Blog

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

Too busy adulting

I recently loaned my car out to a friend for a few days. He’s back in town from spring break. Because I have a walk for a commute (thank the lord), the friend is free to use the car during my work-week.

Which is just as well because I otherwise would not be putting much miles on my BMW M2. Upon returning the keys to me, the friend marveled at how little I drive it. He can’t imagine owning such a fantastic machine and not drive it at every opportunity.

Welcome to true adulthood: you have to make choices on what you spend your time on. We don’t get a spring break. They also lied to you: you cannot have everything.

Soon as the weekend hits, the last thing on my mind is taking the M2 out of a leisurely cruise. There’s groceries to shop for, laundry to do, exercises to perform, and general life maintenance that I didn’t get a chance to do during the work-week. By the time that stuff gets done, well, it’s evening again. Perfect time to drown myself deep into YouTube land.

Never mind that gas prices and insurance costs are not getting cheaper.

Obviously, I can make driving the car a priority, but something else would have to go. (It definitely would not be sleep.) That’s not a trade I’m willing to do at this moment. In a hypothetical world with infinite money and infinite time cheat code, sure, there’s lots of things I would like to include in my repertoire of hobbies. But in this real world, I can only pick a few at a time.

We all do. Those who birthed kids but are still clinging onto some semblance of their prior life will only drown.

I officially feel old

Perhaps I’ve come to this realization too late in the game. Along with many of my fellow Americans, I was watching American football over the weekend. It was during one of the games that it struck me: I am older than every single player out there on the field. It’s one of those “you know you are old when” moments, one that came shockingly because we’ve all grown up looking up towards professional athletes. For the longest time, these were people who are older, stronger, better, and richer. And now I’m just an old fart watching kids play a game.

This is it: being older than entire sport teams is my demarcation line. I now firmly feel like an adult, one hundred percent. Any remnants of childhood innocence have ceased to exist. No one mistakes me for a student at my university job. I probably won’t get carded at bars, if I were the drinking type. There isn’t enough cocaine-grade retinol to erase the age lines on my face.

At least my hair is as full and black as it ever was.

This is not to say I was immature before. As the child of first-generation immigrants, I had to be an adult way earlier than I should have been allowed to. But it’s not like crossing the magic 18 or 21 somehow bestow upon us some magical new feeling. Maybe the difference between 20 and 21 is truly just the number on the birthday cake. The changes are so gradual year-over-year that it all feels the same. There’s nothing extravagant about it: make money, then try not to spend all of it. (That’s not very American, is it?)

I think for my friends who have birthed children, there truly is a “switch” of sorts. Soon as the baby comes out of the mother, the clarity of where you stand and the job to be done must be absolutely crystal clear. The success of this thing will be entirely dependent upon you for the next two decades. Surely that will make you feel like a full-on adult very quickly!

Can't have everything

I read on Reddit about this guy who wants to be a competitive bodybuilder, but is lamenting his inability to hang out with his friends. In order to get lean and jacked, the guy cannot go out to eat, drink alcohol, or smoke weed. He wants to have his cake and eat it too, though honestly, who buys cake to not eat it?

What I am reading is the unwillingness to sacrifice. What you’ve heard about life is incorrect: you cannot have everything. You have to choose. The amount of effort and dedication required to be a stage-ready bodybuilder is immense. Those who go on that journey will have to forgo many things in order to achieve the goal. There are no shortcuts, you cannot have both.

It’s the wanting to have it all that leads to upset, depression, or raging against the night. People are pining for the impossible. The new parents who can’t stand to see their single friends hanging out and traveling. Sorry, the tremendous lack of sleep and non-existent social life is part of the deal. The bargain may feel Faustian, but one really can’t be resentful of their kids ruining the life they once had.

I too have felt the misery when I have to choose. For example: I love cars. I’ve been toying with buying another car to compliment the BMW M2. However, it would absolutely crater my long term financials. (I’ve already done it once.) I simply cannot keep two cars and hope to have money for other things I enjoy, such as travel, or expensive camera gear.

I can of course switch careers and get a higher-paying job, but that comes with its own trade-offs. Work-life balance would surely go to shits. Is it worth that just to feed the car enthusiast side of me?

Maybe. I don’t think there’s a wrong answer here. You make a choice, and a door opens while other doors have to close.

Take it easy

It’s been said that depression is dwelling on the past, and anxiety is focusing on the future. To be perfectly content, you must be attentive to right now.

I guess my anxiety lately then is focusing too much on what’s coming next, even though I am thoroughly enjoying nexts that are coming up. Life is going great. I like the work that pays me well, and my hobbies and whatnot is intensely fulfilling. But that doesn’t obviate the fact there is a list of things to do, every day. Things need to get done, no matter that I enjoy doing them.

And there lies the problem. I would wake up and get anxious about the to-do list. You know how back in the schooling days, we would get home from school and eagerly tackle our pile of homework. Because we know that soon as we finish, we can go do the fun stuff, like playing video games. I’ve been treating my daily to-do list kind of like that: to get them done as quickly as possible so I can relax.

But that’s the thing: I can’t relax. There is no leisure to be found when knowing that the very next day - after a wonderful night of sleep - I have to do it all over again. So I end up chasing this phantom that never arrives. Sure, I am getting things done - but to what end? If all of this is what I want to do, why can’t I seem to achieve this promised peace of mind?

What I need to avoid is speed-running through life. The only thing waiting at the end, is death. I have to slow all the way down. Don’t walk so fast to get to work. Take my time and allow in the magic of the walk itself.

That’s what I am working on these days: slowing the F down.

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.

Take care of yourself now

Today a coworker told me the sad news of her elderly mother taking a fall. She is still at a care facility on the long road to (hopefully) recovery. Falling down at that age is absolutely one of the worse things than can happen. My own grandmother was never the same after an accidental fall. Not only are elderly bones more brittle, but they also have less growth hormones and repairing capabilities. It is best to avoid entirely. For example, a broken hip hugely increases all-cause mortality:

A recent meta-analysis revealed that women sustaining a hip fracture had a 5-fold increase and men almost an 8-fold increase in relative likelihood of death within the first 3 months as compared with age- and sex-matched controls.

This is something I latently worry about my parents, as they enter into their retirement years. I stress to them often that they have to remain constantly active, and to continue moving heavy things (cardio fitness alone is not sufficient). They also must eat plenty of protein, and less carbs. Obviously, I can’t physically force them to do anything, so whether or not they follow through with my heeding is beyond my control. I think in the near future I will buy for both my parents an Apple Watch: for the fall detection feature. I want to be alerted immediately if my mom or dad takes an unfortunate tumble.

Hearing anecdotes of the fragility of aging, and the ignominy of being mobility hindered and needing assistance to perform basic human tasks, is always a reminder for myself to avoid that outcome to the best that I can control. That means taking care of my body and building a strong foundation now, while I am still at the meat of my adulthood. The retirement years are only worth living if I can be as active and moving freely as the younger years (relatively speaking).

Having grandparents that suffered through it, I can say with certainty that being confined to a living facility for the last decade of life is not the way to go.

Died in the middle

It’s weird to read on breaking news the person I’m currently reading about is pronounced dead. Henry Kissinger died yesterday at the prime age of 100. I am about halfway through Walter Isaacson’s biography of him. The takeaway from the book thus far: my god was the Vietnam War just utterly and stupendously horrendous. That Kissinger seemingly had a hand in extending that human tragedy for a few more years, all for the sake of diplomacy vis a vis the Soviets and China, is kind of vile. The Vietnamese people - from both sides of the conflict - have a right to hate America for at least a century of years.

Or one Kissinger: he lived to 100! Let it be known that one can have a hugely stressful job, late nights and early mornings, a typical American diet, zero exercise, and still live to see triple digit age. What the heck am I doing? Working out consistently, keeping a good diet, and getting tremendous amounts of sleep nightly. I don’t even drink a lick of alcohol! Perhaps gluttony and hedonism is the way to go for a long lifespan. All in moderation? Negative! What we all want is the promise of a long life without the hard work.

For better and worse, Kissinger gave his gift to America, and the world. Not content with toiling in academia for a career, he pursued his interests and what he wanted to do with fervor (and a hearty dose of egomania). On this specifically, I think Kissinger is admirable. So many of us - and I include myself in the us - give up on even trying to fulfill our potential, to chase what we really want to do. We settle for a life of enough, a life of too comfortable to take risks. I’m not saying there isn’t happiness in that, but people like Kissinger sort of makes you think of what might have been.

That maybe at your death, there will be a litany of highlights and lowlights to look back on. And perhaps the world will know about you too.