These days I find myself complaining about the act of not writing, rather than committing to the act of writing itself. I’ve been telling friends lately that my job has felt so consuming, that I’m never in the mood to write anymore. This has felt like an internal betrayal, as writing has been the one thing sustaining me through everything; and in a narcissistic sort- of-way, made me somewhat interesting. In to kill a mockingbird, there’s a line the character Scout quotes about reading;"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing." And I was worried when I wasn’t writing, I would lose that one tactile thing about me that felt so natural and immortalising. I never felt this deep enigmatic spark with writing, it somehow happened to me and I haven’t stopped since. It felt like a thorn in my side; but a different kind of thorn. The kind where I was ok with the prickliness, the grit, the sacrifice; because I grew so much to love it.

For some time, I treated writing as this dirty secret, and it took me ages to admit to people that I was writing. “I have to go write” as I get up and tuck my laptop into my arm. This always felt audacious as I had nothing tangible to really work on other than an essay on Substack. I wasn’t writing a book, I wasn’t working on a dissertation, I wasn’t publishing anything — I just had to go write.

It’s a real tragedy sometimes, having all these thoughts in my head with no where to go. I try to journal as much as I can — sealing and immortalising these ideas and experiences so I can return to them when I have the privilege of time. But I find the magic and momentum loses itself when I don’t tend to that idea; and sure enough all that potential starts to unravel, which turns into growing frustration and resentment towards my own writing. It surprises me why I’m feeling this way and I’m trying to understand where this self punishment is coming from, because really I don’t have the gall or reputation to be this annoyed, but somehow I am.

I’ve always envied those who could quit their job, to become a full time writer. The idea never seemed possible to me; that I could gain full totality of my writing and not have some sort of interference. It’s so admirable that people want to go all in with their craft. But I’ve always moonlighted as a writer, and I don’t know any other way. I don’t think I’m unique in any sense as it seems to almost be a rare phenomenon to be born as a writer and die as a writer. I think of some of the greats: Bulgakov, Hemingway, Joyce, how they had to live so much life before committing fully to literature.

you don’t need to give up anything

I don’t want to quit my job in order to feel the adequacy of being a writer. That’s not the point, and I’ve worked way too hard for it. Removing my deep attachment to the identity of being ‘a writer’ and just believing deeply in my work without the pressure of success or deadlines sometimes feels enough.

I work up to 70 hours most weeks and I’m currently writing this essay in between my 12 hour shifts. I’ve written many essays online and offline, somehow writing more than I ever have since starting as a doctor a year ago (which always blows my mind!) Even though it felt like my job was pulling me away from writing — so far it was doing the opposite. Working in healthcare has taught me to be vulnerable, to be brave, to be an advocate, and has afforded me the unique lens of the human condition in a way that only I could access. I have done my very best to translate these moments of humanity — the ugliness, the salvation, the glory — into the very fabric of my writing,

I have dreams of writing a novel one day, and I feel very determined that I will. Saying that out loud scares me, as with any fear of shortcomings. But there are few things in life that I am certain of; such certainties are few and far between. This includes taxes and death, and to hopefully one day own a piece of art that is wholly mine.

Where I write

I have a few favourite spaces and vacuums to write in; and I've been so privileged to afford the luxury of travel. I don’t think you need to be in a different country or a beautiful cafe to write, but there’s a certain clarity that comes with writing in beautiful spaces or being transported somewhere else. The mind is so busy, so take advantage of finding refuge in an oasis!

It’s not a coincidence that writers flock to common spaces: coffee shops, window seats of airplanes, hotel lobbies. The liminal space supplements the very romanticism and fleetingness of writing. But all it takes is a pen and paper, or a laptop, or whatever medium you write with. Everything else is operated on luxury.

I encourage everyone to write in unglamorous spaces as it forces us to examine and extract the extraordinary from the mundane, which is 80% of life. I’m not so sure if there is a fundamental difference in quality between writing in paradise or writing whilst looking at a blank wall, but having the ability to write anywhere removes this notion that you need optimal conditions to begin good work. American Philosopher Gloria Anzaldúa emphasises to “forget the room as one’s own” when writing. So forget the cigarette and the columbian coffee, and the need to call yourself a writer, the only constant in writing is you.

What I write

I’ve always built up the act of writing as a beautiful process, when in fact it’s messy. So messy. I’ve spent many moments writing in beautiful rooms; hoping that the words will find me in a setting of luminosity when the reality of most of my essays arrives from moments of calamity or making nice of stupid and painful things. Feeling too much or nothing at all. I still don’t understand my own writing process and I often find there is no rhyme or reason to my writing. Sometimes it’s all over the place. I just sit and let my writing take its course, hoping it will reach the right people.

Curiosity usually sets things in motion. I’ve written about this before in a previous essay; how being radically curious has laid foundation to everything good in my life, including writing. Being interested is an important precedent to set than being interesting. Writing demands much patience, and I think the not-writing aspect has been so crucial to giving more texture to my writing. When I’m not writing, I’m observing. Everything is generative material when you give it enough attention. I'm trying to feel and make sense of the world as much as possible; through my job, through travelling, through novels, through the fleeting conversations with strangers — even looking at the stars and trees!

More and more I’m learning writing is a process of discovery; of the self and everything around me. But the most fundamental pledge I have to making art and writing, is to give it my all. Annie Dillard in a A Writing Life says “One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.” So I’ve been learning to do that. To not save a single sentence, feeling or thought. I’ll give everything to my writing.

And despite all these distractions and the prolonged absences, and the many many versions of myself of towing the line of who I was and who I should have been — writing has somehow always made it’s way back to me.

It’s funny, because all this time I was trying to work out why I relied so much on writing. Receiving messages from readers, saying how much my writing has helped or inspired them, when truly the act of writing itself has saved me countless times. Writing at its core is freedom; you can manipulate it in a way that serves something, or nothing at all. Democracies and judgement can be forged from great fiction, from the written word. But in order for me to keep going; I have to treat writing as mere. Real life is what’s happening outside of my writing, and I’m just a vessel for it all.

Big love, Zoe xo

I’m not quite sure if it’s free spirited per se as I’ve always pretty much been a rule follower but I get restless when I get caught up in the same patterns and norms. I found myself in Porto this time, and in a way this trip felt different; for once I felt the passage of time and was the most present I had ever been. Every time I’m on a solo, I try to delete all social media and bring all the necessities to keep me company: book check, journal check, AirPods (the most important thing) check. When I was walking through the streets, I liked how invisible I felt, no one was watching what I was doing and I had no one to gain permission from.. pure bliss! I remember booking a dinner for one with the most perfect view of the Douro river, with my glass of wine in one hand and my book in the other. I left dinner with a sense of giddiness, mostly from the wine but also riddled with eternal gratitude that I was granted the freedom to be able to experience this. I thought about all the woman before me who dreamt of this moment and I was living it. I walked home along the river, under the yellow hue of the street lights before momentarily being drawn in by the noise of buskers and a huge crowd of people dancing. I stopped to dance with them, swaying to Ai Se Eu Te Pego and thought to myself, this is so much fun! I wish I could feel this way forever.

I’ve learnt with freedom, the only price you have to pay is to not care about the external or internal validation. This is why I love solo travelling so much. This is difficult for me, as back home I feel bounded by certain identities and duties. I experience a lot of resistance as I’m figuring out myself all the time. I think about Jung’s insight the most, “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” But why does it feel so hard? As I get older, I have this urge to disrupt and blow up my life. In some sense, I struggle to articulate who I am and what I really want. I get asked all the time what specialty I plan to go into, and my answer is always “I’m not sure.” Because the honest truth, I’m not too sure what I want anymore. It use to be get into training and become a consultant, get a house and start a family. But I’ve become so distant from that vision and that version of myself, that I’ve become so disillusioned from everything.

I think for most, it may seem I’m running away from things, escapism to the highest level; but really it’s the gravitation towards being someone who isn’t under scrutiny. To not perform for anyone, but myself. My life is wildly busy, with work, with expectations from family and friends, with travel. And at times, I find myself performing for an audience without even knowing it. It wasn’t until recently and with this solo, I’ve felt a real shift in my inner world and the perception of myself. I hit a psychological check-point.

And at the time of writing this, I’m back from my solo and back to my normal job. But I find my external world to be wobbly now and more unstable. What is this feeling? Upon some reflection, I’ve learnt that I’ve done too much people pleasing and shared decision making without conviction that I’ve become too small for my own good. I want that feeling of freedom again, but sometimes it feels too far out of reach and the urge to leave again is like an itch needing to be scratched. In a dramatic sense, it feels like life is starting to become loose, and the cracks are revealing themselves.

What I’m trying to say is, those days when I’m feeling the most ‘authentic’ and happiest and free, are the days when I’m seeking my own joy rather than anyone else’s. I think some people may think it’s selfish or a signal of regression, but it’s the process of becoming more than anything. Lately I’ve been becoming more intense and less agreeable, and this may look like a betrayal to those who has always perceived me as someone who is too kind for my own good (or perhaps the opposite… maybe they would be proud?) but it feels like meeting the parts of myself that has always been there.

I find that “being performative” is relational and there is a heavy pressure of living life as “authentic” as you can. For most this could mean quitting your job, living abroad, ending your relationship or just simply blowing up your life in the biggest ways possible. But it only really has to make sense to you. If you feel like the architecture around is falling apart, it’s not a sign that something is wrong but transformation in motion. Individuation to Jung was a lifelong process, he noted “The aim of individuation is nothing less than to divest the self of the false wrappings of the persona on the one hand and the suggestive power of primordial images on the other.”

and this is a difficult pill to swallow, to lose that tightly warped identity that feels so stable and to stop inhabiting a pre-existing psychological story.

This is a very long-winded way of saying (and there is no noble way of saying this): start giving fewer f*cks about who you’re supposed to be. When it got to the last day of my trip, I woke up early and threw on my bikini and packed a book to go to the beach. I stopped wearing make-up (which never happened back at home) and it was the most liberating thing I’ve done in a while. I laid on the sand for hours, with no real commitments and melted under the summer sun, like time stopped and I was out of the matrix.

I didn’t mean for this essay to become so existential, but I think what I’m trying to say is: let people be wrong about you. Do things that make you feel wildly out of your depth but in alignment with your soul. Be ok when things feel like they’re falling apart. I carry the feeling of Saudade with me with every solo, because it teaches me something. But perhaps it’s also the feeling of choosing myself even if that means destabilising everything. Because, the real tragedy isn’t losing what once was, but living and dying as someone you never truly were.

Big love, Zoe

“Maybe the reason you’re so tired could be stretching yourself so thinly with friends and family. You could try reeling it back?” my therapist tells me. That idea seemed so impossible to me, as it almost felt like I was vocalising my events and non-events as a burden. I wanted to do these things, they were things that gave me energy and not the other way around. Last month, I had a birthday almost every weekend, and in between looking at my draining wallet and a 4th trip to card factory, I still wanted to be there.

Sometimes it feels like I’m doing a whole lot, but nothing at the same time. This is objectively untrue, as with all my events I like to make each one feel intentional, and for the most part — worthwhile. My weekends and annual leaves are so precious, that I make every effort to enforce that I’m utilising them appropriately, so in a miserable sense, I have to plan every single thing — weighing up each invite as a cost-benefit analysis in my own head.

My mum often jokes that I have too many friends and that I need to start cutting down (which I won’t of course) and when I get asked why I’m not dating at the moment, I can’t even fathom trying to entertain another person in my life when I’m already struggling to fit the people who are most important to me in my own calendar. Since undergrad and Medical school, I have accumulated friends from all over the country and around the world, which has been the biggest blessing but also comes with a new snag of geographical distance when it comes to seeing people regularly.

But in-between the exhaustion of looking after patients and travelling miles to see my friends, it’s not something I can see myself giving up. I don’t perceive my relationships as transactional, but I think about how deeply rooted my connections are with my friends and family and how I would do anything for them, and equally what they would do for me.

I think about how inconvenience has often sustained my relationships, and before I get told about “bare-minimum”, I am alluding to the act of doing things without being asked, which I believe is an ultimate form of love. There are things people have done for me that I often take for granted, and on writing this essay I could reflect and think for an eternity of how lucky I am. These often extend from airport pick-ups, flatmates doing my dishes, colleagues covering for me when I’m sick, friend’s rearranging their annual leave to come see me.. the list goes on forever!

I don’t want to be mathematical about it, but I think the equation to long lasting relationships involves an act of service that relies on zero expectations to return that favour. What usually drives me to do something for someone (besides from really caring about them) is usually dependent on character and a little sprinkle of intuition. The best people I know do things out of principle.

I try to extend this act of love in my work but boundaries are an important thing. Sometimes I care about people too much; and often I need to gift myself the permission of protecting myself and time before I can do something for someone else. When I remember that almost all acts in life are actually an inconvenience it reminds me how selfless humans can be. It’s often easier to do nothing at all. The other day, my dad took my car keys and took my car for a wash and returned it with a full tank without me knowing. Realising how shitty some dad’s can be, It made me realise I had the best dad in the world.

We are often alluded to the saying “If he wanted to, he would” when it comes to men and dating, but it often begs the question to my own actions when it comes to my relationships. Actions are the only tangible things we have when it comes to evidencing someone’s character; it all adds up. When it comes down to love, what are you willing to do for someone?

Some acts of inconvenience which people will often remember:

1. Airport pick-ups

2. Getting medicine for someone whose unwell

3. Accompanying someone for an administrative task i.e passport renewal, driving test, doctors appointment

4. Surprising someone

5. Doing someone’s dishes or hanging up their laundry, any chore in general!

6. A hand-written letter

7. Travelling out of your normal town/city to see someone

8. Giving someone a lift

9. Getting someone a coffee or a sweet treat without them asking

10. Cooking for someone

11. Getting someone a souvenir whilst travelling

12. Actively asking someone if they require help when they look lost

To more inconveniences in this lifetime :)

Books I have read/reading:

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (1997)

The God of Small Things is the debut novel by Arundhati Roy which won the booker prize in 1977. I’ve heard a lot of good things by Roy, and this is my first time being exposed to her writing; but my god I was in awe from the first chapter. It’s gorgeous gorgeous writing. It follows two di-zygotic twin Estha and Rahel, through childhood and adulthood, amongst the backdrop of the political turmoil in Kerala. The novel is such a perfect but sensitive blend of politics, forbidden love and tragedy; all wrapped up into 300 pages or so. It’s a novel which makes me think deep and hard about taboo in communities and has educated me on the the Indian caste system and the lingering effects of British colonialism, which is peppered throughout the novel. It’s a book that has elevated my thinking as a writer, and is truly a stunning read. It’s metaphorical, it’s heartbreaking and it’s a fair sized book that’s perfect for the summer. God of Small Things will make you feel emotions and longing for certain places and people.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck 1952

It seems everyone is reading this during the Summer and I would give anything for someone to wipe my memory so I could read it for the very first time again. It’s a beautiful novel and filled with utter greatness and magic. I wrote a more detailed dive into some of the themes of the book here, but at it’s core; Steinbeck explores human nature and circles the idea of moral determinism, and the struggles between good and evil. I have never questioned humanity and moral self worth quite as much as whilst reading East of Eden. Sun, Wind, Trees, Philosophy… Steinbeck will make you feel forever changed by this novel up until the very last sentence. It’s a monumental piece of literature for a reason and it’s perfect for any season, not just summer.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (1926)

I was adverse to reading any Hemingway as he’s often accused of being a sexist and misogynistic writer, with very one dimensional views of female characters and women. However, I wanted to acknowledge Hemingway’s complex and nuanced personal life and although he’s led less than an exemplary life, I planned to separate the art from the artist. I don’t expect him to articulate any sense of morality in his writing, however I do know most of his books are a roman à clef. I think most people start with Whom the Bell Tolls or a A Farewell to Arms but I liked the general themes of The Sun Also Rises. I picked up a copy for £5 on world of books, and really enjoyed it owing to it’s shortness and simplicity. It follows a group of American expatriates in post-war Paris whom spend their time travelling, drinking and conversing (summer in a nutshell). It’s deliberately slow paced and and uneventful. It touches on the idea of “the lost generation” which lies true to the aimlessness of the plot, and I thought of how akin this was to post-covid life. You have to read in between the lines to truly understand the characters and what is implied, but I believe it’s a fun and nuanced book that is fine company for the summer.

The enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim (1922)

I took this book with me on my first solo in Italy a few years ago knowing it would be the perfect pairing to my trip owing to it’s plot. The novel follows a group of 4 woman who are unhappy with their normal lives and flee to Portofino where they split to stay in a castle together. The novel starts off rocky but unravels into this beautiful kinship of four very different woman with a shared commonality of seeking something better than the mundanity of their normalcy. It’s a lighthearted and charming book and feels cozy with every chapter. It perfectly encapsulates the dreamscape of the Mediterranean and is imbued with rich descriptions of Italy in all it’s glory. Italy first captured my heart on my solo all those years ago, but the freshness of this novel may just do the same!

Books I want to read! Books I’ve had my eye on and hope to read in the coming months

Chess by Stefan Zweig

Chess also known as the royal game is an Austrian novella written by Zweig, which takes place on a cruise ship destined for Buenos Aires. On board is a chess champion whom challenges the other passengers to games of chess. I was relieved to see it’s a short one and I’ve heard its a deep and intense plot, with an examination on human conduct and obsession. Very excited to read!

Still life by Sarah Winman (2021)

I saw Emily Blunt mention this book in a recent interview and when I searched up the premise, I was instantly sold. It touches on everything that I’m forever enamoured by; art, family, love, and fate. It’s a book set in both London and Florence, and seems to be a novel spanning several decades. The past two books I’ve read were sweeping generational epics which have taken me months, so I may put this on the back burner for now but it may be of interest for those who are keen for a novel that seems to be packed with richness and warmth.

Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-zi (2020)

This novel has been on most people’s radars and unsurprisingly has made it’s way to my personal algorithm. Taiwan Travelogue is this years Booker Prize winner and I’ve heard different commentaries and angles on this book. It’s a novel that has previously piqued my interest by it’s exploration of language, love, history and colonial power. (Similar themes to those in God of Small Things!) Taiwan Travelogue appears to be a love letter to food, but also an ode to the human spirit. It’s a homecoming to self-identity and a book I’m ecstatic to read this summer.

Up until 6 years ago, my Po Po would host mahjong parties regularly and invite our neighbours (even strangers from the street) to her house with the most amazing spread of food; slow roasted pig, fried tofu, boiled eggs, Roti, Curry Ayam. The street would be illuminated with laughter and beer bottles clinking. As a small girl, I wished these nights would be infinite and couldn’t wait to grow up and have Po Po teach me mahjong. Except she never did; she suffered from a stroke and lost her ability to walk and to use the right side of her body. She stopped playing mahjong and stopped hosting all together.

When I was 3 months old, my parents sent me from the UK to live with my grandma in Malaysia. They thought it would be better than hiring a babysitter, and they were right. They were busy with work and I was busy growing up amongst Kaya jams, durians and limestone hills. My grandma, aunties and cousins showered me with so much love, and I thought I would stay there forever: being amongst the other Malaysian kids, learning Malay, taking afternoon naps and coming home to grandma’s home cooked meals. But when I was three, my parents insisted I came back to the UK for my education, leaving my Po Po devastated and slightly cheated. I missed her and Malaysia, and I missed the Kaya jams.

I never reflected much about growing up in the UK as I was born here, and coming back at three meant little resistance when it came to fitting in. English was my first language, I was good at school and I had friends. But there were nuances of integrating into a demographic where I didn’t look the same as everyone else, and as much as I tried I was different.

My parents gave me an anglicised name, “Zoe” instead of my actual name on my birth certificate, “Zu Yi/祖 谊”. Someone once told me that my name in Chinese means connection/friendship. I’ve always liked that part about myself as it felt special, true and mine. But growing up not knowing any mandarin and only fragmented parts of cantonese (only when talking to my parents), made me feel distant to my name and identity overall. I would always dread when teachers would read out the class register as there would be a pause, and I knew it would by name next. I started throwing out some of my school lunches, because I didn’t want the other kids to question or poke fun at my food. My parents made me go to Chinese school on Sundays, but this never amounted to anything as I still couldn’t remember how to write my name and I would ask my mum to jot it down on a piece of paper each time. “I won’t always be here you know, you should really learn to write your own name” she tells me. She’s right, how could I forget my name? The one thing that was so bounding to my ancestral heritage, but felt so foreign to me?

As a second generation immigrant, I grew up straddling two cultures and often felt like I was bridging the world of my parents and the one I was born in. I would often act as a cultural broker, especially for my mum who struggled with english. At banks, parent meetings, doctors appointments. It was frustrating, but I knew it was more frustrating for my mum who had to make a life in a foreign place, not knowing the language or any of the social norms. It was a price she was willing to pay when she first stepped on that plane all those years ago with barely any money but a heart filled with optimism. I often wonder about all the sacrifices she made and all the dreams she had but never told me about.

As the years went on, I went back to Malaysia less and less. I grew disconnected to it as I became more assimilated to life in the UK. I started to not miss it at all. There were instances where I hadn’t seen my Grandma for years, and I didn’t feel guilty as I had been away for such a long time; and with my broken cantonese and her non-existent english, I felt the separation was much larger than just distance.

Twenties

I felt a shift in myself when I started university and found others with the same upbringing and the same dilemmas that I had encountered. I had Asian friends for the first time, and was longing for community in a way that I didn’t think was possible. It’s true, there’s a part of you that doesn’t exist until it’s uncovered. I realised I was never paying attention this whole time. I started to like who I was, and as I grew older; the shame also started melting away.

But it also left me with a new dilemma of being “too Western” for my Asian friends and “too Eastern” for my Western upbringing. I often felt suspended between two shores, close to both but belonging fully to neither. In predominantly Asian spaces, I became acutely aware of how disconnected I felt from parts of my heritage, while among my white British friends there were experiences and expectations that felt equally foreign to me.

There were parts of me that became foreign to my parents, too. “You’re so Western,” they would laugh. They had raised me to be humble, dutiful and mindful of the people around me, placing great value on social harmony and collective responsibility. Yet I found myself drawn to independence, questioning authority and pursuing my own ambitions—traits that, in their eyes, made me more Western and, at times, more defiant. Slowly, I began to adopt the social norms around me. I pursued interests, opinions and ambitions that might have surprised my parents. But how could I have become anything else? I was shaped by the country I grew up in just as much as the culture I inherited.

Home again

When I finally returned to Malaysia after seven years, everything felt different. I was in my early twenties, seeing the city through new eyes. It was monsoon season, the air was heavy and wet, clinging to my skin, yet strangely refreshing. My aunty took my brother and me to a local durian stall. When she offered me some, I shook my head. “You used to love durian as a kid,” she said, surprised.

I saw my Po Po for the first time since her stroke, and she broke down in tears. It was hard to see the passage of time and unfairness of the world change her from the bright, tenacious and warm woman I remembered; to someone more fragile, more tearful. I gave her a hug and held her hands — her spirit was still strong.

Despite stumbling my way through the language, I enjoyed being home. I had missed all the elements of Malaysia that never found its way to me back in the UK. Large dinners with family, getting roast meat from the side street vendor at 1am, hiking in the heat, seeing my grandma everyday. There was a stronger gravitation to go back to Asia the older I got, I was missing it more.

I told Po Po I would be back and that I’d like to learn Mahjong one day.

Singapore Summer

I spent most of last summer in Singapore for my medical elective. I was desperate to return to Asia. It was the first time I had travelled there alone, without my parents. Singapore felt familiar and foreign all at once. This cosmopolitan haven, wrapped into just thirty miles from east to west, seemed like the perfect place to bridge the gap between the cultures I had spent my life navigating. Even in the hospital, I felt reassured knowing that everyone spoke English. I had friends and family here that I could reach out to, I was fitting in just fine.

But somewhere between familiarity and belonging, I realised the dilemma I had spent years trying to outrun had simply followed me there. My supervisors would ask why I had never properly learned Chinese. At hawker centres, aunties and uncles would begin speaking to me in Mandarin, assuming I was local; and each time I would stumble into an apologetic reply in English. I carried my heritage on my face, but not on my tongue. And for a long time, that felt like a personal failure and it stung like hell.

But the feeling of not fitting in was a cage I had built entirely myself. I had imagined the language barrier as a wall so high that I couldn’t see beyond it. Yet despite my inability to fully articulate myself in my mother tongue, deep down I knew I belonged—in ways that extended far beyond language. Placing food onto someone else’s plate before my own, finding comfort in Mandarin songs, laughing with my Po Po, celebrating Lunar New Year with old friends and new. It has taken me a long time to love my heritage, but I am proud to be a mosaic of everything I have loved and everyone who has loved me. I am British to my core, but I am also Chinese.

There is a Chinese saying, 月是故乡明 — “the moon is brightest in one’s hometown.” For a long time, I thought the moon shone brighter back in Malaysia. Now, when I look up at the night sky, I know it is the very same moon. The difference was never the moon itself, but the distance I felt from home.

(I’m trying to immortalise my Chinese name with this essay so I no longer need to ask mum again.)

*Po Po is an endearing term in Chinese for maternal grandmother.

1. I’m currently reading the God of Small things by Arundhati Roy which inspired the imagery of this essay. Her book made me think of home, and is suffused with such beautiful language and longing for a place. Highly recommend <3

2. I was listening to “Walls” by Kings of Leon where the title of this essay comes from. I think it’s in a different context but I couldn’t get the line “Western girl with Eastern eyes” out of my head.

I always told people if I wasn’t a doctor, I would be a journalist. Didion famously stated, “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” And that’s a sentiment I’ve kept sacred to me all these years, even when I stopped writing and came back to it again.

I never I thought I was any good as a writer, but when I found myself at 22 being interviewed by Adam Roberts, now foreign editor at The Economist, for an article I submitted, I thought — holy shit, this was the validation I needed to prove I was a good writer. But what it really proved was that I was radically curious about the world and decent at writing about it. Although I don’t have any grandiose interest for politics, economics or foreign affairs; I’m a sucker for a well researched and source-laden essay. During my undergraduate, I wrote for my university’s newspaper and started pitching articles that interested me, anything to sustain my creative aliveness and the opportunity to write about something that people may not care about. “What made you write about that?” — because it’s real, it means something to me and it’s happening right now.

When I get asked on how I come up with topics on Substack, it’s partly based on personal experiences but mostly based on curiosity. I’ve mentioned before that writing is a private act, but it’s also a lonely one too. Lonely in the sense that you’re trying to uncover something and dig from the ground up; to do your story justice in a way that reads well to an audience, without the compromise of potency and authenticity.

But aside from writing, I try to be endlessly curious about people and what’s around me (although I do struggle with this and trying to get better at.) I read somewhere curiosity is a love language, and its true. I think what connects people the most is the feeling of being seen for the first time; to be truly understood and unlocked in a way that others previously may have not had access to. Asking good questions has become a lost art. It’s rarely reciprocal. I’ve walked away from too many dates thinking how the other person had barely asked me anything about me (other than how many siblings I have, travel, etc. you know the drill). However I know this is not a universal want, but it’s something I’ve always desired as someone who tries to live as intentional as possible. People can only meet us where we are.

There’s a Virginia Woolfe quote I think about; “I always have such need to merely talk to you. Even when I have nothing to talk about - with you I just seem to go right ahead and sort of invent it. I invent it for you.” which shows the very latency of being uncovered; layer by layer. Certain parts only surface when in the right presence, and feels like intimacy and liberation at the same time. When I met up with a friend before he left for SE Asia, we were at a wine bar in Soho, trying to squeeze in what little time we had before we would see each other again. I remember the night being fleeting, but all so intentional. M is the most curious person I know, and from our conversations I knew I wanted to move forward with the same sincerity of getting to know to someone the way he does.

For the longest time, I would enter conversations with an itching desire to speak about myself, before being interested in what someone else had to say. I use to believe time was this infinite thing; that we had forever to know someone and I would be seeing them again soon. But I’m sitting on the tube again at 27, with Sade playing through my AirPods, thinking about that one friend who I use to be inseparable with at uni and how we haven’t seen each other in 2 years. They’ve probably changed and so have I.

Back when I use to pitch for publications, my favourite part of writing was interviewing interesting individuals who were passionate about their craft. When I was in Rome, I got to write for Italy Segreta and interviewed someone who would never had been in my orbit, if not for the article I was writing. Not only did gaining different perspectives and insights flesh out my work — but I came away from every conversation with a new sense of love for humanity. It’s hard to explain but it felt like a privilege to be let in to someone’s inner world, like an archeologist excavating someone’s cerebrum. Curiosity in motion. I use to voice memo every interview I conducted and would replay it from time to time, because I took so much pride in my work and it was my personal proof that I tried to know someone as deep as I could.

Perhaps this is what drew me to medicine in the first place. Every encounter with a patient was a chance to be investigative and holistic. Medicine is not too dissimilar to journalism; however I always find that the outcome of a consultation and how a patient feels about you, is dependent on your ability to be curious about their problems. Sometimes no actual medicine is involved, they just want someone who knows how to listen.

When Alice followed the white rabbit down the hole, I’m not sure if she was brave or foolish. But curiosity is derived from the latin noun cura, to care about something. I think she cared enough to follow her heart, knowing that something great could be waiting on the other side. And isn’t that all we’re trying to do in this world? To give a shit about something, or someone? There’s a number of things I care about; and that belongs to writing, doing my job well, living a life well lived and my people (who know exactly who they are). But I know that curiosity is an infinite well; and a pre-requisite for great research, good writing and enduring friendships. I have only reaped the benefits of being curious and have never regretted knowing more about something or someone. Cheers to being hungry about the world :)

I commit to a yoga class on a sunny afternoon in London. Breathing through the vinyasa flows and moving rhythmically into a deeper stretch. The class is followed by a protein bowl at Atis and I light incense in the evening. My night ends with reading some sort of literary fiction or philosophy until my eyes become heavy. This is the epitome of a ‘healthy’ life I tell myself. I’m spiritual now! The very next evening, I’m at a friends birthday two beers deep and smoking a vogue that someone has offered me. This very paradox causes me to feel guilty and overrides everything I’ve developed a habit of; leaving me to question myself all over again.

That’s the very thing about agency and being alive in your twenties — so much free-will to become anyone and anything — but a crushing pressure to become one thing. I like to define myself similar to an onion: many many layers, more pungent and intense as you peel deeper into the core. It’s funny, most people around me know me for one thing but never the other. In a way, its frustrating but also can’t be helped. When I’m at work, I’m known as the “Elle Woods” super bubbly and agreeable, always leading with empathy and kindness (with a matcha in hand.) It’s an oversimplification and I’d like to believe it is a compliment, but I worry this also translates to someone who is ditzy and isn’t capable of any deep or coherent thoughts.

But I read somewhere that virtue is the golden mean straddling between two vices — too much and too little. Yin and Yang. To some this means balance, but to others this may come across as being fickle or bi-polar. But I know that deep down if we’re talking about balance, it’s never about giving equal weighting to the multi-facets of life; but about simply choosing what to prioritise or who to become on that given day. It comes from the courage to choose and having a certain clarity over things. When I look out at the tree growing outside my french doors, its appearance morphs with each season without judgement. I no longer recognise it from 3 months ago. It’s spring again and I notice pink buds blooming off the branches.

I love paradoxes because it goes against my own personal biases of what I believed to be true about someone or something. Like of course you can be both spiritual and materialistic? Totally makes sense. Because really, everything is interconnected in some way or another. Murakami was a long distance runner and someone who completed ultramarathons, (in some ways opposes the solitude and stillness of being an author) but in many ways running informs his writing and creative process. It’s almost more fun knowing some individuals are never defined by one thing. Maybe the real envy is having a bunch of pursuits and interests that fall outside the scope of what we’re really known for. Kind of like throwing down an Ace in a game of blackjack — 1 or 11? Whichever secures the win I suppose.

In that vein; whilst I’m alive, I want to taste every single bit that life has to offer. I love telling people at work that I also write. It’s not a double life per se, but when someone reads my work for the first time while only knowing one particular facet of me, it feels like a magician pulling a rabbit out from a hat; Elle Woods can.. write?

And that’s the fun thing about life and moving the needle when it comes to self-discovery. You learn all these hidden truths about yourself when really they were there all along. Alan Watts says “You’re under no obligation to be the same person you were 5 minutes ago.” And its true. The very best people I know are so heterogeneous that it always surprises me, very far removed from a particular identity. You can be fun whilst being stringent, intelligent and unserious, independent with so much love to give.

As long as you’re alive, you can change.

They believed Logos governed the cosmos and there is meaning to the rational arrangement of the universe. Structured order. There is some truth to trusting what can be seen and articulated. For example, we are more inclined to believe in something if there is some sort of proof or basis to a theory rather than taking action on a feeling. This isn’t wrong as it’s rationalised with evidence, seeing is believing, or so they say.

I wrote an essay a couple years ago on Substack titled Head vs Heart, and in some ways it feels like I’m re-writing something similar today. I’ve spent 8 years of my life in higher education, and in owing to that I’ve rationalised my way through most things: essays, seminars, exams, anything related to bureaucracy or academia. Principles run even deeper in my job, and there’s an algorithm for everything. I talked about moving through the world with a cerebral lens, thinking a lot about everything and trying to rationalise or make sense of other people’s actions or my own decisions. It’s a psychic safety net I have applied to myself and with that came with very safe outcomes. In my mind I had built a labyrinth of “cleverness’ and believed I was reaping the very best fruits for myself.

Nous is an undeniable force that lays dormant in every soul, described as the “eye of the heart” and the divine realm of intellect. It is somewhere logic can’t quite touch, as it is a direct reflection of the truth. It’s connected deeply to the soul, and built through faculties of perception, sense and experiences. Intuition grows stronger with age, and there’s a reason why you know something deep down is “not quite right” as your intuition knows something your brain can’t quite compute. It’s something we all feel, but maybe not quite fully grasp.

Carl Jung believed in introverted intuition and the collective unconscious to perceive archetypal images, symbols, and deep, hidden meanings. It is a function that acts as an inner compass for the underlying non-material truths. Intuition is powerful as it is terrifying. We tend to run away from our deepest truths because at times it may feel too irrational or a deviation from what we believe to be real on the surface. It confronts objective reality and often never lies to us. When I think about all the times I’ve trusted my gut, 9 out of 10 times I’ve been right.

But in a world where everyone is looking to become someone, it is so easy to deny ourselves of what we believe to be right and true. I often find we often know the answers to many unanswered questions, yet we still seek some sort of proof or validation. We don’t need to. We just need to trust our own convictions a little more. .

Intuition has carried my writing in ways I didn’t realise. When I find myself to be stuck, I often step away and find my greatest ideas come from when I’m not thinking too hard about it. Often whilst driving or in the shower - my body somehow connects the dots to my brain and I miraculously know what to write. The beauty of the unconscious!

For quite some time, I’ve always believed that you’re either an intuitive person or not. Some people are just so good at translating perception into meaning and reading the room, but I find this unfair as I do think intuition can be trained. Almost anything if you do it enough times can be drilled into your subconscious. Here are some practical but not exhaustive ways to develop your intuition by Jung that I have followed:

1. Journaling

   • As part of practicing the artist’s way, I’ve spent most mornings doing morning pages which consists of 3 pages of uninterrupted writing reflecting streams of consciousness. It’s best to do this upon waking before your mind is filled with inputs and all kinds of stimulus. I normally aim for minimum of 1 page owing to my job but it’s an opportunity to write without judgement, clarity or overthinking. Usually some truth’s come to light whilst dumping your stream of consciousness.

2. Interpret your dreams

   • I’ve have had some pretty visceral dreams lately and I’m a big dreamer in general. I try to engage in my dreams by writing about it, either in my morning pages or directly telling people who have made an appearance in my dreams. I use to brush off dreams as meaningless, but when I start to see familiar faces and patterns, I like to think it’s my intuition trying to reach me through other mediums.

3. Meditate!

   • I have meditated on and off probably for around 8 years. Meditation is one of the funny things where they teach you to let thoughts pass by without the gravity of thinking too hard. I struggle sometimes with the complete quiet but meditation has opened space for the intuitive thoughts to pop up, and in moments of quiet stillness, you’re more likely to feel in tune with your intuitive insights.

4. Travel and engage with people

   • This isn’t one that Jung instilled and one I know many people may not have the liberties of doing. But the more I engage with the world, the more I learn deeply about my self and the way humans interact around me. It’s one of the faster ways I’ve built intuition as I’m left with the raw complexities of myself against an unfamiliar environment. It removes bias more than anything and if that isn’t a sign of bringing you closer to yourself, I’m not sure what else does!

I’ve spent a lot of years harbouring every experience, interaction and teachings to mean something because lets be honest everything is really that deep. I’m an empath at heart so naturally intuition follows. But being intuitive can be quite isolating, not in some sort of ‘I know something you don’t’ kind of way but in a way of justifying certain interpretations of things your soul deeply knows because you’ve somehow been down that road before. But as with most bold and colossal truths, there’s always going to be resistance. The knee-jerk reaction is to rationalise ourselves out of most things. If only if it was so easy to follow your heart each time. Because being brave and true always comes with a cost in one way or another. But what’s the cost of not doing so?

I admit I’ve been stubborn. Moving through the world as if things solely belonged to me. I become angry at myself for this as I deemed everything in my life to be my possession and responsibility: my job, my patients, my relationships, everything I ever touched. I think about the difficulty of losing these things and the universal fear anchored to it. I’ve formed too deep of an attachment and have become disillusioned by the idea of ownership and how I’ve allowed these things to become a part of my identity. When there is an unexpected disaster, I’m left with the fundamental question of: who am I now?

There’s a belief that effort guarantees permanence. I’ve gone through years of chasing and investing into things that have easily slipped through my fingers. I’ve held on so tightly to things and have forced myself to try harder, when in hindsight things had to work out a certain way, whether I could see it for myself or not.

I’m troubled by the balance of going after what I want and the notion of destiny. I’ve always believed in fate, and I know some encounters are bigger than myself, owing to divine timing. Some souls are meant to find us, and others teach us something fundamental, neither hold more weight.

I reflect back on a quote I read years ago by Brianna Wiest, “I think we hold on tightest to the things that aren’t meant for us because at some level, we know they aren’t really ours.” Because if nothing is truly mine to keep, then my loss is no longer a personal failure. It is not evidence that I didn’t try hard enough or love deeply enough. It is simply the nature of existing in a world where there is a constant change of hands.

The Bhagavad Gita teaches that attachment (sanga) is the root cause of misery. When we build emotional dependence on certain outcomes, we are no longer present. True liberation comes from performing duty by not focusing on the expectations but by committing fully to an action and cultivating equanimity when things don’t go right. Being where your feet are. Living in the moment.

I never want to be someone that becomes cold, detached or indifferent. But at the end of the day, nothing is truly mine. Everything is fleeting and all we have is right now. After a loss, I understand now more than ever that we’re all on borrowed time. The more I detach, the more liberated I feel moving forward in this world. It’s not to say I don’t care or I’m going to stop trying, I just know that I don’t need to strong-arm my way into situations or control every outcome. I’ve already spent too long doing that. I just need to remember that nothing good gets away.

Anyone can be a writer, but there is a distinction between those who are willing to share the unknown parts of themselves and those who deliberately hold back. I always believed the latter are the writers who write with a specific reader in mind. Stacey Yu in her essay Who Do We Write For? confesses to “conjuring a specific version of the reader” in her writing. I believe this builds resistance with the audience without the writer even knowing. This is something we all can fall into, especially on platforms like Substack: allowing the twenty something readers and endless exposure to think-pieces shape our writing, rather than letting it do the opposite.

I have always been a writer. I have early memories of entering all the writing competitions in primary school and fell in love with words and world building. When I started this Substack almost 3 years ago, I wasn’t writing to anyone but myself. I had no idea how it all worked, and wanted to write about how I felt with no particular plot or character in mind. I titled this publication “Resonance” as it all leads back to the million dollar question of why I write. I wasn’t sure if my writing meant anything, other than winning a few competitions in school, but then I received my first few comments from readers grateful for translating something they were unable to compute into words. This gave me some purpose moving forward in my writing, but came with a new difficulty of trying to not write for validation or for an imaginary reader, but to write for only myself.

I imagine writing as a private and individual act. It requires full attention but also demands you to give something of yourself to the reader. I guess this forms the law of creation. Rick Rubin describes Art as decoding, to take a form of intelligence or experience and turn it into something beautiful. To craft a way in which others can perceive what you think and feel about that very thing.

I always believed writers block to be a by-product of self-consciousness. No one has trouble putting words on paper if we just write down exactly what we’re thinking, however the very act of knowing there is a reader in mind is what slows us down. Does this sentence make sense to them? Will they judge me for perceiving it in this way? Are they going to see things the way I see it? I have always tried to write honestly without the perception of what the reader might think, but it sometimes feels like I’m undressing parts of myself in which no one has seen before. Easier with strangers, more difficult with close acquaintances.

Vulnerability is a funny thing when it comes to writing. Didion described writing as a hostile act, where we impose on the reader to feel what we feel, “setting words on paper is the tactic of a secret bully, an invasion, an imposition of the writer’s sensibility on the reader’s most private space.” But I see it as an open door of courage, inviting the reader into the private rooms of our mind. I would say some of my earlier essays here on Substack are my most candid. And sometimes it may feel a bit hostile, revealing parts of my self which could feel very visceral to readers without their permission. But there is bravery in trying to make nice of something deemed difficult or painful. I’m surprisingly rewarded each time: words from kind strangers, friends who now understand me a bit better, the pride I feel for simply getting over the cringe. All of this encourages me to keep going, to keep writing.

The other day, I shared some of my writing on TikTok and received some criticism on one of my most vulnerable essays. It felt like a huge blow. Is this the price that comes with wearing your heart on your sleeve when it came to writing? But I realised that writing and sharing are two very distinct processes. I don’t let the sharing affect the former. When I put something out in the world, the writing is already done and I let it run it’s course. Of course I welcome feedback, but I don’t invite the critics into my private room when I write next.

Surprisingly it feels easier to be vulnerable when no one really knows you or your backstory. I become fearful sometimes when someone from my daily life (at work, university) finds my writing as they are exposed to the inner workings of my brain. It almost feels like all my journal entries are exposed and laid bare for someone to poke fun at. But my vulnerability is the very foundation of my work. Writing makes me feel brave. I’m tasked with trying to not build my walls up, as more and more people find my work. I’m not an author, and I haven’t published a book. But I am a writer because I do write. I wonder if any of the great authors had to deal with this dilemma, fighting the inhibitions of what they feel to be great and true. Whenever I feel my writing is too honest or too reckless, I remember that Hemingway understood this: the very virtues that make us good — our honesty, courage, and capacity for beauty — are the same ones that leave us exposed.

I think about the heirloom tomatoes I saw at the Mercado de Triana back in November. They’re assorted and irregular, distinguished by colour and shape, no two exactly the same. I asked the tour guide what made a tomato an heirloom. They tell me the seeds are passed down through generations, season to season, preserving certain characteristics. And yet, every heirloom tomato looked entirely different from the one before it. I wondered what defined a trait strongly enough to persist, yet loosely enough to allow so much variation, to defy, or perhaps cooperate with the forces of natural selection. Tomatoes don’t get to choose what they become. And then I realised: in many ways, neither do we.

Most of the becoming happens throughout the formative years: the lessons, the heartaches, the values which slowly trickle into our conscience as we enter new milestones. As the years go by, we slowly lose hold of these teachings before we finally develop our own wings and find ourselves out in the real world.

I think about my mother and father the most. I’ve taken “you carry yourself so well in the world, your parents must have raised you right” as a compliment, but this doesn’t come with shortcomings, as someone who fought through many moments of resistance, tension and fierce disagreements. It never comes with a warning label: here lies a girl, who has a complex relationship with her immigrant mother. The one that is closely portrayed in books like Crying in H Mart - wishing for a mother that could understand things without accusations and paranoia. As I’ve gotten older, I feel more defiant of my mother, trying to outrun every opinion convincing myself that I know better. Of course, I know better.

I vowed to never inherit the bad tempers and mistakes; going to therapy for the past 6 years so my parents didn’t have to, just so I can continue to move through the world with an unshakeable calmness. Treading carefully, doing anything to not pass on the emotional baggage to the next possible victim. But I’m not fallible and the walls easily crumble when I find myself in the four walls of my childhood bedroom again. I feel changed but the world I grew up in does not. Sometimes my friend’s remind me that I am more similar to my mother than I resonate with. I see the ghosts that use to haunt me so greatly in the form of resilience, work ethic and fierce loyalty. I crave adventure and risk, and I investigate this desire to leading back to the person who raised me. When my mother crossed oceans to gain a better life for herself, I remind her of the courage and great risk she took whenever she gets worried for me.

Ultimately, it always came down to the crux: my mother didn’t only want more from me, but for me. Both my parents put me through medical school, bought my first car and would always pack a wealth of food whenever I returned back to uni or work. Yes, it’s tough love. Deep down, they care for me profoundly. And yet, things can still get lost in translation.I’m sure many children of immigrants can recognise this—the values their parents keep locked in a vault: non-negotiable, immovable, yet rooted in sacrifice and love. It’s a difficult passage and usually takes a lifetime of understanding.

Kahlil Gibran once wrote on children, “Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.” Much of my ancestors heartaches I can still feel dormant in myself like the determinism Steinbeck once spoke about. Without sounding too spiritual and woo woo, I try to remember I am my own vessel, soul and person before anyone else’s; a part that my parents can’t fully access. Parental love is passion in a form that is not fire but protection. A primal feeling that attests to all mothers and fathers but a sacred duty in which many learn for the very first time. I was talking to a colleague the other day who was so excited for his first child; and we wondered what kind of person they would become. A part of made me realise, that we’re not here to form and shape another entity even though we believe deep down something we create is wholly ours. We always hope they will be happy, despite the mistakes parents inevitably make.

I think about my mum when she was a girl, head full of dreams yet a tenacity to survive in this world. I forget it’s her first time living too. I can’t help but feel riddled with guilt when I find myself on a plane jet-setting to another country with two degrees pocketed, when she could never afford one. I’m trying to understand my mother the best I can without the compromise of myself. It’s a dance I will be learning for the rest of my life which takes two to Tango.Even the toughest forms of love can still carry tenderness and intention. The best I can do is try to be brave and true, without waiting for someone else to fully see me. Mulan comes to mind when I think about the cost of safety—how there is always a fine balance between vulnerability and strength.

Every winter, there’s always a lull in creativity. Things slow down, devotion is withdrawn and everyone is just trying to get through the blistering cold months without feeling somewhat depressed. I’ve had Artist’s way sitting on my table since November and I convinced myself it would be better to wait until Spring, or at least whilst travelling where I feel like I had more of a clean slate. But after a few therapy sessions, and some continual journalling, I felt that winter offered liberties that other seasons don’t. instead of waiting for Summer, maybe I can start to instil change right now and devote myself to activities which are important to me.

I think about the creative process all the time, often asking myself when it’s best to become the person for whom the ideas just flow and I don’t need to succumb to my left brain. I try to be as holistic as possible in my everyday life but there are forces which act against this inner desire for play. At work, I have to suppress my artistic brain and make decisions which are more pragmatic, embodying someone more mechanical than humane. Sometimes I get too sucked in, and I don’t want to be slowly chipped away that I lose myself entirely. Subsequently, I do my best to perform meditative practices everyday to ground myself. I don’t always make time for it but I feel more tethered. Meditation has become a conduit to my insights, giving me more autonomy over my thoughts. It’s something I’ve done for years, and it’s never perfect, but something that means a lot to me, especially during the harsher months.

For the past two springs, I’ve rented an Airbnb in Italy where I dedicate this time to creative recovery, as Julia Cameron defines it. It’s a gift to myself. I completely surrender to my environment and forget about who I was before getting on that plane and I just allow myself to just simply be. So much expansion and transformation happens during this period when I just let go and have faith. Waking up early for espresso, running along the Arno river at sunset, going on dates for the hell of it with strangers I will never meet again. These acts of play were so self nourishing and ultimately allowed me to create better. I reflected and wrote a lot during this time, and something I’ll continue to honour in the future.

However, I know I don’t need to wait for a grand trip to feel changed. I can choose to begin the groundwork and what better time than right now? I usually hate winters as it’s when I feel most seasonally depressed and the least motivated. But I’m learning to open up my self to this season as it provides an opportunity for change. To slow down, and begin the work. When I think about the version of myself I will become in Summer, it’s always dependent on the growing I did during the months leading up to it. Aishwarya talks a lot about having devotion and faith. Not guided by discipline but wanting to do things out of curiosity, and using that to sustain good work.

true work comes from following curiosity, which stems from intuition, and starts with focused attention - Mary Oliver

I wait for summer every year, just like everyone else. But I remind myself that if I start sowing the seeds now, they will be ready to bloom just in time for Spring. I’m trying to read and write as much a I can. Going to the gym. Seeing friends even if it means dining in dimly lit rooms and braving storms to see each other. Sustained effort. There’s a lot of inspiration which can be drawn this time of year and Art demands attention and detail. Creativity has no timeline and in order to reap the fruits, we must commit to something. Life is carried in seasons and we can’t outrun the cyclical nature of it, this is the condition of existence. Yes it’s perfectly ok to rot away but let this not be another winter of missed chances or glory. Devote yourself to something. True change happens in the most difficult and unexpected seasons of life.

I’m doing week 1 of Artist’s way and would love to receive any advice on sustaining commitment to this course. By sharing this with Substack, I’m hoping I can garner some accountability even if I don’t finish it :)

Another year has orbited and I’m older now, but not any more wiser. But the birthday existentialism doesn’t feel quite as heavy as before. I reflect back on the fig tree all the time, it never leaves me, but so does the resilience to believe I can be anything I want to be. In this lifetime I want to become many things. I want to read, write, dance, drink wine and also save lives. I’m a woman that wants it all and if it’s in my destiny I know I can have it all.

This year, I tried to keep as many promises to myself as I could. I graduated medical school, traveled to places I’d dreamt of for years, spoke to strangers, danced, read, and kept writing. One year into frontal-lobe development, I can say 26 has been my most formative year yet. I know myself better now, and I feel changed in a good way. I no longer put pressure on myself to become somebody by a certain time, because I finally understand that becoming happens on its own terms — in the quiet meditations, in the friendships I’m building, in the sacred conversations I hold close to my chest. I’m not perfect, and I’m nowhere near where I once imagined I’d be, but I’m getting closer every day.

I have two lessons I try to live by: 1) be courageous, and 2) be kind. Courage takes an insurmountable effort for me; it’s not something that comes naturally. But a friend recently reminded me of all the moments when I have been brave, choosing to live more in the unknown, befriending disappointment, speaking earnestly in a room full of strangers. Perhaps true change lies in the small methods, unaware until you finally look back and realise, yes it was me. It was me all along.

For most of my twenties, I’ve been searching for my raison d’etre. As someone who is a deep feeler and thinker, I question myself if i’m on the right path all the time. I speak about intentionality a lot in my essays and it’s something that has guided me and allowed me to become more present. I’ve done a lot of work in abandoning my ego and moving towards what feels joyful and makes sense to me. It’s a lot of work and I feel conflicted sometimes, but I’m learning that confusion doesn’t mean I’m lost. it just means I’m changing. And maybe that’s the point of your twenties: not to find one definitive purpose, but to keep choosing what feels true, again and again, until the path starts to feel like home.

I used to be the girl who cried on her birthday but this time I won’t. November 20th used to be the day when the floodgates opened, when a wave of nostalgia would drown me as I revisited every past version of myself. I remember turning 21 like it was yesterday. Maybe this will be the year I ‘get my shit together,’ or maybe it won’t. I’ve reached a newfound acceptance, and I’m letting fate take the reins for once.

If there’s one thing I’m taking with me into 27, it’s gratitude for the small moments and hopefulness for the big ones. Sometimes I get too cynical and forget how magical and expansive life can be. And going back to the fig tree, there are still infinite possibilities waiting to be summoned as I enter this new age. I’m teaching myself to stop grieving what could have been and to start embracing what’s still left to live.

Same time next year?

I use to believe a hallmark of a good conversation was articulating yourself well. The expansive vocabulary, the absence of word fillers, the way people seemed to orbit around the sound of their own eloquence. But lately, I’ve been idling between awkward silences, overthinking and leaving encounters with that familiar disappointment — sh*t I didn’t get to say what I truly meant. This pays no honour to the title of this essay but if you stay with me, I’d like to talk about how good connections can be borne from good conversations.

The other day I had a great conversation with stranger J. We were two people at the mercy of a social event organised by our mutual friends. They inherited the perfect cocktail of charisma, wit and knowledge to keep things interesting. It’s the doctrine that you keep hearing over and over, “to be interesting, you have to be interested”. And, it’s true. I enjoyed this conversation because I felt like they really listened to what I had to say. It didn’t feel like a ping pong match of the other person waiting to speak, but the kind of presence that makes silence feel like punctuation, and not a failure. I appreciate these moments, because I make great effort in striving for purpose, and when someone asks about the why, it gives me great joy to feel like the other person is truly invested in me.

I believe that some of the best conversations I’ve had (and the longest) are the ones where I simply had things to talk about. When there’s a shared language of interest: hobbies, literature, travelling. It’s a way of holding space with someone, of saying I see you through the things that move us. I could talk for hours over a book and how it made me feel, and vice versa. There’s a quiet beauty in discovering how someone else interprets the same sentence you’ve underlined in your mind!

more, some spaces are not conducive to good conversations. The constant pulse of distraction leaves little room for depth. Let’s say it’s probably really hard to flaunt any real substance with someone when you’re super drunk at a club (I’ve been there and I leave with v surface level friendships). Good conversation needs a little stillness. There’s a reason why friends and lovers like to catch up at bars, cafés and long walks. The kind of places where silence isn’t awkward, it’s invitational.

And then there’s the timing of it all. Great conversations feel like fateful moments between two strangers. As if two people happened to arrive at the same wavelength at exactly the right time. I’ve shared exchanges with complete strangers that felt guided by something larger than chance, as if the universe opened a window briefly for our thoughts to meet. Where have you been this whole time? I ask myself.

I think what underpins the kind of intimacy I never want to lose is the earnestness and vulnerability of it all, that feeling of being seen without performance, of speaking without calculation. The moments when conversation feels weightless, and time bends just enough to remind you that words can still catch you off guard.

P.S I wrote this essay at midnight, so it’s a bit of a dance between tiredness and delusional writing. This is in keeping with my challenge of writing weekly for a month so I hope you enjoyed reading if you got this far!

I grew up 30 minutes outside of London and and although at times I am a stranger to the city, I visit often as most of the people I know and love live there. London has seen me through multiple seasons; summer sublets, work trips, my best friend’s 5th flat. Although, it’s never a long time, I try to always make sure it’s a good time when I’m there. Friends come to me for recommendations despite being long term residents in the city. I won’t explicitly advertise my taste, but I would like to share my favourite spots in the big smoke. Some popularised, some lesser known, but all mine.

Best Coffee: (I start with this, as with any good day starts with a cup of good coffee)

• Italo (Vauxhall)

• Nagara (bankside)

• Calico (bankside)

• Monmouth Coffee (seven dials)

Matcha

• Moko Made (hoxton) - this is my all time favourite matcha place in London. Vibes are immaculate and the shop is so quaint and beautiful. This place transports me to a Ghibli summer. I had my matcha birthday cake made from them, so this place holds a v special place in my <3!

  

• Hinaga (Soho)

• Nagara (bankside)

• Panadera (Soho) - must must get the Ube matcha. Almost died on the first sip, it was that good.

• Katsute 100 (Angel) - Be sure to go in the garden during summer! Great place to read and sip.

  

Bakery

• Laylas (notting hill)

• Arome (Covent Garden)

• Pophams (Islington) - Bacon and maple swirl is to DIE for.

Eats

• Dim sum duck (Kings Cross)

• Phat Phuc Noodle bar (Chelsea)

• Plaza Khao Geng (TCR)

• Kiln (Soho)

• Ca Thanh (covent garden)

• Osteria Angelina (Spitalfields)

• Ong Lai Kopitiam (Canary Wharf) - Just opened so you need to book. As a Malaysian this place is GOOD.

• Tofu Vegan (Spitalfields)

• Colaba (West Hampstead)

• Roe (Canary Wharf) - must get the banana parfait. Think this is the best dessert I’ve had in London.

Drink

• Soma (Soho) - popular speakeasy but for a good reason! Be prepared to queue but once inside, interior is chef’s kiss.

  

• Moto (Covent Garden)

• Canton arms (battersea/brixton)

• Devonshire (Soho)- yes it’s overhyped and yes the Guinness is worth it

Reads

• London Review bookshop (Hoxton)

• Daunt books (Marylebone)

• House of books (West Hampstead)

  

Out

• V&A (Kensington)

• The Japan House (Kensington) - v cool cultural centre with different exhibits on every time I visit.

• Night Tales (hackney)

• Columbia Road Flower market (Hoxton) - If you love a mooch around with a coffee in hand and dog stroking, this is the place to be on a Sunday.

That’s all for me! I will continue to update this list as I remember :)

Ciao

I can understand the admiration for Bourdain: he is emblematic of something we’re all chasing. Perhaps the curiosity to understand the human condition and the romanticisation of living life with no strings attached, other than a good bowl of Phở and a bottle of Hanoi beer. It’s a raw way of living, liberation in a sense. He does leisure very well, thrown in with a dash of cultural education where it’s not performative, it feels genuine.

I think there is a specific art to leisure, where some people pull it off really well. But it’s not just travelling, it’s what comes with it. When watching Part’s Unknown, I realised quickly it wasn’t just about the food but a portal into understanding politics, culture, class, joy and pain. I would say after his death, his career and purpose provided a deeper and more profound message. That none of it was for the cameras. Stripped down to it’s core, Bourdain wanted more than the fanciful food and intellectual conversations with ex-presidents. He died doing what he loved. I would say many of us could resonate with feelings of slight emptiness even whilst travelling, but we still owe ourselves a good life despite the ending of whatever fate has in store for us.

Similar to current it-girl Dua Lipa, whom appears to always be having a good time. From her socials she’s either drinking from a coconut in Singapore or smoking a cigarette on the streets of Mallorca. Normally I would roll my eyes at certain celebrities taking their millionth vacation, but I get excited at the prospect of Dua living her life well where me and my friends would echo in chorus “Go girl, live your best life”. It’s not jealousy, it’s more admiration at the fact shes maxxing out her life whilst being politically aware compared to her counterparts in the industry. I’m not a fan of her music but I am interested in her ventures, including service95 and her book club. I couldn’t tell why I liked Dua Lipa, but she oozes depth and substance with some of the best taste in the game. Amongst her many side quests, she appears to always be challenging and educating herself through many mediums other than her music, which makes her so likeable and her lifestyle so appealing.

Travel is one aspect of living well. It’s my favourite thing in the world. If I had the means, I would do it forever like Bourdain. I was lucky enough to go on two electives this year where I travelled for 3 months across Italy and Southeast Asia. It was different than most trips as it was the first time I managed to live more like a local. Having my own apartment, doing my own groceries, learning the language, conversing with neighbours, making friends in the city… so far it’s been the most formative part of my twenties. Other than seeing the beautiful aspects of what a country is known for, I fell in love with seeing things and people up close. Slowing down and really observing. Maybe this is the high we’re all trying to chase.

Living life as a vacation doesn’t mean jet setting to a new country every month to feel abundant or fulfilled. But allowing yourself the opportunity to afford the free time on things you want to do. Anything that gives me back time to write or read is leisure in itself. Nothing grand or beautiful. Europeans do it well and they do it guilt free. Italians have built their culture around the La vita lenta lifestyle, and I personally pass no judgement on someone reading a newspaper and drinking an espresso at a cafe for 3 hours. God I wish that was me too. It’s not lazy but surrendering to just simply being and seizing the means to relax. I’m sure corporate America would negate this whole stance but their very own modern mystic, Bourdain, championed the act of seeking life’s pleasures daily. We may want that 6 figure salary, but when it comes down to it we’re all probably going to maximise our annual leave to get on the next flight out of the country.

Most of us are really bad at leisure, and I would argue that it’s a meditative practice requiring both engagement and dispossession. I was shocked by the person I became when I allowed myself to just loiter and chill the f*ck out.. becoming gentler, lighter, less desperate to prove. The dutch have a word - Niksen, it means to do nothing. A life lived at half-speed, with full presence where rest isn’t earned but inhabited. I’ve already booked my next vacation as I write this essay, so the next toast I make amongst friends will be in honour of Niksen.

Like most of Substack, I recently finished John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. It’s a book filled with so much possibility, everything you could ever want in a novel. A sweeping epic packed into 700 pages or so, filled with some of the most masterful character building I’ve encountered. Characters that stay lingering in my mind, and will do so for some time. It’s worth every word.

This essay isn’t a review, but the book really got me thinking about archetypal psychology and character development regarding heroism. Not simple heroism involving a knight in shining armour, but one that involves true growing pains before experiencing triumph. East of Eden lays foundation of the good, the bad and ugly, along with the intertwining of origin stories from Genesis. We’re first introduced to Samuel Hamilton, a fully formed protagonist with minimal flaws, embodying wisdom and goodness from the outset. A salt-of-the earth man, he is a lover of the human soul and though not particularly wealthy, Samuel is a rich man with a fruitful family and a strong appetite for learning. He is a character akin to what Carl Jung would describe as the “wise old man” archetype and a fan favourite (including mine). But I would argue that Samuel Hamilton isn’t the centre of the story (this is made quite clear when he dies) but really a catalyst for another character, Adam Trask.

Adam, a soft hearted dreamer, who’s naivety leads him to fall in love with a “monster”, builds a life on illusion and loses it all. He spends most of the novel paralysed by his own goodness, and when I finished reading the book, he was a character I couldn’t stop thinking about. He isn’t someone that typically fits into the box of heroism but still enters a night sea journey and a descent into the unconscious - a true hero’s journey.

In myths the hero is the one who conquers the dragon, not the one who is devoured by it. And yet both have to deal with the same dragon. Also, he is no hero who never met the dragon, or who, if he once saw it, declared afterwards that he saw nothing. Equally, only one who has risked the fight with the dragon and is not overcome by it wins the hoard, the “treasure hard to attain.” He alone has a genuine claim to self-confidence, for he has faced the dark ground of his self and thereby has gained himself. … He has acquired the right to believe that he will be able to overcome all future threats by the same means. [“The Conjunction,” CW 14, par. 756.

As Jung describes, a hero must face his shadows and be confronted with the ugly, frightening truths. Throughout the novel, Adam is casted into darkness early on when he marries the main villain, Cathy. She externalises his unconscious denial of evil and this evil keeps respawning in the form of his son, Cal. Cal isn’t exactly evil but embodies a shadow whom Adam must learn to forgive at the very end.

Samuel and Adam become good friends, and throughout the book, Samuel acts as a moral compass and guiding light for Adam. There is one particular chapter I enjoyed when Cathy shoots and leaves Adam, a betrayal that descends him into despair and despondency. But he is encouraged to “go through the motions” by Samuel and through some brute force (literally) compels him to act, to suffer, and finally to awaken. Eventually in the book, Samuel dies withdrawing himself as an external guidance, forcing Adam to face his trials alone.

We often envision heroes as brave, decisive and unflawed. Yet Steinbeck’s East of Eden suggests something deeper: true heroism lies in the capacity to struggle with one’s own darkness and undergo transformation. A redemption arc. One who must descend into his own shadow before achieving individuation. Heroes are never fully formed people, but are constantly subjected to trials and tribulations. I don’t know what it means to be a hero, but what makes someone interesting to me is knowing and understanding what kind of things they have weathered. I understand it to be a lonely endeavour and a painful one too. It is extraordinary work which takes great courage to rewrite ones story and walk an untrodden path. Perhaps a calling? In the midst of chaos and darkness, there will be always be an invincible desire to give up ones self or ego, and fully align to whatever it is we’re meant to do.

There are no mythical dragons in Steinbeck’s novel but Adam Trask is one character who didn’t conquer the world, but conquered himself. This is evident, when he finally meets Cathy/Kate after some years and comes to terms of his own powers — the ability to be accepting and stoic. Some questions are never answered, but reconciling with the shadow is a brave act I want to follow. Adam’s heroism never lived in the grand gestures, but in the moments of forgiveness even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.

Valour and fortitude are admirable traits to have but what good are they when we are unable to actualise and understand ourselves, truly understand ourselves. Many novels follow the monomyth schema, but East of Eden will forever stain on what it means to be someone to go through hell and choose to come back. There is a quote in the novel that stays with me: “it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal.” We can choose to transform and return each time.

Self as a soul, not a project

There’s a stack of self-help books that remain untouched in the corner of my room. I’ve gone to therapy for the past 6 years. I use to own a Whoop. At times, it felt like a moral obligation to be constantly self optimising, I was left with different versions of myself. By the end of i all, i felt like an unfinished project with never ending metrics to optimise.

We move quick because we’re devoid of time. Speed running through cities because we believe it gives us a better sense of self. We can’t measure the time between 0 and 1 anymore. We relish in efficiency, we love optimisation.

“Omphaloskepsis” in ancient greek means to examine one’s navel. it is the practice of self absorbed pursuits rather than betterment of self for the greater good collectively. Self optimisation is inherently individualistic, It reflects a belief that all problems begin and end with the self: your productivity, your trauma, your motivation. It leaves little room for systemic, relational, or communal responses to suffering. It’s easy to think ourselves as flawed, when in reality, the conditions aren’t that optimal to begin with.

The modern self-improvement movement is often framed as universal, but its roots are strikingly Western. It leans on a worldview where the individual is sovereign and self-contained, a unit to be optimised. In contrast, many collectivist cultures view the self as fluid, shaped by and accountable to others. Therapy, in those contexts, might be perceived not just as taboo, but unnecessary, because healing isn’t something you do in isolation. You do it in relation. The relentless pursuit of personal growth can look, from the outside, less like evolution and more like a spiritual form of self-centeredness. Self is relational, not a solo project.

It’s hard to slow down when we’re in a culture obsessed with becoming better. Everything is a metric. Technology has laid bare these measurements for us and thus we’re constantly in debt to the data. Tech helps us gain clarity but the trade-off is anxiety when we’re so aware of every single action we’re completing and how it never feels enough. The goalpost moves further away when we see another milestone to unlock or something else we can further improve.

Everything is good in moderation. When we look at ourselves long enough, we’re going to identity failures within our systems. Excessive introspection becomes a hall of mirrors with no wiggle room to escape until we realise suffering is impermanent and not a pathology. Not everything needs to be fixed. Sometimes as a doctor, the hardest thing I can tell a patient is that the only treatment is rest and hydration. If we give someone antibiotics for a viral infection it does nothing, and in some cases some drugs can do more harm than good.

To sit with our feelings is a difficult task and building emotional resilience is a muscle to exercise. Stoics used philosophy to develop inner resilience, discipline, and meaning, not as an agent to fix themselves but to live wiser and happier lives. We’re not a Rubix, sometimes there isn’t always a puzzle to solve.

Our economy’s obsessed with fixing. We’ve built a culture in the constant pursuit of solutions. There’s always a new startup on the horizon promising to fix a new problem that I didn’t even know existed. It’s almost as if we don’t need another app or self optimisation tool for everything. The other day I was scrolling on twitter when I came across a tweet advertising a new AI therapist. Efficiency moves us quick, but i’d rather talk to a human and of course, i admit my ChatGPT has fallen victim to many of my embarrassing revelations but it seems we’ve lost the touch of the human experience that makes things special. Besides, AI likes to feed into our delusions and optimises on what we want to hear rather than telling us what should be hearing.

It sometimes feels like if we don’t become our most optimal self we’re going to be left with the very worst remnants. Somewhere along the way we lost the capacity to accept things how they are without feeling left behind, optimising ourselves like a new version of an app to updated. But the hole gets deeper the more we dive, rock bottom never surfaces when we tunnel vision into an ideal that doesn’t even exist. I know it’s hard to be in the process of becoming, it’s messy and it’s not fun, and it can be confusing when we we’re in state of ‘unrealised potential’.

We’re complex beings, and modern evolution is rooted in our ability to adapt and improve in an ever-changing world. Optimisation isn’t the enemy, it’s propelled humanity in ways we can’t fully comprehend. The pressure to always be better, faster, more efficient. In the pursuit of becoming our "best selves," we risk losing touch with what it means to simply just be.

So how do we slow down when the self optimisation market is constantly on the rise? When the fear of many is not death or falling in love, but unfulfilled potential.

Maybe the answer isn’t to abandon optimisation entirely, it’s to redefine it. What if being optimised wasn’t about maximising every second, but about aligning with what genuinely matters to us? Sometimes, the most radical form of progress is rest. Or doing something simply because it brings joy, not because it increases output. Self-awareness, not just self-improvement, might be the real marker of growth. Holding intention close, moves us with more discipline when we know why we want to improve something.

The most meaningful moments of transformation doesn’t always occur by setting ourselves OKR’s or actionable insights. Self growth can crystallise in the quiet pauses where we finally sit with complexity, and understanding that we’re already in our fullest and richest forms. We’re in the process of becoming everyday by engaging with the experiences around us and not the promise of manuals that claim to get us there any faster. Good things can happen when we’re willing to sit in contemplation and surrender ourselves to the very best parts of life, to sit with uncomfortable truths, insecurities and accept things as they are.

Developing consensus on having good taste is possible, when taste is cultivated through similar experiences. Through human faculties, our perception of beauty can easily shift once we put in the effort to understand what exactly it is we are contemplating. When we see a piece of art, it means nothing to us if we can’t identity the story it is depicting. But if we were to read up on it, we develop the capacity to feel and be moved and there is inherent value in that piece of work. When this is trained and refined, i.e through an Art history degree, we move to a general consensus of what something means and can start to align our judgement.

“Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier.” – Pierre Bourdieu

Taste is a personal preference but Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction reframes taste as a tool of social distinction. We can trade taste as social currency but much of taste relies on signals and not substance. Omakase, luxury cars, David Hockney art pieces …Money can buy the objects of taste, but not the sensitivity or discernment to arrange or appreciate them meaningfully.

On the flip side, Taste can be cultivated and not bought. Taste can be marked by the relationship between you and what you engage with, not just the thing itself. It is a series of trials and tribulations and constant discernment to get closer. There are a few ways that may get you there faster. I always believed that solo travelling is a nice shortcut where there is no external input and you’re left with the very bare components of yourself.

Perhaps the very foundations of taste is intentionality. You can explain why you love something and not just that you do.

Some things which helped me understand more on taste:

• “Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste” - Pierre Bourdieu

• "Pure Heroines" (95-129) from Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino

• “On good taste” from Crystal Clear by Erifili Gounari

Some things i like which I believe are of good taste:

• Having a favourite espresso mug

• A handmade leather bound journal

• Jazz evenings

• Going for a scenic walk after a dinner date

• Auteur cinema e.g. Wong Kar-Wai

• Solo travelling

’s TikTok discusses the concept of self identity and how we’re mistaking consumption for a personality. There is a rapid turnover of trends and aesthetic signifiers that we are constantly exposed to. And we allow ourselves to become exposed to these trends through channels like TikTok and other forms of social media. The role of technology has become a pivotal key player in the success of most businesses and social media is often found in every marketers playbook. It’s a low stake method of reaching consumers and feeds into emotional triggers which can influence our buying behaviours.

So many factors can feed into our buying behaviours, but i’d like to hone down on just three: Societal influences, emotional triggers and cognitive biases. These to me, make up the perfect cocktail that underpins the desire to consume something in excess.

Societal influences and identity tokens

Social norms are constantly in flux and we find ourselves on the daily deciding what’s cool or not based on the content we consume. The concept of Social proof is commonly used in digital marketing as a way to dictate what is socially acceptable and when used in the context of social media, it often sets the standard of how we should live and behave. Take the ‘clean girl’ aesthetic, for example: characterised by slicked-back ponytails, minimalist wardrobes, and often paired with an iced matcha latte. This curated identity took over social media in 2022 and, arguably, played a role in matcha’s surge in popularity. It became a status signal and has permeated into businesses like blank street who capitalise on the aesthetic’s appeal by offering Instagrammable beverages that align perfectly with the lifestyle image consumers want to project. Japan is now facing a matcha shortage due to demand superseding harvesting capacity of matcha farms. Matcha was never meant to be gatekept but it was also not meant to be consumed this way.

Almost anything can become a status signal if we allow it to be. Josh Kaufman, author and educator, points out we subconsciously have thoughts of how we measure up against others. It’s human nature that we find ourselves seeking ways to elevate our status. A Rolex doesn’t tell time better than a Casio, but we’ve been conditioned to know this is a signal of wealth and influence. We tell ourselves that this person obviously has their sh*t together and has lot’s of money. It’s more than watch, it’s an identity token.

Retail therapy is a type of Hedonic compensation

We’ve all been guilty of purchasing something because we believed it would fulfil us (I’ve purchased a few Smiski blindboxes although no regrets thus far). We fall victim into buying things impulsively because it makes us feel good in the moment. But what we’re often left with is a transient dopamine hit, and in a financially worst off position than we started off with.

Retail therapy is a modern day problem where we overcompensate with material gains whenever we don’t feel so good. It doesn’t exactly resolve whatever problem we’re going through, but serves as instant gratification and reinforces compulsive buying behaviours. It’s distraction more than anything. In one study, researchers found that hedonic consumption — like watching entertaining videos — can act as a form of distraction from negative experiences, helping to regulate mood. (Moffitt et al., 2021) I find this is true when it comes to retail therapy. In my eyes, it’s also a form of hedonic compensation. I’m not here to advocate that it is entirely bad, in fact studies show it can actually reset your brain and improve self control afterwards. But we should be mindful on where it leaves us long term. Do we feel happier? Do we feel fulfilled with our new purchases?

Economics and Cognitive biases

Just as consumer psychology heavily influences our buying habits, economics plays a key role in driving overconsumption. People love scarcity and when something is limited, it feels more valuable. Think about that dress you wanted that suddenly sold out online. Doesn’t it feel even more desirable now that you can’t have it?

Scarcity also fuels the reseller market. This goes for things like Labubus and Matcha. When demand exceeds supply, we’re faced with sky high prices of what limited stock is available. Companies know this and will strategically control release timings to create a hype engine. The product stops being just a collectible, it starts operating like an asset. Things no longer become special, it’s just a commodity we’re all trading now.

Do you really want it?

What is it about something that makes you desire it? We often buy things because we believe it has some sort of transformative power on who we might become. FOMO isn’t a good enough reason to want something. In this hyperconnected world, its easy to forge an identity and create a false perception of who we truly are. So what kind of stories do our purchases tell us about ourselves? What purpose do they serve? Those are the questions worth asking before we open our wallet.

Everything we do and own shapes our identity. What we show to the world tells the viewer what kind of box we fit into. The process of figuring out who you are and what makes us happy is a personal journey but too often, we buy into things that don’t reflect our true selves, only a projection of the people around us.

Think back to your younger self without a phone, without the social media and without the relentless marketing. When was the last time you truly wanted something? Not because everyone around you had it but it actually meant something.

I often find myself moving flats every year and left with so many meaningless things that I curse myself on why I bought it in the first place. But I’m also someone who places sentiment on a ton of stuff, so i’m constantly walking the tight rope of chucking something away or keeping it. But I now try to remove that burden by being more intentional with my purchases and asking the tougher questions mentioned earlier.

Spend your money on experiences, not consumption

I can’t speak for everyone else but I personally don’t feel too fulfilled by my daily coffee or buying something that was trending on TikTok a few weeks ago. What makes me fulfilled are the experiences that gift me with stories that I can’t wait to tell my friends and family about or investing in things that hold great value and sentiment, things that will stand the test of time. Mothers pass down their engagement rings for a reason: that kind of significance can never be replaced. I believe these things hold far more weight than a fleeting trend.

Of course, I know that taste is something individuals can only discern by themselves and consumption is a pleasure seeking activity that we all do. But I’m learning there will be always be a new trend on the horizon that will incite consumption. We should gamble our money on things that matter, and not contribute to the stock price of items that add no value to our lives.

The heart wants what it wants, but I promise you don’t need another identity token or status signal to prove anything, or to feel cool.