to experience something new.

But my real gripe is that social media has ruined travel for me.

I don’t know what travel even means anymore. Anywhere remotely interesting has already been covered to death by influencers. It’s not that I hate them. It’s just that when enough of them show up, the place changes. It stops offering culture and starts offering the appearance of culture.

Everything’s staged. Everything’s for “the gram.” Everything is too perfect, it's like porn, it doesn't feel like the real thing. It's no longer about going there and exploring, it's about being seen exploring there.

The algorithm encourages this too. Search "things to do in Korea" and your feed becomes a fire-hose of influencers and "must see places in Korea". Before you've even left home, you know exactly what you'll see, eat and do.

The solution for me is to limit my research.

The internet is still the best way to plan a trip, so I can’t avoid it entirely nor do I want to. I still Google places and itineraries. I still use YouTube and Reddit. But I do it all in Incognito, and once I have a rough plan, I stop.

No more scrolling. No more browsing. I will talk to friends and see if they have recommendations but that's it.

I want to remain in the dark. It's like avoiding spoilers for a movie. I want to give myself the chance to be curious. To get lost. To explore without knowing exactly what to expect. Maybe I'll see the same thing as the influencers but at least no one would be narrating it. I'll be experiencing it myself.

I also hate how algorithm makes you feel like you missed out. Titles like "must see places in Tokyo" or "10 hidden gems you likely missed out in China" make it feel like I did something wrong just because I didn’t follow someone else’s itinerary.

To me, real travel is when I get to learn something on my own and to get a break from the usual environment. Not just follow what the internet tells me to do.

Subscribe now

Children engage in free play because they enjoy it - it's self-directed. They do not play for rewards; they enjoy the doing, not the end result

— Sheila G Flaxman

Day 16 of my 30-day publishing experiment where I blog for 30 days every day.

Cliché as it sounds, it’s been amazing. My mum’s visiting from Malaysia, I’m have been working late because of a major project, and I have a holiday coming up and yet, somehow, I’m still writing and publishing every day. And still enjoying it.

Don’t get me wrong though, It’s still hard. And I still worry I’ll run out of things to say before the 30 days are up. And yes, I know it's just been two weeks, so this feeling might be short-lived.

But I think I am able to do this because it feels like play.

I’m not thinking about the purpose of each piece. I’m not worrying about the outcome like I do with my other, more “serious” newsletter. I have a really simple list of running topics and every day I just sit for a 30-50 minutes and write what comes to my mind. Some times it's from the list, sometimes it's just what's on my mind at the time.

It's a liberating feeling to be able to do that. I guess I always thought that every thing I published needs to have a purpose. Like it needs to educate or inspire someone to do something. But it turns out writing for the sake of writing is a pretty good reason to write.

It’s made me realize how little “play” I have in my life. Almost everything I do in my free time has a purpose and a measurable outcome. It's definitely useful because it moves me closer to my goals but I forget that there’s value in doing something just because it’s interesting or fun or because I want to keep doing it.

It's super easy to lose that. Outside of work, social events, the gym, and sleep, there’s so little time that each hour starts to feel like it has to be useful. Not to mention in our current world, where we want to measure everything or ask AI everything, we (at least I ) feel the need to be validated by something all the time. Do something, see a number go up or do something and ask ChatGPT if it was good.

But I need to remind myself that not everything has to produce an outcome. Some things are worth doing simply because I enjoy them.

Subscribe now