Approaching 40, Not getting anywhere, Quarrelling with people online:

There is feeling that I am reaching 40 and still not doing anything great with my life. I think that in the 20s, you can still harbour dreams that you will make a difference in the world.  Now, you kind of realised that is so far away or hard to achieve.

I guess there is also nothing else to distract me either like kids.  Last but not least, there is no pressure to make money anymore as I suspect that I can survive long enough with whatever money I have. 

How then to find the energy or passion for life? Is it still making a difference that will motivate me? Or will it just be the joy of doing a good job and enjoying the process.

I am feeling the depression maybe also because that I realised that while I take time to write lots of Book Notes - I do not remember them.  Yet, here and there, it is maybe because that I have written them and hence I remember key quotes.

The only one thing that I am positive about spending my life in the right way - do not just watch TV.  Watch TV and exercise at the same time. 

Let’s tidy the clutter in our lives - One Note, Photos all Taken. It will be like life restarted, then we can continue to slowly grow our circle of influence.

We clear the clutter:

“How can one reduce the Range of One's interests and realise that having so many interests is half the problem?”

Then we can just focus on 1 project. That is the only way that we have learnt that will succeed in getting anything done.

The only way to feel good on weekends is to complete one personal project first then do the trivial of clearing emails, reading papers.

Why Trek? Why not Farm?

This post is again dedicated to my trekking friends…

I think I started getting into trekking because 1) I kind of like exercise and the outdoors, 2) a very selfish reason - I thought that I can get people to be interested in saving the planet if I can do guided nature tours to show them the beauty of nature. 

That was one of the reasons why I joined the Singapore Adventure’s Club Basic Adventure Course from which I got to meet many of my trekking friends. 

Subsequently, there was another reason to trek.  It was that isolation in the middle of the forest whereby no one had any cellular signal.  Everybody really sat around the fire and talk.  Now, I am afraid that will be lost too since cellular signal and mobile data can reach everywhere now.  Even that isolation needed to be paired with something else, special.  

2017 September, I had the chance to live in isolation from the rest of the world through the Lake Baikal Volunteer project.  Absolutely no cellular signal in the middle of Olkhon island, not to mention mobile data.  However, maybe there are no years of friendship behind the participants and myself, maybe due to the language barrier, that was just no feeling of that good conversation that night at Rinjani.  Now, there is another reason why we may never do those multi days trek anymore - we are getting old and now do more day treks.  Too old for overnight treks…

There is another part of my trekking habits that I cannot get as well.  I do not feel a strong need to climb the highest peak or the famous peaks - No Mount Kinabalu, No Mount Kilmanjaro, No Everest Base Camp.  Especially no to “ I conquered XXX mountain T shirts”! You simply enjoy the moments where no one talk to you and you talk to yourself inside the head, the moments where you do some little adventurous stuff with a small elements of danger such as running and down a volcano or using ropes to climb and finally, perhaps, the satisfaction of good scenery after a tough climb.   That is the reason why I hate Gunung Nuang. 

It does seem that reward of a good scenery after a tough trek is the reason why I enjoyed trekking.  Now, it seems that farming seems to be a “more productive” alternative to that.

At my recent Korean WWOOF,  I had the chance to do weeding at the farm, which was backbreaking.  

However, you could stop and take a break and see this all around:

It was awesome when you stood up straight to take a break and when the wind is blowing with all the mountains around you  - it reminded me of this scene in 霍元甲.

It seems that farming is a “productive” way to suffer and then to enjoy the good scenery.  Of course,  it has very much to do with the good weather around May, and the fact in Korea, there are plenty of mountains. 

Still,  I think I will be keen to work on a farm again.

Some other random thoughts about WWOOF experience:

• There is a PA system like North Korea.
• Even for organic farming folks, and Crane Research Centre, still use disposable cups.
• Only seniors left in a farming village. 
• So much BACKBreaking Work in a farm:

Getting down to your feet to put these protective layers so that there is no need to use weedicides.

Daily Habits to cultivate... and that ONE TASK.

Meditation, Pushups, Sit and stand up Straight, one Vegetarian meal for lunch/dinner. Many good habits to cultivate but as we learnt, how to do all of them at the same time.

Excluding all these, there are still those small little goals that I like to achieve but still haven't done so – be it public speaking or is it personal finance. Some of them since 2009, mine mine, is this depressing or what.

Of course, I have had endless struggles with being productive. Still, recently, I chanced upon a rather satisfactory sequence.

There are many daily habits I want to cultivate. However, as I did apply Leo's not more 1 habit to focus per month and some of the habits were previously practised, I realised that I didn't have to be so mindful about a) Vegetarian meal b) Sit and stand up straight.

Now, what will make my day go really right? It is to start the day:

1. Few minutes of fake meditation – counting 20 breaths and reminding myself that I will die someday.
2. Some physical pushups and sit up

Coming back from work, or at work – to finish that ONE TASK.

That one task that I must clear before drowning myself fighting emails. More importantly, but not really succeeding in personal life, is that ONE TASK, once completed, then I can allow myself to slack and do nothing.

I guess it is tough in personal tasks because my ONE TASK never gets beyond errands – be it buying mom's birthday cake or planning for my trip. However, that is the case with life – if you have to work ( and shouldn't be so unhappy about work, it is where many people gets to exercise their skills set. The key is whether if there is a feeling of adequacy from being able to finish the 101 tasks assigned to you. Sorry, distracted by work again)

Perhaps, because most of our working hours are taken by work – we will have to reduce our personal tasks/goals. Still, thus far, I think I will have a good day ( a good day ready to pass away) if:

1. I fake meditated
2. I did my sets of stationary exercise ( ideally, in addition to a cycle from work or swim)
3. Did that ONE TASK – that ONE PERSONAL TASK towards my goals ( which I must enjoy the process)   

Success or failure in life?

Recently, I was one of those irresponsible management that messed up a workers life. We just changed a waste contract with about 1.5 months notice and yup, for the worker who stays near his workplace - he will have to renegotiate his rent etc all in a month's notice.

We should stay have a change in contract but there is a repercussion down the line, and we should do it with 3 months notice.

Reading Springboard, I was thinking - am I a success or failure life? I have not actually succeeded in life in many areas - not the corporate ladder which my secondary school mates have gone on to, not a family. 

In terms of failure, the only sore thing is the university grades - bit that I still fought back to keep climbing in grades after the first semester.   The other failure would then be the food waste project. Done quite a bit on it but didn't go on to step 2 of spreading and garnering support.

The costal cleanup corporate and Cal Newport post enlightens me that it is not enough to be excited but one must think of the circumstances and consequences, and then still decide if you want to do it. 

I will remember with fondness that night that I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about the crowd source "An Inconvenient Truth". 

My own inconvenient truth is I may have identified the passion and interest, but I do allow some personal fears to hold me back. Like I analyzed before, as part of an organization, I have succeeded. Working with someone like for corporate coastal cleanup, I will do it also.

Starting out alone? I have not. 

Another key thing I learnt is to work on the "adjacent" - don't go starting out on ideas that I remotely don't have the skills for. 

At the end of the day, I know I will be rather happy actually, to just focus on a few projects that is meaningful for the environment, making use of the public speaking skills and observation powers. 

Why I have't did a start up all these years?

Quite a few people have asked me why I done a startup right after returning from NOC, and my reply was that it doesn't matter if I am my own boss or not, as long as I get to make a difference.

http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html

This made me realise the reason why : It was that I have been working in small companies so far - I had lots of influence at Roots and Shoots, and later as part of a small department at OES.

Especially since I am not really bothered by money and benefits anyway that are the key benefits of a large company - I hardly track them anyway!

In a sense, i am still responsible.

In a sense, i am still responsible.

Overwhelmed by the sheer number of tasks going on, in a sense, i still have some control over my fate.

Yes. I am overwhelmed by the various requests. But if i force myself as Steve Job did, I can still choose to just focus on 3 of them.

The rest will be aptly named "no chase no do". Sometimes too, people ask very easily because it does not cost them.

Hence,it may not be really important to them.  Some of the key tasks i am ignoring because of the high stakes involved.

That is actually my weakness because eat the frog in the morning is to do the thing u hate most ( actually it is just the most important thing),  therefore as long as I procrastinate, I will not succeed even if it is just in my personal life.

Yet again, Leo Babauta recommends that not to fight against that. I think a balanced view really is that u have to explore deep inside, why such emotions. Why do you procrastinate?

The most ideal is really that the most important task is also what u enjoy the most.
At least, right now I hide is because some things are  beyond my ability to solve.

I still have the ability to update the issue in good faith and time.
I still can work within my circle of influence.

Had enough of myself and given up on myself to be productive all the time:

Some friends may have noticed that I am disappearing for many of the gatherings.  This is part of my efforts to minimize distractions and focus on a few projects.  Also, I have turned down some events such as trekking etc – if they don't excite me anymore.   Yeah, I am facing an extended quarter life crisis.

The worst thing is that I ended up hiding at home to:

-       Play FIFA

-       Watching Running Man and Nu Huo Jie Tou

-       Or even silly miniclip

Not endlessly but definitely enough to upset myself.  Still, I do enjoy the reduction in the stream of information - a drop from the pretend busyness.

Habits Building:

Look, I have failed in building certain habits - maybe I should classify them as habits of discipline.  Actually it is all about getting down to work during weekends and sometimes after work. 

However, I have built some really amazing habits now that I think about it:

-       Desire to exercise almost every day and it has been a good at least 80%.  I call it desire and not discipline cause most of the time, I do enjoy it!

-       At least one vegge meal a day for lunch or dinner

-       This may not always happen or did dip for a while, but I am also the one always asking for vegge in group meals.  So as a whole, I am rather happy with myself.

-       Choosing to switch on the radio instead of TV when I reach home – maybe I will just give myself a 40% pass rate on that.

-       Using Hankerchief instead of tissue paper.

What did I really fail:

    -  When I start on FAKE leisure at home to stop. Endless drama watching. It is the part where you start and then you continue for 3 hours.

    - Halfway through doing some work and when I needed some break – I relied on watching TV.  Watching TV is pretty fine, it is only really bad when actually at times, I don't wish to watch that programme.  I am only so glad that I have got no Cable at home or it could be so much worse.

So I am giving up on disciplining myself:

Next I will be doing:

-       Just getting away from distractions completely, getting out of the house on weekends to a) NEX Library, b) Central Library c) The HUB. 

-       The sad thing is that I have been bringing my laptop home from work, but I have not been leaving the house.

-       Arranging and rewarding myself with leisure, by that I mean checking out locations in Singapore.  Many times overseas we tend to travel and check out tourist spots and yet we don't do so at home.

The summary of the above 2 is really to walk and work where ever I like, just like what Leo Babuata does, in fact I used to rotate the various libraries of NUS too!

Recalling back to the most productive period of my life was really preparation for O levels prelims, where:

-       I got out of the house consistently – studying at the void deck

-       Accountable buddy – Dennis whom I studied with and made me show up when I didn't want to.

-       -Little bit of consistent reward – That one hour of Dinner TV of that Hongkong Drama serial

Therefore I must always plan to have a weekend day fun. Even in last year NUS days, I make a point to run out of the house to the Law Library or to the Community Centre.  Somewhere with limited leisure, rather no TV and I got no laptop too! The worst that happens is really just stealing a book to read in the library! 

Right now, the tough part is doing all these all top of working hours, but , just but, if I really enjoy them and desire them as the habits above show. It should not be a problem!

Amazingly, my first job was my best in terms of fulfilment:

Amazingly, my first job was my best in terms of fulfilment:

1.5 years with Shanghai Roots and Shoots, how many projects was I involved:

1. Shanghai tech museum pool
2. Eco office
3. Organic garden
4. Royal Society of Prevention of Cruelty towards Animal workshop
5.Anhui Poverty Alleviation
6. Inner Mongolia Tree Planting
7. Jane Goodall visit

I seriously think that's all in 1.5 years and the ones I truly led was 1,2,3,4 of which only Eco office and organic garden was long term throughout the 1.5 years!

That was the pleasure of being given so little to do and being allowed to focus and hence doing a good job out of it.

Now in the situation where things pour in left and right, the one thing within my control is to say "NO!" to my own good suggestions and ideas.

Ah, I get clearer and clearer why I was happy at Roots and what really makes me smile at night.

I am so pleased for this 30th Year for these things

Pleased and not happy.  Because it is simple satisfying kind of happiness – satisfied and at peace with this year.

One important reason is definitely the few important books that entered my life this year:

•         The Power of Less
•         Steve Jobs Biography
•         The Lazy way to Success

The first 2 books all points towards Focus.  

Looking back to yearly reflections, in 2010, I read NUDGE and then I thought that I need to trick myself to get things done.  It will be something along the lines of changing physical environment: Make the difficult easy, the averse pleasant, and the boring interesting. Or simply the concept of Propinquity.

As I wrote in my reflections:

The easiest way to exercise is to have fun doing so. The easiest way to get things that don’t have a deadline (or externally enforced deadline) is to have a bet - I need to start giving myself target/go for courses and rewards/punishments accordingly.  It is like controlling myself externally.

Yes, all these are true but this is only after you have chosen the projects to focus on.  One simply cannot have too many things going on in their life.

As Bruce Lee said: "The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus."

Similarly, Pen Hadow in Maximising your Potential Max#11: at about 23:45, told a story where he wanted to climb a iceberg on a expedition to photograph polar bears.   His partner chided him and told him it was not relevent to their expedition. His takeaway lesson was if it is not relevant to the critical path, drop it. 

Focus. FOCUS. FOCUS

Lack of implementation:

Another of  my previous problem was this:

How many people do you know that read a lot of books and spend a lot of time attending courses, but never apply the knowledge they learn?

Maybe it is because I read too much, maybe because I simply don’t know how to reject and focus; I will get spurts of inspirations and motivations but never got down to implementing much of them.

Another genuine reason is of course the fear of failure.

Here the Bruce Lee master again:

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”  And …

Jack Ma feels that one does not measure success just by the results; instead he feels that the experience of doing something is a kind of success itself. “ You go out there and charge around…  and if it doesn't work, you can always bow out. But if you just think over thousands of things at night and in the morning keep on walking on the same path, you will never get anywhere.”

I am glad that this year of my life, one by one on the To Do list, I cleared my books reviews and perhaps most important of all, taken the first step to try and create a viable hobby business from coastal cleanup. 

At least now I know if it works or doesn’t work instead of reminiscing about it.

Thus focusing will allow you to drive your limited energy and resources into just a few projects so that you can decide if it is worth doing or just a random inspiration.

Of course, I took inspiration from “ Lazy way to success” who quoted Buckminister who said something along the lines of “If you are doing something natural to you and good for the world, the world will come around to help you”. So just try, if it is meaningful, it will happen.

And of course, Momento Mori is an additional remedy to the fear of failure.

Reaching Goals?

Yet now, also in contrast to the importance of goal reaching that is preached by society at large: 

“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.” Bruce Lee

And as Yvon Chouinard mentioned in his lecture at about 6:35 - "There are no dancing girls on top, after you scale that wall."

Summing it up:

Pen Hadow has this to say about focus and results at about 26:20:

"Follow a critical path and make informed choices of the side effects.
It is not that difficult to break the broad middle band of achievement, because most people with justification are just not willing to let certain things go. "

Then at 29:04:
"It may not be worth it in the end and hence it is about the journey, more about the process than the outcome." 

Pen Hadow sums it up as Relentless Intelligent Application to succeed.

Relentless: Invest time - also mentioned in "Road less travelled" when Scott Peck mentioned that he just wasn't good at fixing his car because he never invested time in it. 

Intelligent: Be mindful of the side effects of pursuing your goal and test what works.  It may be right to give up and always tighten your focus.

Application:  Just do - Jack Ma

If I could at this early stage of life try to put together what I learnt :

• Focus. Choose the projects that you want to be involved and limit yourself. You got to invest the time to make it a success
• On each project, you have to learn to enjoy the process and not simply be single minded on reaching the target.  At the end of the day, you may find that you may not like the side effects of that success. 
• And because as put in " The lazy way to success"  - people who make it really big really enjoy  what they do. 
• It is in a sense cyclic and mutually enhancing, because if you didn't invest the time through focusing, you may never get to the stage where you enjoy the process because you never got good enough. 
• There is still a place for bets and other psychological tricks:  On things that you don't enjoy doing but are good for you - such as financial planning or exercising.  That is where "Make the difficult easy, the averse pleasant, and the boring interesting." comes in. 

Reflections at 30

"Imagine an actor must feel, after years of commitment to a particular dream, after years of waiting tables between auditions, he realises that he has gone just about as far as talent or fortune will take him. The dream will not happen, and he now faces a choice of accepting this fact like a grown-up and moving on to more sensible pursuits, or refusing the truth and ending up bitter, quarrelsome, and slightly pathetic."

Obama - Audacity of Hope. 

Sound just like me. Perhaps it is reaching 30 and realising that you are not anyone special, not having done something memorable. As my sister said, I seems to having PMS nowadays – perpetually in a bad mood, and impatient to answer questions which I think are non interesting. 

It wasn't supposed to be like this, it was clear that I needed to leave because I felt that I am in a position where I don't feel that I am making much of a difference.  I felt I was stuck in this pool where I was swimming in one direction but everyone else is swimming in different directions. There was no focus, or what I have learnt – nebulous.

Still, there was no wavering of faith that I still wanted to do something green with my life. 

Till of course, I came across " The fault in our stars" and perhaps, very much coupled with the book "Environmental Problems and Human Behaviours" .

Of course, in many books, such as Bill Bryson “A Short History of Everything”, we all learnt that the earth will be swallowed by the expanding sun in 5 billion years. Still it didn't struck me as strongly until “ The Fault in our stars” and as it is put: No human being will be around to remember what  another human being has done.  And perhaps, this portion of   留芳百世 is an important motivation for me. 

Reading “Environmental Problems and Human Behaviours” made it worse I guess, learning upon that curtailment behaviours for energy conservation amounts to little as compared to hardware changes like energy efficiency.  Which is what I wanted to do as part of my volunteer work.

What is then worth doing? To both create and impact and yet meaningful.

Repeatedly, many entrepreneurs have said that money is not their main motivation. And as Benjamin Wallace covered in this TED talk, many of the expensive things out there may not really be worth the experience.

I still don't really have an answer to what is the life worth living. On the other hand, when you look at mom and that on her day off, she doesn't know what to do, THAT is a real torture by itself too.

All that happens is that really in this modern society, all of us have our basic needs met,and now we look for a higher reason of existence as dictated by Maslow.

Something I do know for sure now that I am approaching 30:

·      I enjoy minimising the things I owe. Decluttering. It is quite true that anything that you haven't used in a year, you probably don’t need them.

·      As compared to my hiatus back in 2008 where I read a lot on line and subscribe a lot, now I try to unsubscribe, unsubscribe, unsubscribe. I am still hooked on to Pocket and Flipboard, but I am killing subscriptions on my emails, cutting down on twitter and maybe even facebook friends. Choose what you want and get only what is useful. Even for my emails, social media on handphone and Ipad, as much as possible as I can fix in the settings, it will be Fetch and not push.  I choose when I want to be notified and disturbed on what I am doing.

·      I am getting more disinterested in what many others have to say, especially people like my mom.  We know to listen IS to care, yet sadly many things fail to raise my interest.  

·      While some of the most comfortable people I can be around with are my trekking friends, somehow I am not that keen on travelling. I ceased to want to see as much as possible around the world or each trip that I am on, but now, not so.  Maybe cause I feel that mountains around the world are the same, or that I have seen quite some little bit.  Also, though many life purpose articles/books all encourage travelling, I feel that there are already so much that can be learnt from books. Perhaps, though the bottom is that I feel that travelling doesn't contribute anything else to the world?  Of course, it is for one self growth and enjoyment.

·      Not that I have been depriving myself materialistically horribly since I devoted my life to a green cause, but now perhaps, it can be said that I can be bored of admin work even in things like coastal cleanup.  But it is really this mindset that often I will disallow myself to relax or that I must feel that my form of relaxation must be productive - that perhaps I have to admit is part of the reasons for all of my interests in sports?

·      Now that I am so uncertain of the worthiness to leave a legacy, I am more inclined to pursue Activities that provide me with pleasure.

By that I not only mean just our sensory pleasure, but REALLY activities that get me into that state of FLOW where I will just lose the sense of time. Just like how Pico Iyer can get lost in writing for 4 hours, that is such a pleasure.

I can get lost in reading too but as this article says accurately : reading does not count cause it doesn't produce.

What gets me into flow?

• Preparing for my toastmasters speeches, 
• learning the lessons in NUDGE and applying it for an environment poster, 
• writing a poem on the sofa outside my house when I was Sec 2, 
• sharing the stories of jared diamond's "why is sex fun"  in the mountains in Anhui.

What thrill activities forces me to focus and enter “flow” as well?


Thrill Cycling, open sea swimming.Nope. Not climbing, not trekking.

The good thing is that I have ticked off my bucket list throughout these years on all the outdoor activities.

Perhaps, after one more blog post. I will be ready to move on after 3 weeks of rest.

My life: to listen to my heart and take the steps to do the things that I really want to do as much as possible.

Imprisoned by the infinite choices:

4 days, 4nights since I have been back home. Did things which I didn’t feel a need to do so while at Bali and Lombok.  Playing football on Ipad while the real EuroCup is going on and Netting away while kind of refusing to tackle the real items. 

Good thing was that I have been working out everyday. 

Guess now that I have all the time in the world, I am not sure what can I do, there has been many offers  to do things- volunteer, trek, race, travel.

Suddenly with so many choices, I am not sure of what to do. 

I am not that sure I I want to focus purely on making a difference cause all will come to naught in the end. 

I am not as enthused as many others on traveling because Tired of seeing the mountains, seen enough mountains, tired of seeing clear blue water - it is the same everywhere.  Tired of seeing the derelict buildings of the region - maybe I just need to go further. Perhaps though, it just me not to enjoy life so much in terms of taste and sight. 

As Meijun on a separate bed said, she wants to see the world sights before they are gone.  Ken on the same bed said he wanted to see the things while he can while he is still young and he likes the fact that he is refreshed with new insights.

I may not be in the mood to travel because I don't feel that I am productive.

To borrow  line from “The Fault in our Stars”:  I always thought that I would have a story to tell, that I am special.  

Maybe I am not and you have to come to realise that as you are reaching the age of thirty.

I enter state of flow or excitement at times like when I was applying what I learnt at NUDGE for a engineering recycling campaign. 

At the end, it may be that I am clear about what I like to do but I just lack the opportunities. 

The book “ Fault in our stars” just reminded me once again that all will come to oblivion and it threatens what I take as the most important - to make a contribution and perhaps to leave a mark. 

It has been really further demotivating when I read “Human Behaviors and the Environment”, that the solutions are few and the problems out of our reach. 

Though this trip, it also made me realised that why I yearn certain  sports like trail running and cycling - cause it forces you to focus, to enter into the state of mindfulness. When you are running down at speed with all the roots and rocks, you cannot be thinking about your lunch or the email because you have to focus in order not to fall. 

And if it all comes to naught,  what gives satisfaction to a life well lived could really a combination of many many:

• Pleasure, though fleeting. 
• Emotional memories as I wrote in my JC days and they leave a mark in your memories - pleasant or unpleasant. 
• Getting into state of flow 
• Getting into mindfulness. 
• Being challenged with tasks that you can manage.

Is this “sabbatical” break of mine only because of :

• Frustration with lack of opportunities to make difference
• Work on my green company plan - which I get less motivated on because of the thought of less abilities to make change after reading the “ Human Behaviours and Environment”?
• Or just to do all the things I wanted to do while I am still young physically like skate boarding etc. 

Or is my mind all confused because:

1. My attitude to save the planet at all personal costs been shaken by “ The fault in our stars”?
2. Exciting offers by various friends to go this place to go that place? 

Thanks to all the previous documents, it is clear that I took this break to : 

1. Be away from something that doesn’t excite me anymore. 
2. To do the many skills that I wanted to pick up which refers to : 
1. Motorcycling
2. Skateboarding etc. 

Traveling is just as it happens to be.