defragment.me

How to live

A simple question, with seemingly complicated answers, depending on the context.

I think the problem with me, is that I am too inquisitive. Especially towards myself. I am constantly questioning, what is the right way to live? How would I live a life full of quality and meaning? I struggle to be responsible to myself while trying to be responsible to others.

If I simply focused on being a great designer, perhaps I would be in a very different place right now. Some people have very narrow focus on their lives, they just want to be great at their work. I used to think that was my focus, until I imagined myself to be Jason Santa Maria and realised that wouldn’t make me a lot happier.

I love my work, still. I just don’t love it enough for it to motivate the direction of my life. If I cannot be the designer that impacts millions of people like those amazing Facebook/Twitter designers, perhaps I am better off being the designer that makes small business owners proud of their websites and products.

I believe in the theory (Malcolm Gladwell) that in order to be truly great at something, you need to invest 10,000 hours of your life. For now, I just cannot see myself sitting at my desk for 20 hours in a day. Perhaps that *are* people who work 4 hours a day and still make great stuff. Quality over quantity, isn’t it?

Last week, one particular morning, I woke up feeling totally detached from the world. I suddenly felt really fatigued and wondered about life (yup, I do that really frequently). I believe in the spiritual perspective that we live to learn certain lessons. The aim is to progress so much that you rejoin the Source, the Source lives, learns and evolves through us. I’m putting this really simplistically because this is going to take thousands of words to explain. The gist is, I found myself asking, what if I am not interested in being part of the evolutionary process, whether scientifically or spiritually? If I am not motivated by money or love, neither am I motivated by rewards (spiritual progress/heaven) or punishments (bad karma/hell), then what is it in there for me to live?

It was very disturbing, this was not triggered by any particularly depressive episode. I wasn’t sad. I just didn’t care whether I was happy or sad. I think that’s worse.

We have free will, so it seems. But the extent of this free will doesn’t extend to allowing you to choose whether you want to exist or not. You can choose how you want to live, but you cannot choose whether you want to exist. For that matter, I am writing from the spiritual perspective of us having souls and multiple lifetimes.

For that day, I wanted to be nothing. I wondered if I could be nothing. This is a level that is more complex than suicide I guess. When you kill yourself, you end this life. But is there a way to kill yourself eternally?

I find the concept of existing eternally, whether surrounded by happiness or not, to be strangely claustrophobic.

Well, I woke up the next day and reminded myself that whether I like existing or not, it doesn’t change the fact that I have bills to pay. If I didn’t have any loved ones perhaps I could go and contemplate on my life living in a cave, but I do have people to answer to. Will I be able to live for myself one day? Maybe living for myself is that best way to live for others. I dare not take that step yet (no I don’t mean killing myself but to make decisions outside the influence of anybody).

I convinced myself to put aside all my questions for now, but I know it will be something that will never go away. It has been there since the start of my life, at least for this one.

I think we all define our own meanings of life and I have no idea what is mine. The whole “live to experience” concept doesn’t quite do it for me anymore. Perhaps I could find my true meaning of life if I accept that perhaps there’s none.

So I no longer want to kill myself unlike my earlier angrier years. If I don’t have a choice whether I can exist or not, and if I have to contemplate repeating my life lessons if I choose to end this one prematurely, then it is just pointless to end it isn’t it? It is enough being trapped in an evolutionary cycle, much less to mention a vicious one.

But there have been countless moments that I truly *feel* like I don’t want to live because I don’t see the point except to exist in order not to create pain for others. Is this still considered having suicidal tendencies?

I don’t have an definite answer. In some strange ways feeling like this allows me to feel alive. It is like having some chronic disease. It can be crippling yet strangely liberating depending on how you see it.

Today on Quora, I took the step out to follow “Suicide” as a topic. I don’t know how my clients and associates would see me as a person “who was constantly suicidal in her earlier years” but I reckon being honest is the best way I want to live, for now. I don’t know if my friends truly know this part of me.

I only know it means a lot to be able to connect to people like me. To provide that sort of empathy and perspective that the others can’t and won’t understand. You may not be able to comprehend why I struggle to live, but I celebrate the fact that I can share a virtual shoulder with millions of people like me.

I can imagine there are tons of people who feel the same way but they are afraid to be open about it. I cannot emphasize enough how meaningful it was for me to read honest accounts of other people coping with their lives, feelings and failures.

Our lives are being negatively influenced by deceit. Deceit by governments, by financial institutions, sometimes unintentionally by loved ones. We’re brought up to believe in values we shouldn’t. Many of us are brought up to discriminate, to look down on others, to dislike people because they’re different, to chase material possessions.

If I have no idea what I want to do with my life, then at the very least I know I definitely want to be as honest as possible.

Leave some thoughts?

How a prolonged migraine made me count my blessings

To be able to type this sentence, in this browser window, is a blessing. Little actions that we take for granted everyday. Switching on the computer, looking at the screen, typing, creating.

For the past few days, I couldn’t even bear to look at the screen, much less type. I was having a prolonged migraine attack, any form of bright lights – computer screen included – only served to intensify my pain and nausea.

When taking strong painkillers for a few days didn’t help much except to numb the pain to a somewhat manageable level, I sought the sinseh’s help. On hindsight, perhaps I should have gone earlier. I just didn’t expect to wake up with the migraine hovering around for the past few mornings. Each morning, I would expect it to have gone away, just like the previous migraine attacks I’ve had.

This morning, I woke up, the pain seemed to have truly gone away (after 2 doses of some strange chinese medicine mix. The wonders of TCM). I didn’t want to jinx myself, so I was apprehensive in judging my state of health. A migraine attack, something that doesn’t seem to endanger any part of my life, but rendered me totally useless.

I don’t know whether it is a sign of age, that I am about to reach 30, that my body cannot recover the way it had before, or was it because I have abused it so badly during my younger years when sleep didn’t matter much to me. The diagnosis I had yesterday – I had an irregular pulse, my circulatory system was not working properly, hence the lack of blood circulating to my brain – was it an accumulation of all those late nights?

So the sinseh’s advice to me was to keep my life right now fairly routine and disciplined, no more late nights, no more stress, no more taxing my body or mind in any way. I feel like a walking time bomb, unsure of the next moment of my next attack, uncertain when will be the next period whereby I would have a downtime spanning days.

To a self-employed solo business owner, being down for more than a day is a disaster.

I thought about my peers, some running their own startups, some passionately involved their self-initiated projects, most of them seeming to run on a bottomless oil tank. I finally understood yesterday, that I would not be like them, nor can I expect myself to be like them anymore. That self-expectation that I can still carry on like my peers, is slowly killing me.

I cannot be like them, as much as I want to. I have to be myself, to count my blessings for every day of health I can possess. To be filling each and every day with meaningful actions. For me, it will no longer be about working hard. It will be about consolidating my efforts, picking and choosing my battles.

I need to learn the art of saying no, even to myself. All those times that it was me who wanted myself to stretch over the distance. I just thought I would be capable of overcoming any form of hardship. I never expected it would be my body that didn’t want to give me a choice anymore. Not at this age, not as this time of my life when I should be running at full speed ahead.

All my decisions now, will affect the quality of life I have in the next few decades. I am pretty certain that my state of health or the lack of it now is due to all those times I didn’t take care of myself when I was in the full pink of health during my twenties. I suddenly think of the professional footballer that keeps taking painkilling injections in order to play, only to end up losing the ability to walk when he retires. Talent or brilliance is pretty much useless if you don’t have the health.

I see this as a new opportunity for myself, since I am pretty much being forced into a corner. Having limits can actually inspire progress (Think Apple ;p). It gives me the opportunity to think about what really matters to me, and if I really have a limited uptime everyday, what should I be trying to accomplish?

I have to admit that till now I am still pretty much driven by my insecurity. This bout of downtime is simply repeating a message I’ve been being reminded for the umpteenth time. There’s no point in having that security if I am not able enough to type this blog entry. You have no idea how grateful I am now to be typing this. ;)

Leave some thoughts?

Live, love and be yourself

I watched “Eat Pray Love” the movie last night and was left disappointed by the adaptation of the book. Like many of the book’s fans, I was excited to watch Julia Roberts casted in the movie, she seemed like a perfect choice to play Elizabeth Gilbert.

Now it just seems like the movie audience is just going to think that Elizabeth Gilbert is selfish whiny b*tch. The movie left out important details of how she eventually made that decision to end the marriage. Or even start praying to God. I don’t think it will eventually matter to Elizabeth Gilbert anyway. If she didn’t make that “selfish” decision to go on her journey, I don’t think she would have written that book which inspired many other women to do the same, or at least reflect on their lives. She wouldn’t have gone on to speak at one of the most popular Ted talks – the talk that brought me to read her book in the first place. She needed to do what she had to do. Why is there such a negative connotation to pursuing your happiness?

No pulse left

When I first read the book I felt like I was reading myself. To be fair, there was a tiny part of the movie which made me feel like I was watching myself. The part when she tries to explain to her friend why she needed to go away for one entire year. She had no pulse left. I had no pulse left.

I don’t think it is ever possible to explain this feeling to anyone else unless they have been through the same. The same feeling which makes you feel that you’re suffering a fate worse than death. It makes you feel guilty for feeling that way, because there’re tons of cancer patients or hungry war victims who are wishing they have a proper chance at life. But that’s the thing you see, there is no feeling worse than being totally able and in supposed comfort and still feeling like you may be better off dead. At least the sick, poor and hungry have proper reasons to be angry with their lives. I had no reason to have felt this way, just like Elizabeth Gilbert had no reason to.

That guilt, eats you up inside. The desire to be truly alive, eats you up inside.

Each and every time I go through a transformative phase, I tell myself to learn from it and never make the same mistakes again. I have come to realise the way I am built mentally, emotionally and spiritually, I am destined for a life of change. Of movement, of desiring the feeling to truly be alive. This is who I am, but I’ve spent my life trying to shut that side of myself up. Yup, I am writing about this again. But I’ve only come to terms with this recently, it is really going to take a while before it entirely sinks in.

I just hope I don’t sabotage myself in the process.

Fatigue

Sometimes it feels tiring and lonely. To be one of those misfits who cannot live life like how others do. I have had times wishing I could be less emotional, less perceptive or having an interest in numbers instead of visuals. I wish I would be excited by the prospect of being an auditor instead. I was actually wishing all my innate gifts away.

It feels really really lonely and tiring when nobody could empathise with this sort of self-introspection and dissatisfaction. Why I seem to be so hard upon myself. I’m sure there’re tons of people who read this blog and decide that that the writer whines throughout.

Even I, myself, get sick of my own “principles”. Why can’t I just take work as work. Why do I feel so personally about every design decision I have made. The frustration I feel when a client prides the importance of the number of features rather than the value of design. Or when somebody thinks design is just making things pretty. Or when a developer writes inline styles into the html.

You know, I could live a lot better if I don’t get all worked up over “trivial” things like that. But this is me. These are the qualities that I hope prospective clients would deem as strengths when they choose to hire me. There are tons of more gifted designers out there. I’ll be the first to admit that. I don’t write a design blog or speak at events, I don’t network very well. But I bring myself completely into the work that I choose to do.

Just like this blog. I can’t write about “25 tips to Zen Living”, neither can I write about” 25 ways to become a better designer”. There are better writers out there with these topics. But I can write honestly and openly about myself, by doing that I hope to share the best gift I can – my thoughts, emotions and experiences. Perhaps it would make some of you roll your eyes, but once in a while, I get a heartfelt email or comment about my writing, and to me these are what that counts.

True connections are the ones that matter to me. There will always be the ones disagreeing with you, your decisions, your product. There will even be the ones who think “Eat Pray Love” the book is a piece of crap. I cannot help but raise my eyebrows at those people who refuse to use an Apple product. But when you manage to genuinely touch the lives of those who can relate to you, your decisions, your product, you know that you have made a real difference to them. When this happens, they truly appreciate you or your work, not because it is something everyone uses (ahem. Windows) or admire.

Respecting choices

Would you choose to be the spouse who stays out of responsibility or the one who leaves because you believe your partner deserves better? Would you design a product that the mass use out of necessity or a niche who truly loves it? Would you spend your life chasing stability and security or would you want to feel alive?

If you have the gift of foresight, and you know you will get paralysed in a year’s time…Would you spend this year enjoying every moment of your life, or would you work really hard to have savings and buy insurance?

If you truly love and care for someone, wouldn’t his/her happiness be the most important? Why can’t we, as a society, encourage the individual to be happy, instead of being “responsible”? As a parent, would you wish your son or daughter to be truly happy, to be “responsible”, stuck in jobs they do not love, just to be filial? Would you, want your wife to stick with you because she took a life vow, or do you want her to be with the person she truly loves?

We all make different decisions and respond differently to the same situation. While I used to believe everyone should live life with passion, I have come to accept, albeit a little unwillingly, that some people could be happier with security. The world needs diversity, but I do hope the world will come to love and be kinder to the minority as well. The ones who choose to live their dreams.

Support

Reading a book like “Eat, Pray, Love” makes me feel less lonely, that somewhere in the world there are people like me, who stubbornly refuse to give up on their chosen dreams, no matter how painful or how stupid they can seem to be.

There have been countless times when I have felt like there’s nothing left in me to go on, that I should just give it all up – and then almost like magic, a random book, video, blog post comes along to tell me, I am not that alone after all.

This is why I still choose to keep on writing my long, rambling, repetitive monologues. That somehow, somewhen, somewhere in this fragmented world, these words would mean something to somebody. That perhaps my writing could make a person feel a tad less lonely, less unsupported, less of a sore thumb sticking out.

Leave some thoughts?

re: Power

I grew up with the mentality that money is the root of all evil, having witnessed what it does to people around me. Then I changed my mind. I realised money is just a representation of power, so the struggle for power is the root of all evil.

Now, I’ve changed my perspective once again. Power is neither negative nor positive. It is neutral and the use of it depends of the person who welds it. The key for me is to be aware of my relationship with power, instead of avoiding it all together.

I don’t know about you, but I grew up in an environment which instilled on me that it is wrong to hold on to any form of individual power. I couldn’t reason with parents or teachers, because that to them is “answering back” – which means I am undermining their authority. Any effort to have a personal voice is met with disapproval or sometimes a slap across the face.

I don’t think I surprised myself much by growing into an adult with not much of a voice except for that angry one in my head. I kept giving away my personal power because that was how I was brought up to believe – to listen, to conform.

Looking back, perhaps I wanted to be accepted so much that I subconsciously tried not to offend anybody. I developed a fear of confrontations because that would mean trying to win a power struggle, even if I was right.

I wasn’t a tit-for-tat person, so there were tons of situations which I simply let go and hoped that karma would deal with it. I still feel that approach is fine, but it cannot come at a price of your individuality. I am not talking about ego-based pride here.

Often, the person who wins a fight (I don’t mean a physical one) may not be the person who is right or true or better, it simply means this person has the will to win (or the desperation not to lose).

Power struggles are everywhere. It exists between spouses (honey, please do the housework), between colleagues, of course the ones between economic/political parties. Artists fight for the power to create, advocates fight for the power to change. Don’t misunderstand that Gandhi was giving up his power when he gave up his riches and went on his peaceful protest. That’s demonstration of true power – power that doesn’t require brute force or making others fear.

I realised that the most important one I have to win, is the one that exists within myself. The power struggle between my mind and my soul.

The mind often succumbs to pragmatic pursuits, the soul simply wants to express herself.

I, need to be myself. In the process of doing that, there will be plenty of struggles, disagreements, confrontations I have to face. But I believe, once you win that internal struggle to be your true self, it doesn’t matter what people say, you wouldn’t need external validation, because all it matters is that joy and peace that exists within yourself.

Imagine a Self that is unaffected by what people think and say. How much power would that individual have. He/she will not be afraid of anything. Don’t you think we all live to try and prove something? Imagine not having to prove anything to anyone except yourself. It doesn’t matter if people frown upon you and your actions. You just need to be able to answer to your Self.

People depend on external sources of power (authority, money) because of human insecurity. If you ever find that unwavering belief of who you are and what you’re meant to do, the power comes from within. Money becomes your tool and not your master. Power becomes a form of energy and not gratification.

If we can all learn to gain power not from meaningless power struggles but just by understanding true power comes from within. Nobody, nobody can take away your internal power. They can seek to weaken you by taking away your pride, your riches, your accomplishments, but they can never take you away from you.

Leave some thoughts?

Action plan for change

I’ve been in a state of limbo for the whole of 2010 – a year which I thought will bring tons of positive developments to my life, after all the groundwork I’ve put in for the past couple of years. The previous year in 2009 I have been hard at work to try and curb all my personal fears and issues in order to give myself the platform that I need to pursue my various goals in life. I’ve took the step out to:

• write openly about my low self-esteem
• end my hermit-dom (aka social phobia) and meet people from my online social circles which cumulated into attending an industry event full of 200 over people I don’t know
• start travelling solo which ended up my life-long fear of sleeping in the dark & various paranoias of being alone in a foreign land
• take various metaphysical courses which have always been an interest that I’ve put aside for ‘proper’ work

Life can only get better I thought since I’d gradually overcome the issue that was affecting me the post – myself.

This was a significant life-lesson to me, never be complacent and expect things to run smoothly within your expectations, ever. Life always has this uncanny ability to throw us curveballs when we least expect it.

Background story

So, the story of 2010 can be broken down in 3-month parts from January to September.

First 3 months was spent in anxiety and denial about the situation which transformed to a delayed reaction of anger and it ended up with myself breaking down physically, mentally and emotionally. I can’t really write about the actual situation itself, except that it involved me having to shift my entire plans for this year which included a drastic breakdown of a relationship that was very dear to me. Having a fear of conflict didn’t help as I tried desperately for it not to evolve into a conflict and it backfired instead for all parties involved as buried feelings and forgotten childhood hurt rose to the surface.

On the surface, the situation is not that big a deal. I think it could be difficult for people to understand why it affected me so much. I actually didn’t understand it myself and it contributed to the worsening of the situation as I repeatedly asked myself whether I was over-reacting. On hindsight, I think I was just very weary of fighting similar battles in my life – I had this feeling that I’ve spent all my life fighting, and just when I thought the worst is long over, everything crumbled again. It drove me into feelings of helplessness, self-resentment, half wondering if I didn’t try hard enough, and half wondering if the Universe was intent to make a joke out of me. I have done my best, but my best just wasn’t enough. It seemed like no matter what I did was enough to earn me a period of peace and quiet.

The second 3-month period was spent cleaning up the mess as I gathered every last bit of my sanity and energy to rationally handle my responsibilities. I was blessed because most of my clients understood as I tried to make my poor health and emotions take a backseat.

It wasn’t just poor health and unstable emotions though, it was a loss of something that makes me never ever want to feel that way again. I lost my enthusiasm for life. Even travelling didn’t help me feel better, but what it did was to give me the space I needed to pick up the pieces, thankfully.

The final 3 months of June to September I spent trying to heal. I was able to stop working for at least a month from mid august to mid september. I went through several transformative experiences during this period and I would like to write about it in the near future.

I came back in mid-september and amusingly (it is amusing to me now) went through another stressful period house-hunting, dealing with awful property agents, feeling anxious about my housing-budget, packing and finally moving.

I am back to the physical state I was before my travels, tired. But this time it is different. I am carrying the same physical fatigue, but my mindset is totally switched. If I cannot control my external circumstances, I may at least be in the optimum state to deal with it.

I thought it would be good to share my action plan with all of you (as well as a reminder to myself). I no longer want to give myself excuses or be in denial about myself.

1. Build my fitness

I’ve always suffered from a chronic lack of energy and I wonder if I was predisposed to it. I guess I will only know if I actually did try to make an effort to build my fitness. I admit I don’t exercise much and I should. Now with a swimming pool near me, I really have no excuses. Water calms me down as well. I forgot to mention building my fitness involves taking greater care of my diet.

2. Learn to calm my mind

I think this is closely related to the one above, I guess if I am always twitching with nervous energy from lack of exercise, then I cannot really blame my mind for going wild. Will like to try regular meditation practice as well.

3. Condition my mind

I suffer from fear and anxiety in relation to several issues that are no longer relevant to me but I still suffer the long-term effects of having to cope with (or run away) from these issues for so long. For example, I have absolute faith in the Universe’s integrity yet my mind tries to make me paranoid because of the fear of lack. I know security is an illusion and yet sometimes I unconsciously strive towards it. I want to truly live in the now, make the best of each and every moment instead of worrying about some event in the future that may never happen. All things shall come to pass.

4. Practice detachment

This is also closely related to point 3. The reason why I am prone to depression, anxiety, fear (apart from possible faulty genes) is because I tend to feel emotional about anything and everything. I am proud of being emotionally sensitive, but it gets to the point whereby I don’t stand up for myself or my mood gets affected feeling upset about something that I should not get upset with, if only I can put aside my emotions to gain a clearer perspective.

5. Trust

I suffer from an immense distrust in myself because of what happened in the first 3 months of 2010. I have this paranoia that my breakdown will happen again. I find it difficult to trust myself to rise from adversity. There is no reason to feel that way if I do my best to manage myself well. The worst situation can happen but I have no reason to fear if I truly believe in myself and the Universe.

At least I’ve tried

Despite of what had happened, one belief has never changed. I rather die trying than to never have tried before.

Adversity happens for a reason. I now look back and realise that the events were immensely beneficial to my growth. If everything went as smoothly as expected, I wouldn’t have the time to reflect on what truly matters. I also wouldn’t have been pushed to such a corner – to make drastic changes to my life. I wouldn’t have been reminded again that never to put all your eggs in one basket, we need to constantly renew and rejuvenate ourselves in order to stay progressive in life. The pursuit of security is a tiring, endless and fruitless game. Think about it, the Universe has ways to take away your comfort, money, anything whenever it wants. The point is to make the best out of every moment. Keep the faith.

Leave some thoughts?