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Facebook, YouTube, and all other Internet apps were all the buzz. “Social Media Influencer” became a real thing. As I scrolled through my feed, aesthetically pleasing motivational quotes caught my eye, an angry (or passionate) middle-aged man was saying how I should work more, news of randos getting millions in funding for the weirdest ideas emerged, college drop out billionaires were heading into work in pajamas… and eventually, I started to believe that I too can conquer the world.

“The Hustle”

I started my career at the euphoric height of the entrepreneurship and hustle cultures. As a person being at his most productive stage of life while caught in this blip of time, I took in these cultures with open arms.

I was a hero in my own mental playground. Being an entrepreneur involved taking the less worn path while using my mental, physical, and financial health to achieve “success” (loosely defined to be within the intersection of meaning, influence, autonomy, and financial gain). Also, I started this early on in my professional life. This meant putting a detriment towards establishing a solid career path. At that time, I felt like I was embarking on one of life’s greatest adventures.

With being unprepared and unskilled, I dove head first into all that appetizing risk and uncertainty with an unhealthy dose of optimism and naivete. Sure, there were moments of triumph. Though as what is said in the stars of this life decision, it is one that is blessed with a more generous portion of tribulations.

Since being an entrepreneur, I have been operating on an overwhelmed basis by default. Being whelmed is a rarity. In fact, now that a good part of the decade was spent doing this, I feel as if something broke. I do not really know how to operate in any other way. The driving mode is in “sport” at all times. The downside being it consumes a heck of an amount of fuel. Between all the excitement and turmoil is a person who is always on the edge.

Stubbornness, the age old recipe?

During one of those lonely and hopeless nights some moons ago, I told myself that I shall allow myself to endure this for a total of 5 years. When I failed, I told myself that I would make the next try the last. But this became a recurring pattern of behavior against any personal standards that I had set for myself. It also went beyond any time limit that I supposedly stood firm on. Now, my “last try” miraculously worked out, but I wonder what would have happened if this didn’t. Would I have stopped or tell myself once more that the next will be my last?

There is oftentimes a reference to the “entrepreneurial DNA”. That is, there are characteristic predispositions for individuals who are suitable to be an entrepreneur. This is separate to general characteristics that are much needed in the working world (such as being responsible, a team player, etc.). Speaking from my experience alone, this “DNA” may instead be related to being resilient (or stubborn), requiring high stimulation (or an addictive personality), and risk taking (or foolish). Depending on the circumstances that surrounds one’s life, these characteristics best describe an entrepreneur or a stubborn and impulsive addict. Perhaps they are merely two sides to the same coin?

Conclusion

Anyway, if I had the choice to turn back the hands of time, would I still choose to be an entrepreneur or would I choose the alternative? From a cost-benefit analysis, both options are riddled with their own challenges and likewise pleasures. Both could potentially lead to meaning and fulfillment (otherwise known as “The Good Life”). Though if my hunch is right, I would likely turn out to be an entrepreneur once more. Perhaps it is the stubborn thrill seeking fool within me. Or perhaps, deep down, I know that having taken the less worn path made all the difference.

It’s that time of the year to engage in reflection with the hope that new insight emerges. I’ve been doing my fair share of reflections, which inadvertently led to a contemplation about life in general. In this post, I intend to stay true to reflecting on the past one year alone (as what most people do when the new year comes close). This is with the utmost hope that it will better prepares me for the year to come. So, here goes.

2022’s career blessing

For context, I started a new business entity in September of 2020. In 2021, I was encouraged, but not completely certain, that the business was going to do well. 2022, on the other hand, showed a predictable and constant business performance month-on-month. This year was the year that convinced me that I am doing well in my business and career.

I couldn’t be asking more out of my career at this stage of my life. I am at the best synergy of what I can provide professionally: I provide my service to customers, I teach and supervise others, and I manage a business. All in all, my academic requirements, professional and business experience, individual characteristics, the right support, and a fair bit of luck, have converged to this point in time, providing me with this outcome.

I am beyond blessed and very grateful to be where I currently am. I have achieved the end goal of what I had been hoping to achieve out of my professional life.

However, as much as I rejoice and appreciate the gift that I have received, nothing would have prepared me for the overwhelming anxiety that was to come.

What is there left to do?

All of my professional years were along a measured trajectory. There was always a plan in place to ensure that the trajectory remains upward. As compared from the month or year before, this can come in the form of an increased income, better job, more satisfaction, more options, more autonomy, more influence, and so on and so on.

The added investment of time and effort oftentimes had an intended incremental benefit to my professional self. As with many others who want to grow their career, I would often like for it to also coincide with positive gains in other domains of life, namely it having a positive effect on my finances and quality of life.

To be frank, I enjoyed this “game” which people refer to as “career development”. It is a game which requires strategy and resourcefulness. There is a deep sense of satisfaction and accomplishment at the completion of every “level”.

However, applying the same mental framework at present is a challenge if not impossible. There are no longer immediate needs to fulfill. Barring any dramatic circumstances and so long as the status quo somewhat remains, any further time and effort invested into my career will instead fulfill my wants.

It is at this juncture in life that I realize I am not as hungry as I think I was. It really takes tremendous hunger to want to lead a company bigger than a handful of employees. I cannot even imagine the kind of hunger it takes to lead a billion dollar company. As much as I look up to successful global figures with tremendous entrepreneurial achievements such as the Elons or Steves of the world, what is certain is I do not have that drive in me to want accomplishments of that magnitude.

What if there is no longer a need to plot for an upward trajectory in my career? What is there left to do?

Mid-Life Crisis?

Reaching the end goal of what I had hoped to achieve in my career much earlier on led to unpleasant surprises. It not only meant that I had to let go of the only mode of operation that I knew in my professional life (e.g., do better compared to the day before), but it also meant that I had to face what typically comes at the conclusion of one’s professional life.

In 2022, I have been struggling with the realization that life is finite. While everyone obviously knows that we all die someday, but not many of us actively think and feel this as an impending and eventual reality. We always have something more urgent and immediate in our environment to worry about. Often, it revolves around building a sustainable life for ourselves and the people we care about (which a job helps with).

But what if we’re done with the job of sustaining life? What happens next?

I had never related to the portrayal of a “mid-life crisis”. This is oftentimes stereotypically portrayed as a middle-aged man making impulsive decisions unbefitting to himself and his age. But I get it now. Whatever a “mid-life crisis” looks like as an action, the intrinsic drive to perform said action matters more. Personally, it is the realization that I have arrived at the end and not knowing what comes next other than eventual death. It is as if I am one step away from the edge of the grid of the earth. Taking that one step would achieve complete disconnection from productive society. It signals the end of the “rat race”, but also the abyss.

Existential Vacuum

As much as I do get overwhelmed with death anxiety from time to time, I also note that this is a kind of anxiety that is due to privilege. It is the kind of anxiety that comes from not having an immediate threat to my professional and financial life. In my case, a “what next?” vacuum was created once my career goal has been accomplished.

Upon further evaluation, this is a privileged anxiety because it is a kind of anxiety from having freedom and choice. There is freedom and choice to decide if I should operate based on the same logic as most people would if they were me, namely to have the business do better than what it did the month/ year before. But, there is also the freedom and choice to pursue other options. What if I just maintained business operations and invest my time and effort to pursue other interests? Maybe start a fun new business? How about delegating work and wander the world instead?

I am still searching as to which option is best. Due to this, I am still met with (at times) overwhelming anxiety about impending and eventual death. But, wisdom seems to point towards deepening my work in psychology and business. There is a reason why they fascinate and engage me so much. This fascination had led me to putting in the time and effort to get better at them. It then resulted in the outcome that I am currently having. I suppose doing what works won’t hurt?

You might have heard about a rather divine concept of “Ikigai”. It means the intersection of skills, talent, and profession, leading to a purpose in life. I suppose I struggle with this. With the limited time that I have being alive, am I doing my life’s best work or engaging in the most purposeful of actions? I don’t know.

Conclusion

The immediate future as of next year looks clear: do some teaching, market the business more effectively, do some traveling, start writing that book that I’ve always said I’d do.

As for the longer-term future, I’d say I’m still a work in progress. And I suppose this is a shared quality that I have with everybody else, regardless of life’s circumstances. There is a definite mystery of what the future holds. And I am certain that in our own little ways, all of us are searching for a fair bit of meaning in the shroud that’s ahead of us.

Perhaps this is the grandest game to play. An unsolved mystery that can never be solved. A game which we call “life”?

Hello somebody.

It has been a year since I’ve logged in. What’s new?

Frankly, there’s going to be something new at all times. New thoughts, new feelings, new happenings. Some stay longer than others. On the other hand, some may be so fleeting that before I even take the time to contemplate on them, some other thing comes around.

I’ve now decided to be more dogmatic and disciplined in my approach to journaling. Some big steps were taken which includes re-arranging my time spent on doing professional tasks. That allows for more headspace (and time) to contemplate. To make this more achievable and realistic, I also intend to write only a little each time.

Why now? As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the next best time being now. Between one’s birth and death, lots happen. Lots have been happening and time keeps ticking away.

As John Mayer puts it:

Stop this train
I want to get off and go home again
I can’t take the speed it’s moving in
I know I can’t
But honestly, won’t someone stop this train?

Life is a train that will never stop. It will only stop when life ceases to continue. It no longer feels like a fantasy or a distant theory. I’d need to live more because death is an impending and absolute truth. This is why I am starting this now.

I was browsing through TikTok when I saw a video of a guy playing a guitar while accompanied by his dog. This is the same guy with viral videos of his dog playing the bass drum along tunes he was strumming on his instrument.

However, this time around, the video’s text read saying the dog had passed away a week ago. That video showed a rather elderly dog resting its head on the guitar player’s lap, just like any other videos that they have together, while he strums along a song. He thanked the dog for all the love that she had shared with him throughout the years.

I’ve watched that video several days ago. But, the feeling I have from that video is still with me.

When I look at them, I can feel their love and happiness. He had spent so much time being with his dog doing what he enjoys. It was simple but meaningful.

A Common Factor

This made me wonder: what is a happy life? Or rather, do I have a happy life?

While people could provide a variety of answers to the above question or make different choices in life in order to achieve it, there is one variable among us all that remains the same. That variable is time spent.

I am of the opinion that a large majority of people (myself included) do not take into serious consideration the way we spend our time.

The Heart Yearns

I do not think that I’ll be able to do any other job than the one I’m doing now. I know that I genuinely enjoy it. And for the most part, I do benefit others by doing it. But, it has come to a point where too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Instead of enjoying it, it becomes a chore. Rather than being a source of pleasure and fulfillment, it has become a prison of my own creation.

A recent blunder with a client had made me reflect on how I’ve been taking myself too seriously. I spend most of my time fulfilling tasks and outcomes, that I don’t take time to think, acknowledge, and appreciate. While I carry with me the pressure to maintain a reputation and standards of performance, I fail to recognize that at present, I’ve already come a long way.

A career is meant to be enjoyed. And for a while now, I’ve not stopped to smell the roses.

When that error in judgment with that client was unraveling, a thought crossed my mind if I am fit to be a psychologist. Upon further reflection, it is not so much about the job that I’m doing. But rather, it is the way I treated and viewed myself. I am no different than anyone else. That is, I am not perfect and I will make mistakes. And I don’t think I’ve intentionally spent time in a long while to work on being okay with that.

What did the guitarist and the dog teach me?

As I am writing this, I wonder in what way are the feelings I have from the video related to the woes that I’m facing at the moment. After some consideration, I’ve come to the conclusion that the lesson from all this is that time has to be intentionally spent.

Knowing that I do enjoy what I’m doing, I can be intentional in making the most out of my career. That is, I can take the time to appreciate and acknowledge my present accomplishments more regularly. I can also take the time to learn how to be OK with being imperfect as a psychologist. As a result, by the end of this career, I can look back and see that I did spend all that time actually being happy with what I was doing.

When I viewed that video, I saw how happiness can be so simple. Similarly, my job doesn’t have to be riddled by the burden and complications. It too can contain simple happiness. What it needed was a different approach.

It was two in the morning, and I had typed hi to an old acquaintance over Facebook. I was asked in return on how I’ve been doing. My response was that I’m not complaining, and that I’m learning to be more appreciative of what I have. As I stopped browsing my phone, finished my meal, and headed out of the place, I reached into my pocket and found a serviette which was given to me earlier. It felt rather warm to put it over my mouth. A certain kind of comfort.

It reminded me of this video that I had watched of an orang utan that was shackled and caged it’s entire life. All that it had was a small piece of cloth that it held on to in it’s palm for that little comfort that it could afford. That is all there is to give any meaning to it’s existence. Completely trapped and all alone as the days go by. One small piece of cloth.

An ethical question that I often ponder and debate about is the extent of how I am serving humanity. What I’ve learned from working, doing business, and generally learning about the aspirations of others is that it is never enough. There is never enough money in the bank, or the luxuries and comfort in life. Ask a person who engages in corrupt practices on why he or she is willing to put others at a disadvantage for personal gains, and listen to him or her legitimize such actions on the basis of survival or needs, even if it’s in excess of millions or billions of ringgit.

As much as I would like to make personal gains for my own comfort, it is very difficult to not feel morally responsible in finding a meaningful and helpful way of making such gains while serving humanity at the same time.

As I reached to the front of my home, I decided to take a walk. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to take a walk just for the sake of walking. Just sitting and just walking was a major component of my personal healing some years back, and it felt so familiar and so soothing. I remember learning through those periods of healing that in order for the world to be a better place, it starts with being a better self.

As I write this, it becomes clear to me that no matter how strongly I believe that I do not have enough, it is a way of thinking that will not go away even if I am living in excess. It is a projection of an instinctual human desire that is unquenchable. And it seems to me that the only way to ever make any progress beyond this self-serving instinct is to always be in touch with my humanity in the present moment.