Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Life is so cool

It’s been a week since I’ve returned from China, and I have to say it’s been overwhelmingly positive to be back. You know how people go on vacation and then dread going back home to their normal lives? I was actual the opposite. Towards the end of my two-week stay in Guangzhou, I was beginning to miss my life here in the States. Keep in mind: I was on vacation, at the land of my birth, with family I haven’t seen since the start of the pandemic, and eating Cantonese food incomparable to anything available in America.

And yet I was looking forward to returning home!

The realization here is that my life is actually pretty good. My response to coworkers wishing me a happy return is not mere lip-service - It genuinely is good to be back living my regular, normal life. Not hating your job - and perhaps even enjoying it - is such an advantage, and a privilege.

This past week was filled with calm and contentment. It’s the first time I’ve felt such things at the end of a vacation. I can remember coming home from Japan back in 2019 and getting depressed. So wonderful was that trip that the stark contrast to my life at home was emotionally damaging (cue the meme).

I guess I’ve done well to cultivate a living that is worthwhile and satisfying. Traveling then is no longer an escape. Rather it’s a brief detour, one that will take me back to the main road soon enough. Because the main road is pretty cool to be on.

Be careful why you strive for

The movie The Menu. Ralph Fiennes plays a renowned chef that serves an exclusive clientele on a private island. As the evening goes on, the guests’ past misdeeds come back to haunt them in devastating fashion. Of the many messages to garner from this film, the one that stuck with me is: Fiennes’ character was happiest when he was just a lowly cook making fast food cheeseburgers.

Imagine that: this famous chef, with patrons paying thousands for a table, a stable of cooks under him, is not happy. All the striving for money and recognition cannot compete with the complete satisfaction of cooking a good cheeseburger. Be cautious of the achievement treadmill! Much like the hedonic treadmill, the pitfall is the state of being unsatisfied until blank happens. What happens then is you’ll always be miserable, because there’s always something else to chase after achieving the current thing.

Look at car enthusiasts with vast collections, or the not-so-rich enthusiasts who can’t seem to keep the same car around (that’s me!). The endless desire for something new and different causes us to forget how much we wanted the thing we currently have, and how happy we were - momentarily, it would seem - when we first got it. If I could do it all over again, I probably would have kept the 2016 Mazda Miata I had until now.

There’s happiness to be found in stasis. There’s got to be a reasonable endpoint to all the striving. After which we chase after new goals for the sake of them alone, and not because they will bring additional units of happiness - because they won’t. Reflect on whether that new thing or achievement is really what you want. I think if Fiennes’ character can do it all over again, he would have kept making cheeseburgers as just another cook in a kitchen.

Good for you, my friend

Recently, one of good friends announced he has accepted a position as associate dean of students at a local private university. The hard work of getting both his masters and doctorate (in education, I’m guessing) is finally paying off. Also needs paying off are his student loans, though surely that’s quite more doable now that his salary is in the six-figures.

After expressing congratulation and happiness to my friend, I immediately followed it with self-reflection on my own situation. Perhaps I too should look for greener pastures and higher yearly pay. Amongst our friend group, I would now be making the least by a considerable margin. Comparison is the thief of joy indeed. Look at the professional success of my friends! Oh god I am falling behind…

Upon further reflection, however, I once again realized I am very happy with where I work and how much I make. Would it be nice to make more money? Sure; who doesn’t want to be ever more comfortable, to buy the expensive things, or have the fun experiences. But there’s trade-offs in earning more, and usually that means time. Take my good friend for example: those years of post-undergraduate school was a significant investment in time.

Most importantly, a larger paycheck and more things aren’t going to make me any happier. Take it from me: I’ve spent six-figures on my dream car. The euphoria from monetary and material achievements lasts only a few weeks. Then you go back to your previous baseline. As my favorite page in Chuck Palahniuk’s Consider This (that’s the guy who wrote Fight Club) reads:

The power of negativity

We got this new guy at work who is quite interesting. In the morning he greets everyone with “It’s going to be a long day”, after the typical salutations. I’ve come to call this the power of negativity. Can’t be disappointed at an arduous work day when that’s already your expectation going in! Perhaps the new guy is smart, rather than quirky. Realistic, rather than negative.

Joking aside, I’m not sure greeting someone that way is the best strategy. Unless of course it is understood by everyone that that particularly day is indeed going to be a rough one (the beginning of a new semester, perhaps). Otherwise, who wants to hear that negativity first thing in the morning? The rest of us head into the workday wishing for the exact opposite: a quiet, no drama day that quickly goes by so we can return to our regular life. Hearing someone say that it’s going to be a long day just isn’t pleasant.

You want people to have a positive feeling when they see you. I’m not sure this new guy of ours is doing that.

Not to say I entirely subscribe to the whole power of positivity thing. It’s more that I believe happiness is a choice. The treadmill never ends if you’re counting on something in the future to make you happy. I choose to (and try to) have a positive predisposition at all times. Because why put on additional mental stress, especially during the truly tough times? If I can’t be happy solving a hard problem at work, then I’m not going to find happiness on a weekend morning with plenty of free time.

A few days ago the new guy said his “it’s going to be a long day” greeting to our supervisor. He responded with, “No, it’s going to be a great day!”. Now that’s a supervisor I’m glad to work under.

Regularly scheduled programming

Is it okay to not have any future plans? I was stumped to think of any recently while talking with a coworker about what work will look like in a few years’ time. I’m at a happy equilibrium right now, and don’t really have any desire to see any of it change. The plan is to keep doing what I am doing and be content with it.

For the longest time it’s been chasing after cars. But that sort of ended once I bought (and sold) the 911 GT3. That car is the zenith of what I can realistically afford and would want to own. The next rung above is decidedly unobtainable (Lexus LF-A remains a dream). So I’m done pining for the next car to buy. I’m completely happy with the BMW M2 and can see myself driving it for a very long time (it’s parked 90 percent of the time, sadly).

I don’t want work to change either. I like where I am at: just senior enough to make decent money, but not too high in a position where I’d have to worry about work even during the off hours (I prefer to take vacations without checking work email). It would be nice to earn more money (always!), but as with anything in life, there are trade offs. More money, whether in the form of a higher rung up the current ladder or switching to another job, surely comes with more responsibility and stress.

I’m fine with not having that. For now.

Let’s not talk about buying a house in the San Francisco Bay Area with a non-tech salary. Dual-income can swing it, but I still feel like paying such inflated prices simply for the privilege of living in this region is not money well spent. There’s also the question of me finding that second income to pair up with. I have no current desire to test the dating waters.

The status quo is quite okay. Ambition and goals will grow organically, rather than dreaming up something to aim for.

Good Friday

Hello, friends. I hope you are having a wonderful Friday.

I’m in one of those rare moods where I am completely satisfied with life. Literally everything is going in a positive direction (discounting the whole COVID situation, obviously). There’s a satisfying calm to it all, and no anxiety to speak of. Even the stress from work has dissipated, though it’s not like the workload has tapered off. If I can bottle up this feeling forever, that would be lovely.

That’s impossible, of course. Life is going to have its ups and downs, try as we might to smooth it out so that the valleys don’t hurt as much. It helps to have the ability to be content with whatever life throws at you, good or bad, big or small. If you can’t be happy with just a cup of coffee, you’re not going to happy sitting on a yacht. If you’re sad at the smallest misfortune, then the big disaster will utterly ruin you.

It helps to be in a state of not wanting anything, to be happy with what you already have. Easier said than done, I know. I’m afflicted with car enthusiasm, so I’m always on the lookout for the new and exciting. But, if I didn’t have the car I currently own, I’d be pining for that. It’s an endless cycle of chasing after novelty. As someone who have spent six-figures on a sports car, I think I’m qualified to say: the material stuff is never going to make you any happier.

You have to be happy and satisfied with what’s already there.

On HD televisions

I can fondly remember the first time I upgraded to a proper HD television. At 32-inches, the Sony Bravia isn’t large compared to the common behemoths of today, but the huge jump to 1080p resolution was stunning all the same. Those were the days when I’d find any excuse to dig up some HD content to enjoy the sheer picture quality that’s being blasted in front of our eyes. The Planet Earth series was an absolutely treat; so was “The Lighting of the Beacons” scene in the The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. HD was such a significant leap that I felt like I was participating in something off in the future, but I’ve somehow gained early access. It was a delightful.

Fast forward to today, and here I am still with my 1080p television, though it’s since grown to a lofty 58-inches in size. The 4K revolution is largely complete now - I don’t suppose you can even purchase a 1080p unit right now - yet I still do not feel a great need to upgrade; the incentives just aren’t there. Broadcast television still isn’t fully 1080p yet, and with Netflix you have to pay extra if you want 4K streaming. The next generation of gaming consoles from Sony and Microsoft touts 4K playability, but until there is a game to entice me to upgrade (such as whatever the next Grand Theft Auto will be), I’m quite okay with my original SKU Playstation 4.

It’s really easy to get used to something that once awed you immensely, to become bored with it and needing to chase after the next innovation to placate the human insatiability for novelty. This is how people get onto the endless hedonistic treadmill, feeling the need to keep buying news things. As an owner of a sports car costing in the six-figures, I totally get it, though I also gained the understanding that these shiny objects aren’t going to make us happy if we’re not at a base level happy to begin with. The increase in joy from achieving whatever newness is momentary and fleeting, and soon we’ll be back to our old normal, chasing after the next hit.

Owing a 911 hasn’t made me any happier than before, though that’s okay because that’s something to work on from within, rather than hinging on external objects or circumstances. I think it’s important to remember the initial joy when we first attained our nice things - like a sports car or HD television - to carry that burst of happiness through to the present. This exercise makes me grateful to have these things now, and how much I’d wish I did if that weren’t the case. That should be satisfaction enough.