This year I didn’t keep a journal everyday, unlike the other years prior. I chose to do so because I predict that my life would be so chaotic and keeping a journal would just add more burden than benefits. It is true. This year, I visited 5 countries, ran a full-marathon for the first time, finished my study (including a dissertation), and got into a committing relationship. I can’t really analyse stuffs like I did in the past 3 years, expanding myself means I do not know where I will go and what the finished line looks like. I just believe that I will gain experience and the trajectory is gonna be up!
I realise that I could do so many things in a considerably short amount of time, but I also need a resting period after. Most of the stuffs I did was in the first half of the year! I was just mostly resting in September until December.
If I can sum the takeaway of my life in this year into a paragraph, it would be this:
I yearn to be myself, in every way possible, in every endeavours that I want to be doing, my life is all about expressing myself and basking life to enjoy what it has to offer. Loosely following a plan to reach a goal that feels meaningful and important is the best way to get that done. People’s opinion can only help you as much to understand life. In the end, you gotta do what you gotta do, on your own terms. Life is vast, I am not going to limit myself into the boxes that fit in other people’s mind. I have so much to experience in the future. In life, all I gotta do is to surf in the ebb and flow, feel through the crux and crevices of each experience, so that I can be grateful with everything that has happened and yet to happen.
Let’s begin!
I started this reflection with the help of prompts from Sahil Bloom and Farnam Street. They ask 7 great questions that often won’t come up in a conversation with your friend. They cover about things that drain or recharge your energy, identifying things that you are fearful of, and in the end they direct you to think about goals or things that you learned during this year. It was a great exercise. Find more here: Sahil’s Annual Review and FS Annual Review Framework.
In this post, however, I won’t describe one by one my writings for each point. I would only explain why I learned the things I learned and how I did that so maybe it can inspire you to think about what you learned in 2023 and how you see your 2024. Maybe there is more than you thought! It is gonna be long, so grab a snack or some tea to enjoy with whilst reading ☕️
Conquering fears: learning from doing a full-marathon and online dating.
I learned so much about myself this year. In one of the prompts that I used for the reflection there is this question: “What have you changed your mind about?” Whilst the question of “things that I changed my mind about” might mean that I have changed throughout the year, it can also mean that I expose another layer of myself that went unexamined.
I didn’t consider myself as athletic, I was not involved in any sports team at school, but it can change and it did! I thought that I was not meant for the online dating app, but it also changed! I think whenever I am reluctant about something, it is a sign that there was a lot of unknown there, hence I do not dare to face the reality. By being courageous enough to try, I expanded my reality and learning new things along the way. Now I knew stuffs I didn’t know before because I was to fearful of it. And it feels so fulfilling to conquer my fear!
And when I was being myself, reaching for my own goal, people want to root for me. I did not really tell people about the marathon, but I got friends that came to support! I only knew them for several months. They traveled about 2 hours to support me on the race course. Even strangers that supported their friends on the race gladly shouted my name at the course by reading my bib. It was amazing.
Loosely following a plan: setting goals is good, however loosely following through and having fun is the most important.
I did finish my marathon because I set that as a goal I wanted to reach in 2023 and I planned my training sessions for the 12 weeks prior. I did finish my dissertation with a good grade by planning the days I would do the research, analysis, and the writing. However when I did not have a plan to follow through to get good grades at the other courses, I did not the marks I wanted. I won’t talk much about this, but there is a bigger learning this year, which is: A goal can be to “have fun” just like what I did with my dating app journey.
I tried online dating apps because I was curious on what makes the algorithm works. As I studied behavioural and data science, it would be nice to know how this behavioural data work for people by immersing myself. My goal was just to “have fun” and enjoy meeting new people, but surprisingly I got another prize which is a boyfriend! LOL.
I did read about tips to date online, ultimately they are about to present yourself truly in a good perspective, in different settings. I wanted to know what people already learned about the algorithm. People that succeed in getting good matches are self-confident and it can be apparent on their dating photos. Smiling, natural, colourful pics get more matches than frowning or black-and-white or filtered ones. Unless, you are trying to make that about your personality. Putting great pictures of yourself whilst doing activities you enjoy is also key so people can imagine what it’s like going out with you. Headline will be the catchphrase to help people know how it’s like talking to you. Some dating tips profile I highly recommend are: Dating Intentionally and The Secure Relationship.
Since people attract what they are, I wanna show that I am adventurous (especially in nature) and easygoing. This is how my profile looked like:
I swiped left on most guys. Even the decent-looking one! It’s better to keep my filter high in the beginning so I don’t have to waste time on meeting people I don’t actually enjoy meeting (that’s the goal! I did not set the expectation I would want to date them even haha) In the end, I only met two guys and one of them was still trapped with his past with the ex-girlfriend, in which I won’t want to deal with. But then I met another guy after. I think that he is the winner of the algorithm and my own filtering system! People that are against online dating sometimes consider this as making the partner that ends up matching as “the leftover” of what’s swiped because they are the least bad of them all. But I’d like to think the other way. As long as your standard is really really high in the beginning, you are trying to see who will be worthy enough to be with you!
I am an ongoing evolution.
Since I can be whatever I can be, it means my identity can be redefined every time. Are people ready to continuously accept it? Not really. One thing I can guarantee is that I only got myself to fall back into. That is why I need to make my own self the safest and the kindest space to be myself. I only got me!
i’m gonna love u for the rest of my life i’m gonna protect u forever and ever i love me, and i will keep him in a safest fairest happiest place baby
Damn – Fujii Kaze
This is why I won’t set a low standard for people I would like to date. I was already okay even with being single for the rest of my life. This is also why I really treasure my friends and significant others with whom I can be my vulnerable self with. They are willing to witness the changing phases of my life and it requires them to redefine their values sometimes. It is not as easy as it sounds. What will your response be if your friend suddenly told you they’re practicing religion that you believe is inherently wrong or telling you they are exploring their sexuality by being queer or telling you that they do drugs recreationally now? It is hard right?
Instead of trying to convince people to stay with me with my ongoing evolution, I’d like to revisit Visa’s “solving for distribution” approach on making friends:
Instead of focusing my energy to explain myself, it’s better to use it to find other people that get me! I can easily find people that are as weird as me and want to support me. Solving for distributions means finding the distribution of people that are more likely to be accepting of you.
Life is so vast, people’s opinion can only help you so much to understand life before they become irrelevant.
Living abroad means I am exposed to so many things that were unthinkable earlier. Going out for a drink really late, hiking and road trip to a snowy place for the first time, going to ride a camel in the desert, travel to other countries on a whim, throwing parties because why not, and so many more!
I used to think that people’s opinion can be a guidance on how to approach life. In some sense, yes, but ultimately I need something else: “a map to navigate my life”. And the best map is the one that is drawn by myself. All people have a map, either given (from parents or schools), copying others (looking up to someone popular), or creating and iterating from scratch. Some people are satisfied with the one installed from others, but I would like to create my own. I like to be the chef and not the cook. Learning to code in my course kind of made me relived this Steve Jobs’ quote (also taken from Tim Urban’s waitbutwhy):
I am trying to code my own software this year. Honestly it is the year that’s been giving. I did not really experience so much negativity in life because I had more control of the experience I had. I love being myself. Maybe all the heartaches from before came from an overcontrolling environment I grew up with. It is easier to think freely when I am on my own. I will sacrifice a lot to be able to have my own space and control of my time and who I hangout with (e.g. I can’t really invite people over if I keep living in my parents’ house).
And there I was, visiting one of the world’s seven wonders: Petra in Jordan. For context, the very first time I went abroad by myself was to study in the UK just last October. This was my second time visiting the desert in a year (I traveled quite a lot), something I did not plan to do this year. It was worth it!
To be kind does not have to be self-sacrificing.
Giving away yourself to people that don’t appreciate you is not the way. I used to think that being grateful means giving money to others, sacrificing my time to do the things I don’t enjoy but are perceived as “good” by the community. Especially since I grew up in a Christian/Catholic vibe since school years, I’m familiar with the term of “martyrdom”. I realise that I don’t have an affinity with that. I want to have so much to experience and be excited about what life can offer. Experiencing life to the fullest and influencing people to do so can also be a way to be grateful of my life! I hope this blog can spark something in you. This is my way to give back.
There is still so much to learn. Although I was supposed to expand my knowledge doing my master’s, I feel like it is also the horizon that grows. What I know about stuffs that I don’t know is actually a lot more than I thought before. It makes me feel small, in a good way. I take myself less seriously. I’m just a speck of dust flowing around here and there, not a special snowflake. Being able to relate with people means that I am also average, I have similar experience as the average people. It is a good thing. I will not feel lonely since I can befriend people and I am grateful for it.
An interesting Kurzgesagt video to give perspective about how big and small things are compared to you:
My code of life to face 2024
As I am “installing” my own software, I feel compelled to share some lines of code that you can try by yourself on your own. This time, it is not an actual Python or R code with data analysis. It is a mindset that helps me the most when making decision, especially the risky ones. Think of it as a function of assumptions of the conditions and what to do.
“If the worst happens, things can’t go any worse, so it only gets better.”
Instead of succumbing into my pessimism, I can focus on making sure I survive the impact/crash.
“From this point after, things are only getting better, even when the consequence of the decision is not as expected, I am the one that takes care of it.”
Looking back at all the worst things that have happened, I survived all of them. This kind of thinking helps me to focus on making sure of the now and more about my ability to get over difficult things.
For fun: Some pseudocode just to phrase it in a more logical way, it’s fun. Though maybe I am wrong at some parts of writing it (some parts are edited for clarity, thanks for the boyfriend’s help):
All in all, I am grateful for everything I experienced in 2023. I tried to expand and learned along the way. That’s what matters. I would love to continue pursuing this direction. Other than that, I want to conquer more of my fears and connect with others deeply since they are what make me feel alive. Hopefully my writing inspires you reaaders in any way. I’m rooting for you for what is to come for us in 2024! Cheers.
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