Letters to PiePie

On Tradition

February 12, 2021

Dear PiePie,

It is the first day of Chinese New Year and we just went to visit your great-grandmother and the extended relatives on grandpa’s side. Chinese New Year is laden with tradition, even as much of those practises have been adapted and diluted with the passing of time and of those who upheld the traditions.

We exchange oranges and greetings, and the elders give red packets (红包) to those who are younger according to some unwritten criterions. Like, those who are married are no longer eligible for red packets. Or those who experienced a death in the family in the past year are not required to give red packets. And there are probably many more rules I’ve never heard of. We are to stay up the night before to welcome the new year as a family (守岁) while enjoying a sumptuous reunion dinner. While our family doesn’t adhere strictly to these traditions, the practical result is that Chinese New Year is a time for distant relatives to come together and reacquaint themselves.

When I was a child, I dreaded such gatherings. Adults just seemed to sit around making small talk, and it was always quite boring. Even as I grew older, these traditions were more of a chore than something I looked forward to. And I suspect you’ll feel the same way too.

But I am starting to appreciate the opportunities that these traditions provide for us to reconnect with family and friends. They provide a reminder, or perhaps an excuse, for us to reach out with a greeting and a simple “how are you?”.

You will get busier and will have less time for those whom you were previously close with, whether family or friends. And these traditions are the thin threads holding together your memories and shared experiences, even as you slowly drift apart. That, I think, is when you might start to appreciate occasions like these.

It’s interesting that there are comparable traditions across cultures that provide similar opportunities for families and friends to gather. Whether they are called Christmas, Thanksgiving or Diwali, they almost always, as part of the tradition, comprise a sumptuous meal which the family gather together from all around the city (or world) to enjoy. It brings people together.

You will eventually drift apart from us. But I do hope that these traditions continue to bind us together and to our shared heritage, however loosely. And I hope it serves as a reminder from whence you came.

Love, Dad

On Money

January 29, 2021

Dear PiePie,

Between 21^st Jan and 28^th Jan of 2021, a relatively small public company called Gamestop saw its share price went from about $40 to an intraday high of $500, having already gone from $4 to $40 in the preceding 3 months. That’s a >100x increase in 3 months! It was a wild time in the markets, as hordes of retail investors loosely banded over a Reddit thread took the fight to hedge funds and institutional investors who were overly short on the stock – they borrowed a lot of shares to sell first and buy later, hoping that the prices will drop. Through heavy buying, the retail investors basically tried to force these funds to go out of business and to liquidate their positions, which would cause the prices to rise further as they bought back stocks to “return” them. Fortunes were made and lost as this previously obscure company dominated headlines all across the world.

Many attributed this episode as an indication that the masses – who had been previously excluded from many financial instruments – now have increasingly similar access to invest and trade like the institutional financial firms and funds, the “smart money”. While it’s still far from a level playing field, both are on the same field now at least. By the time you’re reading this, hopefully the field has levelled even more, because you’ll soon have to manage your own finances.

So, how should you think about money? There isn’t really a rulebook, but these are things I wished someone told me earlier on.

Money is a means to an end, and it helps to know what your end is. Money doesn’t mean much unless it can be exchanged for things that makes you happy or for things you care about. The goal isn’t to make more money, but to use money to get to things you care about. It turns out that a lot of these “other things” we care about or that makes us happy don’t always require that we make more money, especially if we need to sacrifice our time and life and happiness to get the money. Don’t lose track of the end goals even as you are on the path to acquire the money to get there. For me, I like that I spend time with you throughout the pandemic as I work from home, and so, despite earning not that much and not particularly enjoying what I do, the goal of spending more time with you in your infancy (which is ultimately what I want) is achieved. And that is an end in itself.

Money buys you options, and options are valuable. It helps to know what your end is, but sometimes, you just don’t know. And that’s ok – you can still accumulate wealth without knowing what you want the wealth to do for you. Money will eventually allow you to capitalise on opportunities and buy you the freedom to do things you want. But throughout the process of working hard to accumulate money, don’t forget to keep exploring and figuring out what you are going to do with the supposed freedom and options that money buys you. It’s a perpetual process of testing hypotheses about what makes you happy. There’s no point ending up on the other side of wealth and still being confused about what that wealth gets you.

Beyond a certain point, money doesn’t really matter. When you don’t have enough, money is a necessity, because of course you need to buy food and clothe yourself and pay rent. But after you’re earning enough to live comfortably, what you’re spending on tend to be ‘wants’ and the incremental joys that money can bring gradually diminishes. Of course, what “living comfortably” means differs from person to person, so if your baseline is to eat at restaurants every day and to go to the salon every week, then you’re going to have to work a lot harder to reach that baseline level. Life is a little easier if you are able to temper your ‘wants’. Which leads to the next point.

Do not overextend yourself and commit to expenses you cannot actually afford. It is emotionally stressful to have to worry about whether you have enough money to pay your bills. And one of the ways people get into such situations of stress is to overspend on large purchases like a house or car, even though your income may barely cover the monthly repayments. In general, it is ideal to always budget a buffer on your expenditures so that you have comfort in the knowledge that you have more than enough and do not have to worry about money. You’ll live far more happily this way, and it is worth it.

Finally, if a deal seems too good to be true, you’re probably right. Very rarely is there a “free lunch” in this world, and in the context of personal finance, rarely is there a way to “get rich quick” without also probably putting a substantial amount of your money at risk. Be super weary of anything or anyone promising you a way to become rich quickly, it’s either a scam or there’s usually a catch somewhere. Understand what the worst-case scenario for the situation is and ask yourself if you can accept that outcome. Because even if the worst-case scenario sounds improbable, the probability of that happening is likely greater than you think it is.

I hope these advices are helpful, and money will not be a source of worry for you.

Love, Dad

2020: Crisis and Opportunities

December 31, 2020

Dear PiePie,

It’s the last day of 2020. What a year to usher in the ‘roaring 20s’.

It’s been a scary, tiring year for many people. Covid took the headlines, infecting 83M people and resulting in more than 1.8M deaths. It halted travel and caused a shift in how people work and play. It locked people in at homes to ‘flatten the curve’. It decimated businesses that relied on in-person interactions like F&B and retail.

But it’s also been a year of opportunities for some, as the stock market boomed and demonstrated the divergence between the real economy and the financial economy. It boosted digital adoption – in payments and food delivery and entertainment – with aunties in Singapore learning how to use QR codes en masse.

For us, we have been fortunate. None of us contracted Covid. None of us lost our jobs, even being able to work from home. In this upending of worlds, Mommy and me have been able to spend a lot more time around you. Without Covid, most working parents would never have been at home to witness the growth of their child day-in, day-out.

Perhaps there isn’t a lasting impact to how our relationship will turn out eventually. But I’m simply happy to have experienced those moments with you. As you learnt to walk, and then jump, and then climb the stairs, and then fall down the stairs. As you went from eating mushy food to solids to grabbing our rice and pasta and potatoes and carrots. As your entertainment preference changed from BTS to Frozen/Moana to Cocomelon to Kongsuni. As you learnt to make facial expressions and throw fake tantrums and furrow your eyebrows.

It’s been a wild ride, and we’re barely able to keep up with you. But it’s brought so much joy and variety to our lives.

So, although 2020 was a wash for many people, it was a good year for us because we got to experience so much more with you.

Love, Dad

An Expressionless Happiness

December 24, 2020

Dear PiePie,

I saw an interview that IU (Korean singer) did with her brother where they talked about happiness.

In it, her brother asked (12:10 onwards), “I think my sister is a very strong person, but…there could be things you can’t talk easily with other people, even if you’re close to them, and there could be parts that you endure and bear on your own. All the while, you’ve been working very hard. You do this and that without a break … Watching you be like this, I wonder, ‘Is she really happy living like that? Are you happy now?’”

IU’s response, after a pause, was “I’m happy when there’s nothing going on, that’s what I think now. I don’t think happiness has to be ‘Wow I’m so happy’ (with a smiley face). That could be a kind of happiness but I think there is an expressionless happiness. I think there’s nothing that makes me sad or angry; I think that’s a state of happiness.”

It rings true, and it got me thinking about happiness. It seems unlikely that anyone will be regularly experiencing moments of euphoric joy or exhilarating elation – the type that puts a grin on your face. But you can still be happy in a ‘serene, peaceful bliss’ sort of way. For me, the people I love (you!) are healthy, work can be a chore but it is manageable, and you are growing up well. I go to bed late, but without anxiety or worry. I have time to listen to music I like and watch dramas I enjoy. It is not a terribly exciting life, but in a tired, expressionless way, I am incredibly happy.

I do wonder if I’m lowering the bar for “happiness”. If perhaps I should strive for a higher emotional peak. If perhaps I have been ‘modulating’ my emotional mountains and valleys such that I never get too high nor too low. Watching you, it seems that kids are more easily delighted (and upset) and silly things can make you laugh oh so hard. And yet, to a ‘grown-up’, silly things just seem…silly.

Somewhere, it seems we lost the unadulterated happiness that comes with experiencing moments of wonder.

This is neither good or bad though. Definitely, the feelings of childlike wonder are further and fewer between; less of the world surprise and amaze you. The same things that used to make you ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ no longer achieve the same effects. But in place of such wonder, is a deeper appreciation of things that I didn’t quite think about when I was younger. Health. Family. Friends. Absence of events that make you sad or angry.

And so, here’s my current hypothesis on happiness.

Perhaps, as we experience more and more of life, the definition of happiness shifts. Earlier in life, our ‘world’ is rapidly expanding and we experience different and new things constantly – the first time we touch a rabbit, the first time we eat chips, the first time we feel the rush of the wind outside the car window. Some things bring us to greater emotional heights – they redefine the 10/10 of our experience – while other things just slot within the 7/10 of our current universe of experience.

At some point, however, the ‘world’ no longer expands quite as rapidly, and with it, the redefining of the 10/10 happens less and less frequently. But because new 10/10 moments happen less frequently, we become more confident of our current universe of experience. We are better able to assess what we have and be assured that an 8/10 is really an 8/10. Sure, some of what’s in the unknown ‘world’ that we’ve never experience could be awesome – redefining the metaphorical 10/10 – but that wouldn’t make our 8/10 drop much.

Childlike wonders of the new are thus replaced with deeper appreciation and gratitude of the old. And that may be how expressionless happiness come to be, when we’ve moved so far over the spectrum that humdrum contentment becomes genuinely satisfying.

Who knows? Perhaps my running hypothesis on happiness will evolve. But at this moment, I’m happy, in an expressionless way. 😊

Love, Dad

Enjoying The Moments

December 18, 2020

Dear PiePie,

8 months into this experiment of trying to write a weekly letter to you, and it’s quite obvious that such a cadence is simply not possible. The time I’m taking to write these letters come on the margins of work, “adulting” (managing personal finance, home improvement) and falls squarely into the leisure/hobby bucket of time, which is not much to begin with. And so, I’ll be targeting a reduced cadence of one letter per month, which should still make 200 letters by the time you go to college, if college is still a thing young people go to 20 years from now.

One interesting contradiction I’ve come to experience is that sometimes, I find myself having to decide between taking the couple of hours to write these letters or spending those couple of hours with you “in the moment”. It’s a weird choice, because in some way, I am choosing between interacting with the present you, or chatting with the future you. And this does not have a right answer or obvious choice.

There is a greater permanence in these letters that I’m writing, and perhaps this is what you’ll eventually remember me by. And yet, the present moment is so precious in its impermanence. These current moments – of you jumping off my calves, of you bringing a book to us to read to you, of you babbling to yourself as you walk aimlessly around the house – feel like sand sifting through the fingers. That if we are not careful to consciously experience it, we will soon be left with no sand with our grasps and wondering what the sand had felt like.

In the age we’re in, it is so easy to live life through the lens of a camera. When you see fireworks, will you simply stare in awe, or whip out your phone to record the moment while viewing the spectacle through your screen?

I find myself leaning towards experiencing the moments in the present – my excuse for why the letters are so far and few between! – but I do appreciate that when I take videos of you or write these letters, they remind me of moments I would otherwise have forgotten and lose to the ether of space. The conscious documentation of the present also helps remind me to treasure this impermanence.

So, as is typical in life, it seems the answer is to find a middle ground between the two modes, but beyond that incredibly generic statement, I’m not able to offer any definitive answers as to the ideal path to take or balance to strike. Regardless, whether I’m experiencing those moments with you in the present or recording them down to savour in the future, I’m grateful that those moments exist.

Love, Dad

Moving Day

October 13, 2020

Dear PiePie,

We’ll be moving to our new home in a few hours’ time. It’s been a long time coming since we bought the place 9 months ago, but Covid delayed renovations. It’s small, as is typically the case with most housing in Singapore, but a home is defined by more than its size or wall colors or furnishings or views. When you shall eventually leave the apartment which you will call home, what you’ll remember is the people and the experiences and the memories created. It is what you’ve done in that space, rather than the space itself, that eventually sticks with you.

And so we’re excited. This new home will be likely be the place where you’ll have your earliest memories, and we can’t wait to see the things you’ll do for the first time in this apartment. We can’t wait to see you to jump off the sofa, stare at yourself in the full-length wall mirror (since you already do that with all mirrors), and inevitably bang your head on the countertop. We can’t wait for you to fill out your closet, or to choose your bed, or to decorate your walls and doors. Mostly, we can’t wait for you to grow, in a space that we hope you’ll associate with love and caring and pleasant memories.

As with all moving, as we embrace something new, we are letting something go as well. And while we weren’t here for very long – just over 18 months – it was the very first place you stayed in.

This was your grandpa’s apartment. It’s a tad bigger than our new place (~1.4x bigger), but it’s also quite a bit further from town. That didn’t matter though, as Covid had us locked in the place for months on end. And while you won’t remember any of the things you did here, your mom and I certainly will. We will remember you being rudely awaken by loud car revs at 6am on a Saturday morning (turns out it was a bunch of groomsmen picking up the bride). We will remember rocking you to sleep as a baby, even as you got heavier and started to scratch our arms. We will remember the days spent watching BTS and Cocomelon and Moana and Pao de Queijo. We will remember your first birthday being celebrated in confinement, and your amazing ability to scale the nets and rock walls at the playground downstairs. Mostly, we’ll remember that you first entered grandpa’s house as a tiny tot not much longer than our forearm, and left as a walking, screaming, smiling toddler who understands when we tell you not to do something, but still do so anyways.

For me, I am simply grateful that your grandpa was able to be such an active participant in the earliest part of your life. You would love to be carried by him because he lets you grab things that we deliberately put out of reach on the highest shelves. Because he lets you open the fridge to feel the cool air even when the fridge beeps in displeasure for having the door open too long. You would love to go to him when he comes home, to take the bread he buys for breakfast the next day, and proceed to squish and remould the bread. And he would be happy for you to do so.

I think he really enjoyed your presence. Even as your screams woke him up in the morning and during afternoon naps. Even as he had to be super quiet in doing anything around the house when you’re sleeping. Even as your toys and playmat took over his entire living room and kitchen and bedrooms. I am simply glad, both for you and for him, that however short this time together has been, you once lived with your grandpa.

I am also glad that I had the opportunity to live with him during adulthood, with my family in tow, although I’ve never said this to him. Thanks grandpa, for having me back.

And now we look ahead. To a new apartment. To a new home. To new memories.

Love, Dad

On Being Alone

September 22, 2020

Dear PiePie,

It is likely, barring any unexpected accident, that you’ll be an only child like me.

Growing up, you’ll spend quite a lot of time by yourself. You’ll learn to play by yourself, eat by yourself, sleep by yourself. Nobody will really know quite how you feel as the only “kid” in the house (although who knows if that may also be true for those with siblings). But through it, I hope you gain valuable experience in being alone. I personally spent quite a lot of time alone at home because both your grandparents were out working and I didn’t have a yaya, but I don’t recall ever feeling lonely. I simply moved on to the next thing I wanted to do, of which there was an endless list.

It’s important to note here that being alone is not the same as being lonely (feeling alone). Loneliness comes, I feel, when the amount of meaningful social interactions you have is less than what you want. For me, being an only child has taught me to “survive” without desiring as much social interaction and as a result, to generally not feel lonely even if I am simply by myself for long periods of time.

And I’ve always thought of this as a good thing, because it’s gotten me through times when I’ve had to spend long periods away from family and friends for school or work. At the end of the day, the journey of life is a single-player game. People walk with you for portions of the journey, but for the most part, they come and they go. Your yaya, your mom and I will leave you at some point as well. Don’t I sound really callous?

That’s probably the flip side to this ‘ability’ to be alone, and why I don’t necessarily hope that you end up like me. I feel that maybe because I am so comfortable being alone and don’t attach so much value to emotional connections, I say and do things that are not emotionally sensitive, and that causes people around me to feel bad.

So yes, that was a roundabout way to say that your dad is far from an affectionate being, and may be reticent with praises and encouragement. But know that whether I say it or not, I am always by your corner. And whether I say it or not, I will always appreciate whatever you choose to do for me. I’m still learning to be more open with emotions, and I expect I’ll still be learning even as you are reading this letter.

Love, Dad

On Regrets

July 18, 2020

Dear PiePie,

At your age, I hope you don’t yet have any regrets, especially as Daddy and Mommy are likely making most important life decisions for you. But as you leave the comforts of home and we entrust you with such decisions, you will one day look back on the choices you have made, and that is when regret may come. About things you did. About things you did not do.

Regret, it seems, tend to occur when things didn’t pan out the way you thought they would and, knowing what you know now, you felt like you made a mistake. But this definition of regret is not quite fair.

For one, whether the decision is ultimately successful does not make the choice right or wrong. The world is probabilistic. So you may have made the right decision, but due to luck or whatever unforeseen circumstances, things did not pan out the way you intended. That doesn’t mean you were wrong, nor that you should regret the decision. The outcome should never be the only barometer of the quality of the decision.

More importantly, hindsight is perfect. Looking back, everything appears deterministic, but it is unfair to judge yourself on that. The better way to think about regret might be, knowing what you did then, would you have made the same decision?

The reason to think about regrets like this is not simply to narrow the list of regrets and make yourself feel better (although that’s a really nice side-benefit as well). The main reason is that hopefully, those regrets spur you to make better decisions in the future. But since you will never have the benefit of hindsight in whatever future decisions you will be making, it seems prudent to strip out that ‘advantage” in adjudging whether your decision should be regretted.

Upon reflection, when I look back and think about regrets through this lens, it seems they tend to fall into a few common buckets.

Impulses. In the spur of the moment, it can be difficult to control your emotions or temptations. And in those moments, it is easy to say or do things that you regret almost immediately. Beyond simply better self-control, the most practical way to avoid regrets here is to avoid or remove yourself from situations where your emotions and temptations might get the better of you. It requires self-awareness of your “tolerance” level, but things are so much easier if you are not caught in compromising situations. In the heat of the moment, it is often best to walk away to regain a cool head.

Fear. We tend to prefer options with more certainty, and which are “socially-sanctioned”. It’s safer to follow the grain of society, to do things that are not unexpected and which do not ruffle feathers. But oftentimes, the “riskier” option is less risky than it appears, except in the minds of those around us. And we are swayed into a decision that always leads us wondering, what if I had taken that path less travelled? In these times, it is helpful to take a long-term view and ask yourself, what’s the worst that can happen if I take this option, and am I willing to bear that consequence if it comes down to that? This is not an endorsement of any and all risk-taking ventures, since the risks for some decisions are indeed too great. But it is helpful to make an objective decision, casting aside social norms and conventions that may sometimes compel us to fall in line.

Compromise on values. Some decisions are between doing the “easy” thing versus doing the “right” thing (it’s up to your conscience and values to decide what “right” means), and we may choose easy over right and come to regret it. This sounds like a simple-enough choice but it really isn’t, because things tend not to be black and white and what’s easy or right is never quite so clear-cut. I’d advice sleeping on the decision and listening to your heart. Because your brain can tell you what’s the better decision, but your heart will feel out the right decision.

All that I’ve mentioned is easier said than done, but whatever well thought through decision you make, commit fully. You’ve made your choice, now go and realise the potential of that decision. The action that comes after the decision is oftentimes more important than the decision itself. And anyway, if you’ve made the choice “slowly”, having considered all the information you have and casting aside any fear and doubt you might possess, I have faith you’ll make decisions you won’t soon regret.

I write this letter with great apprehension, knowing that what I wrote may be used against me in future “debates” on what you should do. But so be it, we shall have fun in those conversations.

Love, Dad

On Privilege and Inequality

June 24, 2020

Dear PiePie,

You’ll meet many people in your life, and the further you traverse from home, the more different they’ll tend to be – whether in race, culture, upbringing, socio-economic backgrounds, attitudes to life etc. For the most parts, being different is not a problem, but things get contentious when those differences affect opportunities in life.

That is what “privilege” is. At the core, it tends to reference the inherent advantages or disadvantages that some people might have owing to circumstances beyond their control. As of writing this, partly because the concept is most established in the United States, white privilege is the most common version of “privilege”. But by the time you see this letter, the term “privilege” should be more firmly established within the common vernacular of more societies, and it might be something you have to grapple with more acutely than we do now.

Back to the people you will meet. There will be people who start off richer than you, who have connections and access to opportunities that you cannot imagine. But remember that even as you look “up” at those individuals, you are in a privileged position with many looking at you as well. Daddy may sound like he’s bragging, and you might not feel it, but you’ve at least struck the consolation prize in the lottery of life simply by being born to a family in Singapore. Of the more than 100 million babies born each year, you are one of 40,000 babies who are entering a country ranked top 10 in GDP per capita and life expectancy at birth. All that is to say, you’re pretty privileged yourself. It’s neither a blessing nor a curse, it just is. You had no control over that. While privilege and inequality may or may not be a cause you are eventually passionate about, you should be cognizant of your privilege as you navigate life.

More importantly, privilege is built upon inherent biases and heuristics that exist in all of us, even you. These biases and heuristics are shaped by the types of exposure we have in our upbringing, and differ from people to people, but we all have them. It is important that you recognize what your inherent biases are and do your best to prevent the perpetuation of that privilege.

Beyond that, it’s important to not get too caught up in “weighing” relative sufferings. Suffering is experienced on an individual level, and tends to be relative to the baseline of expectation. An individual may experience extreme distress by getting into only her third-choice Ivy League college, while another individual may feel absolutely fine not getting into any college, even if objectively, the Ivy-bound individual is better-off. It is, quite simply, not possible to just “step into another’s shoes”. And because of that, none of us are able to judge the sufferings of others. This can work both ways – whether it is trivialising some experience that you deem unworthy of causing distress or magnifying the suffering of something that may seem inconsequential to the “victim”.

Emotional topics like privilege and inequality tend to stir up heated comparisons, and yardsticks of equality and privilege differs from person to person. Listen. Try to empathise. And refrain from insisting that your yardstick of judgement is the one by which they should adhere to.

Love, Dad

Life is a journey

May 20, 2020

Dear PiePie,

At some point in your life, you will wonder, what is the meaning of life. Depending on your religious belief and life experiences, this answer might differ. If you have a belief system that ascribe certain meanings to life and potentially afterlife, that’s good. There will probably be guiding principles that you are living your life by, and by and large, those guiding principles tend to make you a “good” person, whatever that may mean.

What I’m writing here might be helpful only if you’re a little lost. Perhaps you have not yet been fully convinced by one belief system or another. Thus, life appears a little meaningless. Everyone just grows old and die, doesn’t it seem? If that’s the case, why do we have to go through everything in between? The struggles of studying. The toil and labour of working. The heartbreaks and anguish.

The simplest answer, perhaps, is that life doesn’t have a meaning. It doesn’t owe you a meaning, and it need not have one. And maybe, even in the absence of a meaning, life can still be meaningful.

I’ve found that it can be helpful to simultaneously hold two lenses when going through life – one that’s skewed towards the short-term, and one that encompasses the really long-term. And it’s important that we toggle between the two frequently enough because dwelling too long in one or the other might make you a little myopic.

In the short-term, we all have goals and objectives that we are striving towards, whether that is saving for a trip, or getting a degree with certain honors, or launching a new personal project. Those are good, and those tend to be the fuel that drives us to wake up every morning ready to embark on a new adventure. And most people are in this “hustle” state of mind, primarily because society demands of it. But the downsides of this is also quite apparent.

It’s easy to get burnt out chasing illusions, and at the end of the chase, even if you got what you wanted, you might end up feeling empty. And the emptiness that comes after finally achieving something you’ve dreamt about for a long time can cause you to wonder what all the effort and pain was for. And that is why it’s important to occasionally take a step back, think about life in its entirety, and remember that life is a journey.

When we put on the long-term lens, you’ll tend to find that neither “failures” nor “successes” matter as much as you think they do in the short-term. It is why, while we should celebrate successes, we should not get ahead of ourselves. Life has a way of humbling you. At the same time, there’s no need to get too down on the perceived failures. It’ll come to pass, just as the perceived successes do. I say this not to trivialise life, but to empower you.

The long term lens should hopefully make you unafraid to try for things, because many common reasons for not trying – doubts of your own ability or the potential embarrassment of failure – fall away in the grand scheme of life. Looking at life in its entirety, I have found, is also incredibly helpful to help you stay true to what matters to you. When you’re at a decision crossroads, sometimes it’s good to wonder, “when I’m on my deathbed, which decision would my dying self rather have chosen?” The decision could be about doing “what’s right” as opposed to “what’s easy” in pursuit of your short-term goal. Or it could be about relationships, or what to study etc. Regardless, it is helpful not to be trapped in the short-term when making those decisions.

But of course, you should not dwell indefinitely in this mode. The long-term lens is a state of mind that you should access regularly, but sparingly. Going down the spiral of “nothing really matters” tends to end up in a fatalistic state where you let life happen to you, as opposed to putting in the effort for anything. And then you’ve missed out on living life at all.

The short-term lens drives you to experience life to the fullest, whether it’s the toil of pulling 4am nights or the disappointment of experiencing a setback. (You’ll look back most fondly at these memories) The long-term lens reminds you that the process is what truly matter, regardless of how well or poorly you do, compared to the short-term goals you’ve set for yourself. Both lenses are important. When the reward of any action is the action itself, you will appreciate life more fully.

You will walk along the path of life with eyes wandering side to side, taking in the view and wandering down broken side-paths, as opposed to just looking for the next signpost on the main road. I hope you treasure the moments.

Love, Dad