This afternoon, I was scrolling on Substack for a while just after checking out my analytics, and I have been encountering some articles in my feed that detail advice and lessons folks learned on how to grow and monetise their profile. Initially, I thought of only publishing it as a note, but it turns out the length would fit more as an article, so here we are. Below are my comments based on the articles and notes, including their comments, so far. For simplicity and clarification, I typed my own thoughts in bullet points below 👇🏻:

1. Writing ✍️ v.s Cash 💷 ; it’s genuinely none of my business

   First up, whether you are here for your love of writing or solely for monetisation and creating an alternative income stream for yourself, neither is right nor wrong. Whichever works for you is none of my business, and genuinely, just as the lyric of Rude goes, “Boy, does it look like I could care? I couldn’t even care less!” (Hearts2Hearts, 2026). So, I also don’t understand when people get triggered and argue that blokes should only be here to create content out of their pure love of writing, as if it’s a moral obligation, and get upset when receiving articles that offer tips on how to profit off Substack. However, other than not giving a toss on what your possible intentions on the app are, I will root for your wins and your successes.

2. Consistency is king 👑

   One of the points that those hating in the comments have missed, and I would like to highlight here, is the process that these creators have gone through to find out their recipe for success. Whether it is for continuously showing up on the app to write, or especially, to grow and monetise. Assuming that these articles aren’t generated by just a click of a button on Claude or ChatGPT, these lessons in them, I assume, are the results of weeks or months of trial and error, aka consistency and long-term compounding. That itself is worth preaching.

3. Love for the process 🧑‍💻

   On top of my previous point, I do think love for writing is essential. Just from personal experience and what a lot of those around me have said to me, I have learned that, aside from discipline, it’s hard to continue without enjoying the process. Especially for those trying to chase numbers on Substack, I would be particularly wary if I were them that, whether or not I am here because of money, or because I love sharing my writing and reflections online and engaging with other people’s work. Personally, I know for a fact that, if profit is my only drive, I would not be able to carry on my journey for long, as the saying goes, “Rome is not built in a day”. Instead of how fast you can sprint, it’s more about how long you can walk.

Leave a comment

As for my own attitude on writing on Substack, I know that, as long as I focus on just the step in front of me, one foot after another, the subscribers will come, the views will rise, and I will get to where I want to be, wherever that is. But for now, I am only focusing on consistently writing as often as possible.

It’s only recently that I've begun to feel that; I wish life had a playbook, especially as a person who thrives on specific instructions, monotasking, and clarity.

It would all been so incredibly easy if, from the day I was born, I was handheld and told how I should live, like, how to make friends with both males and females, how to communicate my ideas, how to socialise adequately without making inappropriate comments and insensitive jokes with or without intention, how to apply for an internship or a job despite a remarkably stagnant labour market, how to balance the relationship between your partner and your parents and as both a partner and child simultaneously, how to manage your spending, how to invest in real estate or the stock market so that you could just rely on your passive income to survive without worrying about whether if your employer is going to give you your next pay check… I could go on and on.

I sometimes talk about my inner struggles with my mentor, who replied to me, “Welcome to adulthood~” Well, I suppose, this is what early adulthood means, at least for me. Questions, confusion and uncertainty, waiting for me to resolve. Life is now about all these things, more than solely the piece of homework in front of you on your desk and the girl you aren’t sure if you could succeed in chasing after a decade ago.

Just the same as the number of quotes that popped up when I entered “quotes about what life is” in the Google search bar, there is no precise definition of what life is and what it should be like. Hence, I decided to leave the subsection out, where I would normally fill with a quote. I suppose the playbook, or template, or whatever you want to call it, for life is that there is no playbook, or template, or whatever you want to call it. That’s what it’s about. You only know until you experience it, and until you experience it, you’d never know.

It was on a night last year, during the weekend, when I was walking back home with my family from Friday’s. To avoid the busy intersection that we always have to cross, we would go ‘underneath it’, through our local metro station, like an underpass, to get to the other side of the road. I have been using our station for just as long as our family has been in our last apartment, which is almost a decade. Hence, the things I see would always be more or less the same. The same train carriage, the same escalator, and the same exit. It wasn't until that moment that I got curious about what the station would look like from above and in a bird’s-eye view. The view was nothing astonishing, just enough to satisfy my curiosity. But it was cool from where I was standing, as I could see all the platforms from B1 to B3.

Leave a comment

It made me realise that, one, the platform on the most bottom level of the station is actually quite deep (imagine the amount of earth these constructions workers had to drill through), and two, had I not gotten curious about how the view looks like from above, I wouldn’t have noticed this view and, I guess, cool(?) feature of the metro station. From where I was standing, I could also see a lot of things, where people are moving around underneath me on the station platform, what they are talking about, and all the signs, advertisements, and infrastructure in general.

Nothing major, but I believe this is a pretty good metaphor for reflections. Just like how I was able to observe and spot a lot of details of the station from above, reflections help us do the same as well. As we age, our lives are only going to get more complicated on top of increasingly more distractions, and it is only by stepping back from our lives (the station) and taking a step back and studying it from a third-person point of view (where I was standing). Looking ahead, based on what we have observed in our lives, we could then use that information and apply it to the future. If this is what’s happening, what has to change? Now I have identified a problem/issue, how do I get past it, i.e., the concrete measures I would take? You might also have a deadline, a dream, or an ambition, and it is by constantly reassessing ourselves by doing so, like checking on the radar and GPS on a ship to navigate the sea, that we can concentrate and achieve our goals.

1. Personal problems now seem minor- The museum is separated into three main sections: post-WW2, WW1 and WW2. Any kind of war is bad at the very least; nonetheless, the soldiers in WW1 were hit the hardest, as then men would have to withstand the brutal conditions of the trenches, while still having to engage in hand-to-hand combat. Not to mention the post-war PTSD symptoms that a lot of men suffered as a consequence. Compared to these boys, a lot of our problems are like nothing more than a grain of salt.

2. History affects us and/ and from the world we live in. On a larger perspective, past events of history affect how we all live and act today. From the rise and fall of empires and nation-states, how we would identify ourselves and what realities are like for each of us might be entirely different if history hadn’t unfolded the way it did. Taking myself as an example, had the Japanese not conquered Taiwan and lost to the Allied powers in the Second World War, based on my family’s background (as of both my mum and my dad’s side), there’s zero chance that I would be born. And even if I did, I would be a farmer, walking barefoot, malnourished, and with little to no education at all.

3. “Peace times” are virtually nonexistent- As just from what I learned about WW1 at the museum, Europe looked peaceful prior to the beginning of WW1, but that was only on the outside. There was ongoing and increasingly escalating tension rising between dominant European powers, which was omnipresent and undermined. The end of WW1 resulted in unresolved tensions between countries: borders, economy and ethnic tensions. If times have ever looked peaceful to you, as in, you are able to feel boredom, have time for your hobbies, while not needing to worry about whether you could live to see the sunshine the next morning, then, congratulations, you are privileged, and you should know it. There is no ethics in the animal kingdom, but we, homo sapiens, are not any better. We would only go on to develop technology made out of a bunch of lethal materials so that we could better destroy our enemy, while we find all sorts of reasons to legitimise it.

4. Therefore, on that note, the best thing to do, after being aware of our privilege, would be to live life to the best you can and contribute. Society is built on the deaths and sacrifices of those before us. Without them, we all would not have been born. We are the products of the culture, problems and pain of those who lived before us, and if we are living a life that is better than theirs, there is no reason why we shouldn’t be grateful and make every day count.

(I was experiencing some wifi issues on my laptop with the wifi networks at Heathrow. For some reason, my highly sophisticated laptop did not let me connect to them due to “security concerns”. Hence, I have started writing this post in the UK, and now I am rushing to finish it off an hour before it hits 12 in Taiwan)

Probably a universal truth for all introverts around the world, unless anything spectacular happens, we would rather choose to stay at home watching TV or scrolling through our phone than stepping out of the house and engaging with the rest of society (as if we aren’t part of it). Stepping out of my comfort zone, instead of staying at home, I tried to go out more. My mentor and I discussed that I should be stepping out of the house daily, which I admit is quite hard, but at least I did it on a weekly basis?!

One of the places I went to after deciding to take myself on a date, now that my girlfriend isn’t here, is Somerset House, where I had previously been to with her. But that was a couple of years ago. And it was one of its cafés we went to study at. This time, it is the gallery that I visited. Besides that, I also visited Tate Britain with myself last weekend. After visiting these two galleries, it made me wonder about art and creativity, which I had dropped down a couple of my ideas below.

Leave a comment

On Art

So, what is “art”? Art, to me, is expression. Every painting, every picture, every piece carries a different perspective, telling a different story, expressing an alternative reality. This also includes acts of protest, where “nothing” actually means “something”, as in the case of modern art. Or even through classical/romantic (or whatever you call those painted between the 17th and 20th century) paintings. Lighting, noticeably, is a fundamental aspect in those pieces. What does the painter want us to see? Or what not to see? What is shown in the forefront, and what else is in the back?

On Creativity

Looking at those great pieces of art, it made me think: humans are born to create. Or one could also say that humans are born to create and be creative. It’s almost as if creativity is an innate part of human nature. Whether it be painting, sculpture, or architecture, it’s the manifestation and celebration of the excellence of human creativity. It’s not just those; other forms of media also count, for example, poems, (non)fiction, blogs, or even reports. Especially for the very last one, it might be difficult to see if it requires any creativity, but, regardless, I believe we are all equally endowed and possess the ability to create. And, from experience, I’d say, finding a medium to channel our creativity is possibly one of the most joyful, pleasurable, or even addictive things we could ever do.

I wasn’t feeling well yesterday, so I apologise for the skip.

I haven’t had a lot of thoughts over these past two days, other than it’s the end of my master’s (or at least just lessons at uni), and I’ll have to start working on my dissertation literature review and the two essays due in April and May now. On top of that, I woke up at 7:40 today after sleeping for less than 6.5 hours, had my mentoring session this morning, attended my group dissertation discussion, then went to Harrods to help my friend buy a couple of limited edition Jellycats (I’m such a nice friend, I know). I could only appreciate their cuteness once I got home, because I was simply overwhelmed by all the tourists, children, as well as an enclosed space that is poorly ventilated and smells like Dubai Airport Duty Free. In other words, the mix of a gazillion different fragrances, but worse. AND, I am on the edge of falling asleep. But, not wanting to skip two days in a row, I’ll still force myself to write something.

What struck me in my mentoring session this morning, from the discussion my mentor and I had, and based on the reflection exercises we’re doing, is the ability to say no. Whether it is for a future event that we’re not sure if we can attend but feel bad if we can’t, or a hangout that part of us isn’t sure if we truly want to go, we’re bad at saying no. However, if we want to be successful in life, uttering this sentence out of our mouth might be a skill we need to master.

In fact, according to Warren Buffett, one of the greatest investors of our time, he says, “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything” Sounds kind of boring, but it really is about driving the focus back onto ourself, on our priorities and things that truly matter, such as learning. As Warren Buffett himself spends 80% of his time reading and thinking. One could only imagine how much he would learn about himself, the world, or the stock market.

Now, we might not have that much time compared to a 95-year-old billionaire, but we do have some time that we are able to block out to allow ourselves to hear ourselves, which I believe is the first step to developing thoughts. For example, I would have my mornings in silence, as that is when some of my ideas start to appear. Or sometimes when I am commuting, I would purposely resist the urge to listen to music or podcasts, and allow myself to engage with the outside world. That’s when some thoughts start to appear. Silence is what works for me, but for others, it may be different. My brother, the total opposite of me, works best in public. My sister works best in her room with soft study/sleep music playing in the background. It’s about finding what works best for you; for your health, your productivity, and wellbeing, and saying no to the things that interrupt what you need to prioritise them.

It has come to my attention these days that, through my siblings, one in secondary school and one in high school doing IB, from the language teenagers are using these days, a lot of behaviours and actions appear to centre around “aura-farming”.

One of the definitions of the term, according to Oxford English Dictionary, refers to a “supposed subtle emanation from and enveloping living persons and things, viewed by mystics as consisting of the essence of the individual, serving as the medium for the operation of mesmeric and similar influences.”. While farming, as a verb, can be simply understood as an act of harvesting or cultivating crops or livestock. When combined together, at least from my own understanding and including what I’ve observed in youth culture, aura + farming, could thus be defined, roughly, as a mesmeric action an individual practices to cultivate positive attention on a large scale.

Before I quickly come to blame it as an overly used term, I would just say, I hear this term a lot, whether it is on social media apps like Instagram or just through youth language (again, thanks to my siblings). As a person who enjoys going to the gym and follows the Western fitness industry, the term and its ideas have also started to seep into the sector. Too often would I be scrolling on YouTube shorts and come across an edit made on some Olympia Champion or Mister Universe like Frank Zane, Mike Mentzer, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Ronnie Coleman, or more modern-day bodybuilders like Sam Sulek, David Laid or Chris Bumstead. Having been educated on fan and participatory culture, I am all for these edits. Wouldn’t cost me anything to glorify these men and their muscles, would it? However, what I am slightly concerned about is, referring back to the idea of aura-farming, young adults, especially young males, would take it in the wrong direction.

That is to say, in simple terms, I am concerned if a young male, upon encountering these great bodybuilders online, would only want to start working out because of the attention it seems to attract, and not be aware that anabolic-androgenic steroids are happening behind the scenes. Either a teen enters the gym, hoping to make progress in a short period of time, or one who craves to gain as much lean muscle mass as those fitness influencers and starts hopping on and abusing gear, I hope neither of these happens.

Looking at some current statistics only further supports my worries.

• “Approximately 3 to 4 million Americans used anabolic-androgenic steroids to increase muscle mass, whether for sports to increase their performance or cosmetic purposes, such as enhancing their appearance.” (AlShareef, Gokarakonda and Marwaha, 2023)

• “A total of 3,603 (1,855 men and 1,748 women) resistance training practitioners from various regions participated in the survey. A total of (number) participants took part in this study, of which 46% were aged between 18 and 29 years old (46.15% men and 45.08% women)” (Hoseini and Hoseini, 2024)

• “Surveys have shown up to 7 percent of high school students have used steroids, but the true number may be higher.” (US Hospitals, 2025)

  Leave a comment

On top of the last statistic, I’ve seen YouTube videos published by fitness influencers interviewing young adults (typically males) or actively looking into the ongoing steroids epidemic. It is absolutely jaw-dropping to see kids double my size while putting in less than half of the time I did in the gym.

To be straightforward, if you started bodybuilding because you wanted to get girls, grab eyeballs or harvest attention on the internet, you shouldn’t have stepped foot in the gym in the first place. I am amazed how the fitness industry has gone from preaching and pushing the limits of human strength, on top of the discipline and dedication, to “How do I get as big and as fast as possible?” Also, since when did steroid abuse go from something bodybuilders would be ashamed to talk about to how kids now would be openly sharing the dosages each one of them would be taking, or even peer-pressuring others to hop on the steroid choo choo train?

I was reading Professor Scott Galloway’s SubStack post on role models and masculinity. I believe the same applies to the fitness sector, in terms of the fundamental knowledge and values gym-goers have to be educated about. We don’t need influencers glorifying and even openly taking shots in front of the camera about the kinds of gear and peptides they’re on, or some empty advice on how to get females’ attention. What we need, however, is education. Education on what bodybuilding should mean. Not just looking at the reflection in the mirror and masturbating to one’s own ego, but rather, turning the focus onto oneself through proper form and mind-and-muscle connection. And not solely use one’s own body to attract the opposite sex, and instead, focus on diet, supplements and nutrition while prioritising health, balance and longevity. The people who actively educate the public on these matters are the only ones we truly need.

My only hope is that fitness content creators could leave their views aside and actively talk about these issues, and in doing so, guide beginners and young adults towards the right direction.

Share Beldon Huang

Have you ever had the experience where you wanted to do something, but for some reason you ended up not doing it? I got one! I am too concerned about the way people see me. To be fair, it’s a tough topic to unpack, not because this reflects a huge part of my insecurities, but also, it’s hard to turn the combination of thoughts, feelings, ideas and anything in between into concrete sentences.

Get more from Beldon Huang in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

But, to make a start, I knew since I was in primary school that I was an excellent people pleaser. For almost the entire time from grade one to grade six (I was in a bilingual school), I thought appeasing others, or being a class clown, was the way forward. I thought making a fool of myself would turn heads, yield attention, and ultimately be liked. However, I was really wrong. I have always struggled to make friends, and still today, I never really understand why. With the exception of one Korean classmate, whom I regretted having argued with over something that I completely do not remember on the last day of school and did not keep in contact with (social media wasn’t really a thing then until a year later), others had mostly ghosted me and quietly left me. In hindsight, the culture of the school itself, which is created by the parents, is already toxic, which I had learned from my mum, as I could only observe from a 10-year-old’s perspective. What I did know was that my experience amongst my classmates was not that far off from what my mum described about the parents. Besides being isolated and struggling to find new mates, I’d seen kids isolating others whom they deemed as inferior to them (whatever that meant) and would constantly compare with each other. My English wasn’t nearly as good as it is right now, but it was then that I was introduced to the concept of “keeping up with the Joneses”. That prompted me to spend approximately 75 pounds on my first pair of LeBron basketball trainers. Basketball and basketball trainers, whatever and wherever the hype was, I followed. As a result, I taught myself basketball in 5th and 6th grade whenever my teacher (bless her) would sneak our class upstairs to the rooftop basketball court to shoot some hoops, because nobody would play with me.

The basketball skills that I accumulated then did pay off when I transferred to another school, where I eventually finished my IGCSEs. Basketball was a guy’s sport. And by that, I mean, literally, if you look down and you see two balls dangling down there, you’d feel sorry for yourself if you don’t know how to dribble. I wasn’t the best, and I was surely not one of them basketball kids who would sit around in the middle of the cafeteria and yell 「狗肉餐！」(aka dog flesh meal) during lunchtime, but at least I knew a thing or two about it. Life after I transferred to my new school and before I left for the UK for A Levels was a lot better than my old school, where I endured isolation and exclusion. Especially in that year just before I left, when I formed a metal/rock band (we had constant issues about genre and song choices, as well as a singer who took two performances to remember the lyrics of our song correctly) with a few boys in my year; it was the best.

However, looking back, a lot of the things I did, whether it was about how to make jokes, play basketball, or even get girls, were all just an attempt to be liked, to be accepted. Some kids enjoyed being popular when the child in me was only hoping to be included. Having understood myself better, I no longer crave to be necessarily part of a group or be included in every hangout. But that long period of appeasement has hindered me from doing certain things. I would be more concerned about others’ opinions or how they would perceive me than prioritising my own wants or wishes. This extends from what I post or like on social media to whether wearing a suit or tie to uni would be considered “cringe”. More than perfection, I feel that worrying about the gaze of others troubles me and stifles my progress and creativity. And, if I were to be honest, that includes this post as well.

Just by the entrance of IOE, discussing my experience in the seminar, afraid of possibly being cancelled over my comments, which I ended up not speaking up at all, my mate said to me, “It’s your own life, why do you have to care about what other people think? You do what you want to do.” Today, I am still fighting a battle inside me over my desires and overthinking other people’s opinions. But at least I recognise that, as soon as I am aware of it, I could do something about it. The rest is up to me on how I would deal with it. I am also beginning to explore what I like to do, be it my passion or talent, while keeping in mind if the reason why I stopped doing them or haven’t done them yet is that I was worried about how others would think of me. Just like writing on SubStack. It is putting the fear of others’ views aside, and starting to write and post content that I discovered I have a passion, and hopefully talent, in writing, as I clearly remembered dreaming of being a writer when I was in 2nd grade. And doing this challenge of writing 250 words on SubStack each day is where I would like to gain some experience in writing, and, hopefully, make my childhood fantasy come true. It is through writing that I can find my inner voice and be in a state of flow.

My mate and I got to know each other from a book presentation group project last term, and since our first meeting, the number of times she has repeated this phrase has successfully hammered it into my head-

“It’ll be fine.”

Same as what she said to me again before I left the building. Perhaps I don’t have an exact answer or solution to all of it just yet, but I’ll figure it out. And whenever I feel in fear or crippled by my own imagination of others’ views, I just need to tell myself, “It’ll be fine”.

Today, as the clock hit 15:00, marked the last lesson of my Master’s degree at UCL. At the blink of an eye, this day has arrived a lot faster than I ever expected. What felt like just a moment ago, I was still worried about whether my tutor was willing to write me a reference letter, while being unsure of the chances of me even being able to get into UCL, and now, I just finished the very last class in my course. I’m not certain whether it is because of the sheer speed at which time has passed (as a Master’s in the UK is mostly only a year long), or possibly something else, the last class of my MA felt entirely different from the last class of my Bachelor’s degree.

I was chatting with my mentor this morning in our 2nd weekly session, reminiscing about the time back in Lancaster, where I spent three years doing my undergrad. To my own surprise, the university, which was not my first choice for my Bachelors (my ultimate dream was Oxford, which didn’t work out), was where I had enjoyed myself the most. And as the years passed, one was even better than the previous. I travelled to new cities, tried different foods, and, most notably, I met a handful of amazing people. It’s beginning to feel as if I am a student ambassador advertising on behalf of Lancaster University, but genuinely, if you were to ask me, what part of Lancaster did I enjoy the most after living there for three years, without a doubt, I’d tell you: its people. Every day and every week, I was surrounded by people. Getting to know them in depth through the passage of time was the best. Some of whom ended up becoming my best mates.

During my uni years, whenever I came down to London to study at one of UCL’s many student cafés, I would fantasise about what life is like for a student being educated at a Russel Group university and one of the top ten in the world. Not to mention that the campus is situated right in the (almost) centre of London, the ultimate financial hub of the European continent and a boiling pot containing a diverse range of people, businesses and ideas. With all of that, it must surely be amazing, I thought. Having my girlfriend and my mates from A Levels here is one extra motivator. So, as the time came for me to apply for my master’s, I provided my details, successfully asked my tutors to provide a reference for me, and the rest is history.

However, reality had unfolded slightly differently from the script that was constantly on replay for the past three years inside my head. Taking into account the nature of a metropolitan university, compared to in Lancashire, where folks would either be on campus or in town, if not somewhere in between, one could find themselves anywhere, frankly, outside of the classroom. It became hard to schedule meetings as the precise location of where an individual might be is just as uncertain as the many places where they would be. In the classroom, instead of randomly taking a seat that is only moderately close to the whiteboard while engaging in some epic silence with strangers, in the first seminar, I found myself in the midst of what seemed to me like a class reunion. By the third week, people seemed to have already found their tribe, and circles were hard to break into. By the second term, I felt out of place with the environment around me, and since Chinese New Year, I found myself spiralling into a burnout that right now I am still recovering from. In a hangout with my mates a month ago, on the tube, one of them said to me, “You look sad.” It took me a couple of weeks to realise what was happening, and another couple to officially acknowledge that to myself.

Leave a comment

London is still an incredible city filled with loads of wonderful opportunities, where two days would never be the same. However, it is Lancaster where I had the most fun and was truly feeling myself, and I believe it is all thanks to its people. Without my tutors and lecturers, my lectures and seminars would never have been as interesting. Without my classmates and flatmates, none of the days would be as interesting. And without my friends, tomorrow would not have been worth looking forward to. If one ever comes to me and asks, "Is human connection even as essential as it appears to be, I would answer, “Yes, indeed, and they often matter even more than one realises.” Through my own case, it shows how little your physical environment, that is, the corporation, institution or entity you’re under, in the long run, determines your level of happiness compared to the people you’re surrounded by.

So, to myself and anyone who is kindly reading this up until this point, if you are enjoying yourself in a place you’d be, be grateful that, without them, the situation and how you feel might have been very different. Life means more than solely the accumulation of objects, assets and achievements, but also the relationships we make along the way.

Also, to anyone who is in my Digital Media Studies course reading this post, it might feel as if I am taking all the blame on you. I apologise if I sound that way. That is not my intention at all. The fact that you have read thus far shows me I am someone you pay attention to, and for that, I’m grateful and cannot ask for more.

It’s already almost 11 now as I am typing away on my laptop, and, to be frank, I should not have procrastinated so late into the night just before I go shower and sleep. The lesson here is, one, don’t leave this late into the night, and that would delay the time of me going to bed, and two, it’s always good to have a backlog of content in moments like this, as the story I’m going to share below is what I typed a little over a month ago.

As I am writing, this story is now a little more than one year and three months old already. It was two years ago, shortly after the Christmas holiday started in the UK, when I flew to Japan to visit my girlfriend. It was not my first time in Japan, but it was my first time visiting her prefecture, where I would also meet her parents and her Shiba dog for the very first time.

The hotel (that only cost 30 pounds a night and came with a buffet breakfast, onsen, on-site shoe cleaners, free toiletries and two vending machines- what a steal!), which was kindly paid by girlfriend’s dad, was located less than 200 metres from the local train station. However, between the hotel and the station, flows a river, with two or three lanes on both sides, and is connected by a bridge in between. So, to cross the road, I would have to cross a zebra crossing, that connects to the bridge, followed by another zebra crossing (I hope I have made myself clear by now, so it’s not hard to imagine). Baffled by the incredibly sophisticated Japanese traffic system, not sure if it’s a consequence of living in the UK for such a long time where traffic lights simply don’t exist for pedestrians, never did I know or expect that, not only did I have to check the signal on the further end of road, but also the one closer to me as well. That’s the one from the hotel, and before I cross the bridge, and, most importantly, it is the one I should check first. So, upon seeing the green light lit up at the further end of the road, I completely forgot to check the signal in front of the road where I was standing, and began walking, as I also thought it was okay as the cars on my right were all at a stop. But, just then, as I was just about to cross the innermost lane, a bus suddenly passed by right in front of me. It was driving at at least 40kph. I knew then that, if I had walked just a little bit faster and for another 3 metres, I would have been run over, or even died. And, what was worse, my girlfriend was waiting in her mum’s car on the other side of the bridge. If that were to happen, both of them would’ve seen me die.

After that absolutely thrilling experience, it made me think that we are always surrounded by death, which is closer and far less distant to us than we think. Oftentimes, life does not always turn out in the way you planned, and that also includes the day when you’d leave this world behind. And before that day comes, what would I want to do? Though I believe there is no absolute inherent meaning to life itself, other than serving as a mere historical artefact of evolution, that is the moment when I suddenly thought of many reasons I want to continue living. It is only by living and experiencing that we can figure out what life means for each of us. And, conversely, without life, we would not have experienced the things that make us who we are today.

(Girlfriend says I also have to start paying attention to traffic lights from now on. Most importantly.)

Leave a comment

It was after my Japanese lesson today, and I was having a chat with my girlfriend in Japanese. She would usually ring me whenever I am in the house, anytime from 12:30 to 14:00, and we would FaceTime for around an hour. It ranges from 15-minute short chats, because she’s too tired, to one-hour-and-45-minute conversations, if she calls me early and/or both of us are enjoying talking about whatever we would be talking about.

Earlier, she said to me, in Japanese, “You’re Japanese is very fluent ne!”. That overjoyed me. Nothing beats (not a jet-two holiday) a compliment from my girlfriend, especially when she is the kind of person who does not usually give compliments, and when she does, is often pretty concise. It made me feel seen, as in, the discipline of continuing my lessons from in-person to online, despite not being in Taiwan, where my tutor lives and teaches, and the hours that I put into my homework.

To be frank, one of the main motivations I started learning Japanese was for our relationship in the long term. That includes communicating with her parents and relatives more fluently without her help, or for myself if I move to Japan in the future. However, more than that, it showed me, right in front of my face, consistency wins.

No matter how my week goes, I show up.

No matter how demotivated I am, like I have been for the past few weeks, I show up.

No matter how complicated some of the grammar tenses I am learning are, I show up.

It’s not that I am spending a significant amount of time on Japanese like it’s my second major, but just 1.5 hours each week, and completing my homework on time after each lesson, little progress amounts to great results. This also applies to my Duolingo, which I am proud to share that I have been on a 400 odd day streak. Alongside my Japanese lessons, it serves as a great source of review material and a platform where I can still engage with the language on a daily basis.

This reminds me of a quote from Tony Robbins

“Most people often overestimate what they can accomplish in a year, and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade.”

Well, I am glad to myself that, it has not been a decade since I started learning Japanese with my tutor, as I only started my lessons from mid August, looking back, I could already feel the progress I have achieved compared to when I first started.

My English tutor, and now mentor, told me once, “The tortoise wins the race. So, just be the tortoise.” I guess one foot after another, this is how results compound, how progress is made, and how goals are achieved.

(The goal was to post at least once a week, so I apologise for the belated update. I am just trying to get myself together over the past few weeks.)

Gladly though, a couple of good mates and I had managed to schedule a hangout earlier on this afternoon to walk around Holland Park (and we ended up walking all the way to Notting Hill, up Portobello Street and to Bayswater afterwards). Through our conversation, besides being wowed by the bizarre and seemingly chaotic nature of Turkish politics as the nation prepares its upcoming presidential election, my mates have reminded me how much I enjoy genuine human connection. And it’s coming back home rejuvenated and feeling entirely different from how I felt before I left the house that made me realise how much good-quality social connections mean to me. I may not have a lot of friends, but I definitely am surrounded by a lot of great ones.

Apart from solely elevating my mood, via my search on the internet, studies suggest, strong social connections “promote cognitive health via cognitive stimulation and affect the function of the neuroendocrine system and activation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis via psychosocial processes” (Brodaty et al., 2022, p.13). Concurrently, on the other hand, “poor social connections” was viewed as one of the contributing factors “for cognitive decline and should be considered alongside other risk factors” (ibid).

So, as a mini confession, perhaps, to those who have been willing to hangout with me, thank you for your time, energy and maintaining my cognitive function. My healthy brain at the old age of 80 would remember and be grateful for all of you. Without you, my life would not be nearly as interesting or worth living for.

Thank you to all of you.

Just like how the saying goes, frogs in a pot would only realise the water in it has boiled once it’s boiled. But usually, then, it’s too late. They’re cooked alive, and probably never had been able to fathom what really led to their agonising death. Some relationships end up the same, as couples might not even know what really led to their fallout.

At the beginning of a relationship, it is common for us to set aside time and effort for our significant other. Dates are planned, restaurants are booked, and plans are scheduled so that we can devote our time entirely to focus on our amazing person. Every departure feels like a heartache, and the time until the next meeting feels like forever, though it might be just next week, or even tomorrow. We glance at them, they glance back at us, and we think, “Oh, how unfortunate it is when time passes by so fast whenever I’m with them. How great it is that I have this person accompanying me on my journey called life, how lucky I am to have met them, and how grateful I am for them to be born!”

Nevertheless, it is never always sunshine and rainbows. Just as peeling away pieces of an onion, the facade that we have meticulously curated in front of our partner gradually fades. The halo around us vanishes, and we begin noticing each other’s flaws; our sometimes-bad temper, our carelessness, our poor habits. Novelty has turned into normality, and dates begin to feel like mundane meetings. When romance fades, many of us may start questioning what it was that had drawn us to our partners in the first place.

Albeit, only if the frogs in the pot had realised the water was heating up, could they have jumped out and escaped. It’s once when we feel accustomed to a person, their actions, their behaviours, that we should begin to question ourselves, not “Why we were attracted to them”, but “all the reasons for us to love them”. And think instead of what they haven’t done for us, what they have already given to us.

It’s helpful, for those of us in a relationship, to remind ourselves that, as the author of “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck”, Mark Manson, says

If you’re making a sacrifice for someone you care about, it must be because you want to, not because you feel obligated or because you fear the consequences of not doing it. Acts of love are only valid if they’re performed without conditions or expectations.

In other words, our loved ones owe nothing to us, and if they do something for us, it’s because they are ‘willing to’, not because they ‘have to’. Being aware of this reminds us of the conscious choice our partners are making for us and for the relationship to function. And for that, we should be grateful.

It’s never too late to say “Thank you… Thank you for all that you’ve done, thank you for your time and effort you’ve put into our relationship, and thank you for making my days even better ever before.” Saying this, we make ourselves known that we pay attention to each other, and we appreciate everything that they do. Also, in the eyes of our partner, we are seen, heard and acknowledged, and we mean the world to them, just as they mean the world to us.

Subscribe now