“High school is just a phase, it’ll be over quickly.”
That’s what your parents, high school graduates, distant relatives and that one kid from school says. And it’s true. But leaving the high school phase behind is one of those things that takes time to sink in. You don’t really “get it” until it’s over.
While I have left my high school phase behind for several years now, some parts of it occasionally fill my mind. Sure, there are moments of nostalgia. But more than that, I find that some wisdom emerges in due time from old experiences.
The Running Event
When I was 14, Hwa Chong Institution brought almost the whole high school out to Singapore Stadium (now known as The Kallang) to cheer for the National School Games’ Track and Field Finals.
As that task-oriented and priority-driven kid who hated deviating from work unnecessarily, I dreaded the mandatory attendance. It was eating up the free time of many reluctant 14 year olds. Of course, few of these kids thought about the opportunity costs (studying) like I did. While I had zero interest in the sport, the atmosphere was admittedly palpable when I saw history being made.
Some of these kids spent their lives training for just several minutes on the track. Image shot by a 14-year-old me with a phone
I did not understand the sport, nor why running was so popular. I had no idea why my classmates cheered enthusiastically for a random senior they have never met (nor will likely ever meet).
But I do distinctly remember seeing those 16 and 17 year old boys and girls run the fastest they could in the Finals. They were fully dedicated to the sport in the moment, running literally like their lives depended on it. Everyone was going for gold. Now thinking back, there’s something enigmatic about it.
Maybe there is no greater intrinsic purpose to their running apart from winning. Afterall, it’s just a 400m track.
An empty track between events
But as I have come to realise, in time, the results rarely matter. We forget most scores and timings. But we do remember the feeling of being present in that moment, the spirit of being in competition and the emotional connection between the sport and athlete. It almost seems to make life vibrant for them. And more than anything, that is the crux of the high school phase. The spirit of just being. Though obviously, it’s harder than it sounds.
The High School Phase
My perspective on being an audience to the 2019 Finals has changed over the last 6 years. It was never about the individual. It was never about your life, specifically. And it’s not even about Track and Field.
But it has always been about the phase itself, of being in high school and having that teenage spirit. Watching the Finals was just a trigger for me, albeit a delayed one.
No athlete lives forever. No student stays an athlete forever. The Track and Field Finals happen annually, and if you’re really good, maybe you’ll compete 2 or 3 times for the school. But eventually, we graduate, leave this phase of life, and life goes on.
Your junior takes your place, just as you took your senior’s place. And if you cared to reflect about it, it’s like seeing your younger self in them. There is the cycle that you start and finish, where you’re neither the first nor the last.
Looking back at my 14 year old self, and those brave 16 and 17 year olds who gave their best and left it all on the field, that is perhaps the epitome of teenage spirit. For the athletes, it was ceaselessly competing purely for the sport to take pride in being in that phase.
Not everybody wins in sports. There is an apt and rather poetic line from one of my peer’s essays which I have always found to be etched in my mind. She wrote that (paraphrase mine) while there is honour in winning a gold medal, there is nobility in the boys and girls who are trying too.
Poignant Phase of Teen Spirit
If you were or are an athlete, the poignant part is knowing that of all the 16 and 17 year olds who compete every year, you were once one of them. Just as your seniors were and your juniors will. It’s about living that phase of your life for you because no one will remember those moments in the exact way that you will remember it.
Your life in that phase is as poignant as you make it to be, intentionally or not.
But the high school phase is not only about sports. Everyone has a different high school experience, and no two individuals feel the exact same way. In knowing that this is a phase that happens FOR you, as with other parts of life, you are free to live it and be in it for the purpose of living.
When The Phase Ends
But all things come to an end. You graduate, and the high school phase ends. You begin another phase in college, or at work. But something about that high school phase, that teenage spirit, never fades.
I imagine that’s one of the things grandparents or older seniors are describing when they say ‘it’s good to be young’ – a feeling of wistfulness that comes after closure and acceptance that your time in that phase is over. That or they’re thinking about how they have trouble climbing stairs now.
As someone who never competed in such intense finals before, my outside perspective of this phase is rather clear. It’s never really about the sport. It’s about living in the high school phase. Your phase of life, that you won’t get back.
Leaving this strange, emotionally riddled and unique phase of life can be difficult. Sometimes all our self-worth is tied to it because that environment is where we grew up as teenagers. But it’s truly the case that no matter how awesome or undesirable the phase, we ALL leave it one day.
Ironically, when I was a high school student, I did not see how this was a phase that happened for us. I did not realise how those boys and girls were just living in their phase of life while I lived in mine. But that’s okay.
Perhaps that is part of life, to truly see the phase with clarity (and wisdom) only after it ends. And for some reason, it leads me to better appreciate the spirit of youth and embrace the future phases in life that await.
Before leaving the phase, high school or not, we owe it to ourselves to live in it.
You can be in a rut or feel stuck in life regardless of age and lifestyle. I am in the stage of my life now where figuring things out is the only way to move my life forward – from curiosity to hobbies, side projects and freelance work with no formal schedule. There is no ‘school’ or ‘career’ structure. Despite the lack of external pressure, the internal pressure to find my way or make progress, is just as real. And we all know that we are our own harshest inner critics.
Simply making it through the day without clear markers of progress ‘upwards’ can place you in a rut over time. I am in an extremely blissful but possibly still anxiety-inducing phase as I wait to begin university, with free time ready to be spent.
It’s blissful because I don’t HAVE to do anything. I can simply choose to accept the outcomes of doing NOTHING – which then is (usually) NOTHING. In that case, there is no progress towards anything tangible. Choosing to tolerate a lack of self-development, curiosity, learning and preparation for the future is not inherently wrong.
But in those moments alone, you can feel yourself plagued with an indescribable sense of overall malaise. It’s not that bad, but it is not that great. And you can’t shake that feeling.
That could be the start of a rut.
The Rut – What Is It?
The rut, what exactly is it? I find it to be a feeling of malaise and ‘stuckness’ that accompany any general phase of life. Despite having all the freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want, I was shocked to realise that freedom and flexibility do not immediately lead to happiness or newfound purpose. It leads to relief. Perhaps serenity and reduced stress, but not fulfillment. And that, I find to be the crux of being in a rut.
Remember, being in a rut is a HUMAN experience, ageless, genderless and timeless. The crux is receiving meaning and alignment from your work, relationships and lifestyle. More importantly, it is resonance between your lifestyle and your values that prevents you from falling into dry, discouraging ruts. The lack of it, over an extended period of time, easily leads you into a rut.
In trying to ‘figure things out’ in my life, I learned about the Beta-Region Paradox, a phenomenon that describes how people jump out of dire-most situations more easily than mediocre ones because mediocrity is easily tolerated compared to extreme discomfort. This leads to stagnation across domain(s) in life.
The Beta-Region is the region of tolerating mediocrity. That’s the general phase of life you might be in now where you realise that your past (routine) actions no longer fulfil you. You’re just tolerating the habits.
Knowing this paradox gives you a chance to label your current phase in life as a rut – where your current actions do not resonate emotionally with your values. And this empowers you to take action.
Avoiding Confrontation With The Rut
As I navigate my liminal space, it is room for an infinite volume of possibilities. That can be intimidating.
Afterall, how can you choose?
I have been tempted to squeeze so much into what time I have but was stopped only by reasoning that a busy life is not equivalent to a meaningful life. It’s so easy to get caught up with filling our time with ‘things’ and ‘tasks’ to avoid confronting the deeper problem. Working more without purpose, for the sake of it, because we’re used to it, is denial – avoiding confrontation with the rut.
Why?
Well, lessons from the crux of the books ‘Four Thousand Weeks’, ‘The Five Types Of Wealth’ (not sponsored, purely my recommendation) and ‘Reasons Not To Worry’ tell us that life is short and time passes quickly as a human being, usually faster than you think. Knowing that our time is finite can push us to avoid confronting mortality. It becomes uncomfortable sitting with the fact that we willingly kill time, waste time, squander it loosely without reason.
As such, I have warranted disdain for the use of ‘wait’ in the context of life events. And you should too. ‘Waiting’ implies a passive, restrained activity in the context of living your life. As if your life is ‘paused’, you ‘wait’ by simply letting time pass before you begin the next formal structure of life where life ‘starts’ again.
That’s a lie.
Working, or being busy, tricks us into thinking we’re creating value or meaning for our lives, even if they have stopped being either. We just want to think we are, because otherwise, we have to deal with change. By doing more and more of the same work, there is temporary relief…until there isn’t.
Ironically, understanding that lesson on mortality does not always compel enough change. Instead, it drives distraction for those who deny facing finitude.
Getting Into A Rut
We never usually expect ourselves getting into a rut because we toy with fancy romanticised versions of our lives. But for those who may work dead-end shifts, routine shifts, with repetitive monotonous tasks, it becomes extremely easy to question your sense of being and purpose.
If we all felt overwhelming joy and meaning in the work we do, including those doing dreaded shift work, then the rut may not even exist.
But it does…
We get into a rut (usually unwittingly) when our emotions and values toward our lives have grown with time. We become different versions of ourselves as we grow, and if our work or lifestyles remain rooted in the past, it becomes easy to feel detached or ‘stuck’.
It could be an old job that no longer fulfils your life goals or values. It could be inspiration for something new and different. When you put off wanting to move towards curiosity and inspiration in the big picture, you slowly create a rut for yourself where you feel disengaged.
Getting Out Of A Rut
Getting out of this malaise-like slump of a rut can be easier than you think. It comes in two parts.
Part One – Clarity of Mind
First, regaining clarity of mind. For most of us, it can be a simple atelic task that is done long enough for us to clear our mind. I like starting by looking out of my room window across the highway and low-rise residential areas to create a sense of space. Visually seeing space helps bring me mental space. This step helps put you in a state of awareness, to look at your life rather than from it.
Here are some of my other favourites:
Attend a course (anything that is curiosity-driven)
Take a walk (alone with no distraction like music or podcasts)
Journal freestyle with 1 starting prompt or your current dominant thought
Ask a friend about their thoughts on their phase of life (or ask ChatGPT)
Do something spontaneous (watch a film/make coffee/read a book)
Taking A Walk In Downtown Singapore; There Were Community Gatherings!
The only restriction is that it must be done for a while without digital distraction or comparison with others. The reset is about you. Not you in relation to others.
Just YOU.
What does your heart feel like doing now for sheer fun?
Part Two – Finding Resolution
Surprisingly, there are times when a rut can be resolved by just reminding ourselves why we do what we do. In regaining clarity of mind, we can regain our initial sense of motivation from the reason we started. Finding resolutions can be as easy as finding reasons for your work and life.
But if not, we can take action. The clarity of mind allows you to reflect on what you need most – whether it’s self-love, self-development, creating community impact, deepening relationships, connecting with nature or others. This gives you a general direction(s) for how to begin modifying your life.
Your aim becomes to find a way to connect your values to something in that domain of life. If you know your main job has no room at all to accommodate your newfound values or ideals in life, it’s probably time to look into working on a small hobby or build a new habit. Do something beyond your current routine.
If you want deeper relationships, read up a bit on how social connection works and ask a friend out. Or if you want to broaden your skillsets or expand your knowledge, learn something new for the fun of it. It’s especially effective at dealing with ruts when you do it genuinely for yourself, with no intended economic returns.
For me, I write this blog as a way to document my life, share some stories and also to raise a mirror to myself whenever life throws a curveball. It’s my way of creating something different. It’s my resolution to my wandering mind and phase of life.
And I do hope you seek inspiration and strength to discover more about yourself and your life by getting out your rut and finding resolutions.
Working harder is sound advice. It’s practically sage advice if you want to achieve success in any domain. Doing more repetition over a longer timeline than anyone else grants you unrivalled experience and hones your skill. Run more ads, design more graphics, play more chess, you name it. But sometimes you feel that you’re still missing something in the end. Working harder solves problems but can create new ones too. So, there are invisible costs to working harder.
Sadly, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
The Obvious Opportunity Cost – Time
Time is our single most precious resource. Dedicating significant amounts of time at any stage in life to further your career, pursue an education or start a business means less time for other domains of life. That is the outright opportunity cost. All the things you could have done, but did not do, in exchange for what you did.
Those are at the tip of the iceberg of invisible costs.
Societal norms nudge towards working harder because in exchange for time, you earn more money. Of course, there are those who might put in extra hours beyond working hours just to finish “their job” for the same pay. Voluntary industriousness like such is valued, but not rewarded. Those OT hours may earn you brownie points, but nothing is set in stone.
So is working harder here still worth it? Maybe. For those whose identities are tied to sheer professionalism at work, trying to measure their value in hours, it would be. But if your purpose of work or benchmark of success lies elsewhere, then probably not.
We all know the one person who clocks in earlier and clocks out later. I think there are two extremes in the spectrum in which this person belongs. First, the genuinely hard-working and deeply empathetic worker who cares about every task’s standards and quality that warrants the self-imposed extra effort. The other, a show-off merely trying to impress and gain external validation. The real question is, where along the spectrum do you belong?
And honestly, are you satisfied with that choice and the time it costs?
A Fool’s Errand – Time Creation
In trying to reduce the “time loss” for these projects, we use fancy methods to track our time – Notion templates, spreadsheets, complex calendar annotations. All in a vain attempt to slow or stop the passing of time so that maybe we can squeeze a bit more time for something else. Something…more. Worst still, we delude ourselves to think managing our time strictly can somehow allow time creation.
No. We can’t do that.
With 24 hours in a day, having the average 8 hour-workday means no amount of time tracking will change the remaining 16 hours into 17. We want to convince ourselves that we can do it all – spend time working harder without compromising the remaining parts of life. That’s just not possible. Obviously.
But maybe the problem is not in needing to finish more, but in wanting to control the uncontrollable. Oliver Burkeman’s book “Four Thousand Weeks” explains this as the avoidance of our own mortality and finitude. That is, the fear that exists as we know our lives are passing with time.
Knowing we are finite makes dedicating huge amounts of time loosely to work can become a subconsciously disturbing thought. Afterall, how can you justify sinking so much time (or life) into that Project X?
As life progresses, we find ourselves asking “where did the time go?” more frequently. I hate to say but while some of it was simply wasted, another big time sink is the work-related tasks. But, it’s not always a bad thing. More on that later.
The Emotional Cost
Throwing yourself into work out of societal pressure is a surefire way to bury emotions and stifle emotional growth. If you find yourself replying to emails at 12am, sleep-deprived, food-deprived, all to “fit in” with some ridiculous culture and work pace, LEAVE. It’s an emotional blackhole.
Yes, a 20 year-old just recognised how toxic that is for you.
I know there are plenty of legitimate reasons why toxicity is tolerated. From paying the bills, buying food to feeding children. But it should not be. You might be absolutely convinced, with zero doubt, that continuing is the ONLY way forward right now. But I hardly believe there are absolutely no alternatives. I hardly believe that with a resolute spirit, you cannot change for the better.
If you do have better circumstances, working harder in a toxic environment is throwing your life towards bleakness and even regret.
“But I need the money.”
Yes, and working harder for outstanding work performance and results to maintain your current lifestyle is but ONE way. And at what cost?
Working harder without being honest about your emotions about the work is denial. Refusing to admit that you have been pushed into a detrimental stress-inducing environment is setting yourself up for an emotional breakdown. Being honest with emotions, and choosing to continue, is a conscious choice made while understanding the cost.
That boosts commitment and strength, while the act of working itself already holds value and meaning to you, on top of your desired end goal. That becomes empowering.
Denying emotions would make you live increasingly like someone else. It’s fake, and you no longer live for you. And you will soon get that out-of-body sensation where you barely recognise yourself. Before you know it, all that pent up emotion breaks loose.
The Identity Cost
There are few things like a burnout that teach you the lesson of working too hard. When you dedicate so much time and energy into working harder, doing more to achieve more, it feels like your whole life revolves around that pursuit. Your goal to hit 100K, 500K, 1M or more becomes your excuse to continue working. Before you know it, work becomes you.
Or worse, as a student, grades subconsciously define your view of self-worth.
Hours become days, which become weeks and years go by in a second.
We drift so far from our former selves that we no longer recognise our present self. We fall into the trap of seeking perfectionism, that we forget to look around and enjoy the life we still have; to appreciate the purpose of our work. Being too engrossed in the trenches of work, we even forget what we ate for breakfast.
You Can’t Really Navigate Anything In The Fog…
I like to name it the “Fog of Work”.
It’s working so much you forget why you are working. It’s working for the sake of it. Over time, without conscious reflection or redirection, you end up working relentlessly for something vague and forgettable, like fog.
Working harder does not make your life’s highlight reel. The invisible costs do. The dinners you skipped, the trips you never went, the books you never read, the stories you never had and the people you see but never truly met.
They could have been your highlight reel. These could have been you.
To be clear, working harder is not the problem. It’s working harder for the sake of it with no intrinsic purpose that could rob you of a lifetime. And so, perhaps having a clear intrinsic purpose acts as the bulwark against mindless work productivity.
Solution To An Overworked Life?
The solution to an overworked life without a dedicated purpose or meaning to that work is perhaps consciousness. It is to be conscious of why any work you do is done. This applies to tasks ranging from chores to big life decisions.
The solution begins with being honest with your inner self. It’s deliberately asking questions you want to avoid.
Have you been considering quitting a project or a long-standing side commitment but at the last minute thought “nah, I’ll just continue for a bit more”.
“A bit more” becomes weeks, months or even years.
Being conscious, and hence honest, with yourself allows you to see your circumstances more clearly. To admit that your life now is a deviation from your ideal life or desired life direction takes loads of inner courage. I still struggle to course-correct when I realise I could have made a better choice if I waited a little more, or tried something else or a million different “if”s.
We are bound to deviate because life throws curve balls. But we are also the only ones who can course-correct our life direction.
We don’t have to keep changing or un-doing our last decision. We just have to decide if the current opportunity is one we will regret forgoing. And that takes consciousness. Forget the decisions already made, because they are irreversible.
Working Harder or Harder Working
With consciousness, working harder becomes easy because there is a clear driving force – a clear reason for it. It’s why telling yourself to hang on a little more with a definite end in sight works. But not as a means of self-delusion. The cost is evaluated and you know the endeavour is worth it.
Conversely, living on auto-pilot and following the ebbs of life’s current can bring you wonders occasionally, but over the years, it usually ends with you asking, “how did my life end up like this?”
Worse still, it usually happens only after a major life disruption like death or unemployment.
Working harder makes you extremely good at whatever domain you pursue. Working harder puts you ahead of others. It can even bring you to the top. But for how long and at what cost?
What invisible costs are you paying, consciously or otherwise, for the extra work? And now that you know the reason why you work is the most critical aspect to find meaning, will you be working harder?
Being a freelancer in F&B outlets: a dream or an underpaid position? You might consider being a freelancer during your free time before school starts. But you don’t fully understand what that means.
Freelancing is one of the vague terms that gets thrown around, even beyond the F&B industry. It’s another fake buzz word people use like ‘the economy’. Some people don’t even know what it means.
“You can make money as a freelancer?”
“Freelance means you are unemployed?”
“Freelance means you work for free?”
Yes to the first, yes to the second to the extent that you are not technically an employee, and no to the last (that’s volunteering). Being a freelancer means you work as a third-party contractor being ‘loaned’ to staff manpower. You would be registered under a recruitment agency (the service provider) but not with the ultimate F&B workplace (the place you go to work).
To the F&B outlet, you are basically a one-time only crew member. As a freelancer, you do not count as an employee of the actual F&B outlet. Employees are part-timers or full-timers who are registered (or ‘employed’) directly by the F&B company.
So…’how’s life?’
Well…here’s what I have found with my personal experience as a freelancer in F&B.
How Do You Become A Freelancer In F&B?
There are two main ways to work as a freelancer. The most common way: register with a recruitment agency, which is a third-party company that simply collects manpower (comprising freelancers like myself). This agency sends out job postings as and when various F&B outlets require manpower services. That’s where you come in and pick the job you want on the list.
Usually, the type of outlets (buffet/restaurants/cafe etc) will be stated even before you register with the recruitment agency.
However, job allotment will likely be a first-come-first-serve basis. Once the available shifts are taken, you’ll have to sit and wait. Fastest fingers win, to some extent. It depends on how many freelancers like you just sit and wait for work.
The second way is through an online portal or platform, like an app. The app acts as your intermediary or ‘recruitment company’ in effect. Whatever businesses are registered with the app will then post random shifts with random jobscopes on random days as and when they need manpower. And again, that’s where you show up to book the jobs.
When you show up for work at the specified time, that’s your first day of work. Congratulations, you are officially a freelancer!
When I first started, I had no idea I was a ‘freelancer’. I thought I was employed. I only realised my role was a freelancer doing (crew position) after booking my first job.
This difference between ‘employee’ and ‘freelancer’ might feel subtle and negligible before you work, but believe me, the difference can be huge.
More on that later!
Freelancer Job Scope In F&B
As a freelancer, the job scope is usually stated at face value. The F&B outlet needs ‘barista’, ‘dishwasher’, ‘server’ ‘chef/cook’ or ‘bartender’. Do note that food handling roles like baristas require a valid food hygiene certificate which can only be obtained after attending the Food Safety Course(Level 1). Some outlets may also prefer or require prior work experience too.
Your prerogative as a freelancer is to choose.
Pick the one you wish to do as and when there are job postings or shift postings. And if you feel like taking a day off or skipping one day of work, you are under no obligation to turn up provided you have not applied or agreed to work. That’s flexibility.
Beyond the face-value job scope (a dishwasher would wash dishes using dishwashing machines), some outlets may require ad-hoc tasks or loose chores.
Taking out the trash during shift times, refilling the fridge, sweeping/mopping the floor, cashiering, light washing and polishing of glassware (that’s when you dip glasses in hot water baths to steam the surface before wiping dry) are all possible tasks.
When you show up, the manager would brief you on the job scope, orient you to the outlet and show you how to do the tasks you are hired for. Remember that different places have their own set ways of doing things.
You are always able to ask the manager (or other staff) questions as the expectations are usually lower with first-time/new freelancers.
Freelancing With No Experience?
Perhaps this is the question that every single person will ask at least once in their lives. Having no experience is the natural and logical start point. Afterall, if you cannot get a job because they require prior experience, and you need a job to get any experience, you are stuck!
Fear not! There are ways out.
The easiest way, and the way I used, is simply to apply to postings or shifts that have 1) simple or basic tasks in the description and 2) did not state “prior experience” as a requirement. To be clear, you will have to show up and learn as much as you can on the job for the first few times because you are starting from zero. Anxiety and fear is normal, and they are recurrent.
Some outlets may reject you when you are a beginner freelancer because they need more “sturdy hands”. They need people who can be relied on. That’s ok. It happened to me before, and it just means you need to put in more “reps” first. Keep applying until you get your first shift or job posting.
Once you get the first job, you have your “in” and you are soon to gain experience.
Work Schedule As A Freelancer In F&B
You set your own work schedule as a freelancer. While you won’t get the exact hours and time slots you want, you will get to pick the workplaces and work durations every single time. What happens if you don’t like the location or the hours?
You simply don’t choose it. Welcome to freelancing.
That said, you can also choose to commit several days in a row with multiple jobs and shifts stacked if that’s your preference. The only limiting factor is how many shifts you applied for are accepted. The hit rate is quite high, so the odds are not against you.
Money Matters: Salary/Pay For Freelancers In F&B
Unlike normal part-time or full-time employees, freelance pay usually, if not always, comes from the recruitment company or portal (i.e. your third party). Sometimes you can be paid the next day after the shift, or at the end of the week/beginning of the next week (weekly sum) or ad-hoc processing (usually a few days after the shift).
The pay would not be transferred based on a rigid schedule like normal direct employees who are paid monthly on a fixed date.
Expect some delay time as the third-party company has to confirm your attendance and work hours with the F&B business before sending remuneration. That’s normal, and for some agencies, requesting immediate payment ahead of the pre-set schedule may cost you a fee.
Perks Of Being A Freelancer In F&B
Perks can be stated in the advertising material by recruitment companies or third parties, or even directly by the F&B outlet. However, there is usually more than meets the eye. And for good reason (some cost money and some are generally unglamorous).
If you work during lunch or dinner hours, at smaller restaurants or cafes, they might offer you staff meals on account of your effort. It’s not obligatory to offer food as you are technically not an “employee”, but it is usually offered at most places. If you work the whole day, paid breaks and meals should be included.
Always be grateful for their kind gestures especially because you are a freelancer.
A Coffee Treat From The Manager (That Latte Art Still Amazes Me)!
At buffets, depending on availability, you may get a stab at leftovers at the end of the night. Food may become free-for-all behind in the kitchen, at the manager’s discretion or workplace protocols. You’ll never know which ones offer until you work there. When I worked at one of the restaurants in Fullerton Hotel, this was a lucky occurrence for me.
Can’t Say No To Leftover Buffet Food After Closing!
Transport can become an issue when jobs require you to stay late and you guessed it, not all outlets offer transport claims. Most higher-end restaurants that need manpower more frequently would likely offer transport claims as they probably have bigger budgets too.
Even then, those that do offer may only pay a fixed amount, so don’t get your hopes too high. Consider how you will return home after work if there’s no more MRT or bus services.
Are Freelancers In F&B Living THE Dream?
Freelancing gives you the freedom to try many different workplaces for a diversity of experiences. In fact, they get a lot of flexibility, perks and the least of the responsibility. That’s indisputable.
THE Dream Is Here
Not only do freelancers choose their work timing and locations, you can choose not to work at the same place twice. You can dip your toes in the proverbial water and see where or as what you prefer to work, something you cannot do once you commit to a particular restaurant or workplace as an employee.
The Pay As A Freelancer
Besides, the most common hourly rate for entry level staff is $11 to $12 for part-timers. (Full-timers are usually paid monthly based on a different scheme of working hours/shifts.) As you work longer, acquire more unique-to-outlet skills, your pay can be bumped up a little. But that’s measured in months, at least.
Many factors decide if your pay as a part-timer can be raised, ranging from experience, performance to other esoteric company-specific policies. That’s hairy to deal with.
As freelancers, a simple banquet or buffet restaurant might directly offer $14 or more per hour for the night under a “one-time only” offer. (But it’s usually not actually one-time only; restaurants get packed occasionally and still require extra hands, you are those “hands”.)
Usually, these jobs can last from 4 to 6 or even 12 hours if you work both morning and evening events. That stacks up quickly if you get a bunch of these shifts.
After you chalk up some experience and basic skills, they can be translated to almost any other outlet, granting you a far gentler learning curve in future as you explore freelancing further in F&B.
Extra Work Wanted!
If you’re lucky, you might get extra work or shifts in the future you did not even ask for. The manager might take down your contact and directly ask you to return another day! Note that some third-party companies restrict such “private” agreements, always check the policies of the recruitment company. Of course, this is at your discretion if you would like to return another time for extra work.
Other Secret Easter Eggs!
When I worked in a pop-up stall selling food at a festive event, I realised how friendly F&B people can be. It’s like strangers are bound by this common job in F&B in the environment of the event and they would offer free food (like the one below) to each other after closing (usually unsold menu items).
Discovering these connections was like finding secret easter eggs, giving you privileges that customers are not granted.
A Free Wagyu Beef Bowl For Dinner At the Event!
Essentially, as a freelancer, you get the same food as a customer, but for free albeit at later hours of the day or night. I’d still take that deal any day.
Besides, if you truly freelance in many places, your commute will take you along many different scenic routes. They can be public places you have never visited before, but more frequently, you get to see behind-the-scenes which can truly expand your horizon.
Scenic Night View Of Clarke Quay Along the Singapore River After Ending A Shift
You will get to see how much work and effort goes on behind a seemingly calm, elegant and luxurious restaurant. There would be streams of service staff hustling and shuffling along in the basements or behind the kitchen, and of course, you get a front-view seat to the food being prepared on the spot.
“Keep On Dreaming, Kid!”
So what’s not to like?
As a customer, you rarely see any staff eating. That’s because it’s frowned upon for the sake of upholding the reputation and image of the general outlet. Meals are taken inside a little “office” or “corner” behind doors and curtains – that tiny secret area you always wanted to look behind as a customer!
It’s actually smaller than you think.
Penalties May Apply!
Your pay may be penalised if you break any glassware or equipment, though before you get all anxious, it depends on the extent of damage and the manager’s discretion. Breaking one wine glass won’t upend your whole freelancing career. In fact, it’s also unlikely that they would make you pay for one broken glass. That said, don’t go asking for it.
Managers are humans too, they make mistakes just like me and you. Once, I saw a manager accidentally push a wine glass off a bar counter. It imploded on itself upon contact with the sink. While penalties may apply, it should not discourage any genuine attempts at learning to handle the equipment. Simple caution would suffice; speed comes later.
If you think you can always rely on restaurants for freelance work in F&B, keep on dreaming kid! Freelancing is like a river current.
Depending on the proverbial weather, it is beyond your control. If it rains, the freelancing river current is strong and brings with it plenty of opportunities at your disposal. Similarly, during a dry spell, that river current becomes a trickle that thirsty freelancers compete over – worse still, at a lower hourly wage.
While freelancing offers you options and flexibility, that premium is easily waived by fluctuating economic and consumerist trends or behaviour, at least in the short-term.
Should You Become A Freelancer In F&B?
Obviously, yes.
Unless you are completely befuddled, the pros strongly outweigh the cons when it comes to freelancing as an entry level staff trying to hustle some cash and gain some experience. You have NOTHING to lose because you literally have nothing in this phase of life.
No skills, no money and no experience. So, you have every reason to try and learn.
Even for more experienced workers, choosing to dive back into freelancing between jobs can offer supplementary income while giving you more time back in your life before your next chapter of life at work. Meanwhile, these freelancing jobs are easier to schedule and broaden your network while adding to your bucket of work experience. Freelancing grows from the means to learn a skill to a skill of its own.
I hope you go out and get some freelancing done and you’ll find out just how fast you can learn and adapt. Even if you can’t, or have a bad experience, well, you don’t ever need to return to the outlet again!
Warren Buffett explained how young people have “potential horsepower” to become anybody they wished to be, if only they put in some effort to create the right habits and seek the right role model. “Potential horsepower” is a fascinating concept to frame life decisions, particularly as making several good decisions in the short-term can set one up for success in the long run. Buffett’s not the only one to suggest this. Alex Hormozi hints at something similar here too. As I navigate how to spend my time and build towards my future, below are 4 things (in no set order) I learned that when compounded, give wonderful returns. You too, can work to compound them over time.
#1 Compound Your Money
Let’s start with the obvious: money. Yes, money can and should be compounded for a wide variety of reasons – not the least of which is fighting inflation (that’s the insidious entity that eats away at your purchasing power over time).
Clearly, I am not a professional financial advisor and this is not dedicated financial advice. This is purely a reminder to start investing early, especially if you are in your 20s, like I am at the point of writing. The reason is simple – compound interest (that and so that if you do get rich in future, it is not when you are 75 lying in the hospital).
Now, you’re not aiming to become some investment superstar or the next Warren Buffett. You just need some contextual knowledge on how money can be invested, especially if you have no clue how to invest. There are plenty of ways you can learn. If you still believe that you need a lot of money to invest, it’s time to open your eyes by reading a couple books or watching some videos. Here are some which I personally enjoyed (you’re welcome).
One Up On Wall Street – Peter Lynch (Stock-picking)
Uncommon Profits Through Common Stocks – Philip Fisher (Stock-picking)
The Essays Of Warren Buffett – Lawrence A. Cunningham (Investing Philosophy)
From experience, the last one requires basic contextual knowledge in finance, business and accounting to be fully understood. The same goes for the classic recommendation of “The Intelligent Investor” by Benjamin Graham.
My Reading Rabbit Hole
When I first began reading about investments in 2024, everything felt like a haze. I had no idea what I was reading and how I would ever apply any of it. But I fell into this rabbit hole of reading about investments after I discovered Warren Buffett’s investing philosophy and how it fit into this world. If it feels confusing at first, that’s normal. You are starting from zero. Over time, if you choose to stick with reading and learning, you would find that knowledge begins to compound and the whole picture becomes clearer.
With each book, it is like a puzzle piece being placed in the correct position one by one, and your understanding grows. There comes a moment when your new knowledge grows to such an extent that you almost see the world, and the subject, in vastly altered lenses.
What you invest in is for you to decide. While that feels like a description of the sky being blue, it is, ironically, also the best answer for you. No one should tell you how to spend or use your money, you have to learn it for yourself and choose for yourself. There are plenty of free websites and information online at your disposal. That said, not everything should be taken at face value and part of the journey is learning.
Theoretical Comparison Experiment
If you start investing with $1000 at age 20, with monthly contributions of $200 and no withdrawals, then at age 60, with an interest rate of 6% compounded annually, the total investment is worth over $800 000. You would only need patience and persistence to let time work.
Compound Interest Earns Over $500K For 40 Years!
If we ran the same experiment but starting at age 30 instead of age 20 while ending at age 60, the total investment would be worth slightly less than $360 000.
You would lose $300K by starting 10 years later!
You would have more than twice the amount had you started 10 years earlier. Twice.
The old saying that goes “health is wealth” can only be truly understood when some circumstance forces you to confront the fragility of the human body. The human body is quite a resilient machine, especially in youth. But it is not invincible, no matter how strong you might feel in your youth today. You could run a marathon at 30 and still need a wheelchair at 80. You could be a national youth athlete at 24 but need dialysis at 65. Age (and disease) spares no one.
Physical Health Needs Physical Activity
It’s easy to exercise when you’re like me, between the ages of 10 to 30. But the real crux lies in MAINTAINING physical activity beyond the early decades and that habit starts young. I find that exercise is less of a habit than a mindset. If you have to force yourself to exercise because you know “it’s good for you”, it will always be a tug of war. And, you risk any life disruptions knocking you off the exercise bandwagon (your reward is more guilt later on).
Conversely, to build the habit of physical activity without the friction of “ugh, I have to exercise today…again”, it probably takes a mindset shift. You have to begin to see how this physical activity adds to your life rather than a chore to complete (running on treadmills is not enticing). This is definitely easier said than done, and that’s why it’s far easier to adopt this mindset and make physical activity a core pillar of your lifestyle in your youth than later on.
If you already run for exercise, just never stop the habit. If you have no exercise at all, you can just start climbing stairs today. Then tomorrow and the day after. Then keep going. One flight, then two, next three and before you know it, you feel more energised at home.
Start compounding physical activities now, whether it’s walking, running, sports, gym sessions or others and remind yourself that it is more about maintaining this lifestyle habit over the decades than it is about performance today. Performance fades, but as you know, old habits die hard. And just maybe, with great physical health, you’ll die hard too.
If you’re curious about how Singaporeans treat their health, this is food for thought.
#3 Compound Your Skills
Primary school taught you how to do long division. Sorry, but that’s not useful anymore.
Secondary school taught you how to solve quadratic equations. I am afraid I cannot see how you might use that daily.
Junior College taught you how to find the energy needed to launch a 45kg rock into orbit. We’ll let Elon Musk take care of that.
Your degree might teach you more advanced tools, of which only several might be applied in your job, let alone last a lifetime.
All this to say, I am right there with you if you feel like you’re learning a lot of nothing. Indeed, these are very limited and even esoteric skills and tools that are not going to serve a lifetime unless you specialise in them. You might not like change, but it seems this world is obsessed with “latest new tech” and they are bound to revolutionise jobs (or eliminate them). School is supposed to prepare you for the workforce, but you cannot just rely on some fixed curriculum.
You have to begin learning for yourself, and that starts by accepting the limitations of the school system.
And that’s where I felt lost. Very lost. I had no skills and no experience for the future.
Drawing Outside The Lines
You will not learn the skill you need for your job in 20 years’ time at school. That’s very incredibly unlikely. But you might learn that you have a little grit, a touch of persistence, some discipline, a dash of curiosity and some time management skills. You might find out you have what it takes to tackle adversity. And that is enough to encourage you to start drawing outside the lines – learn new things unrelated to conventional subjects whether as a hobby, interest or even to build a side hustle.
The hard skills can be taught: accounting, sales, copywriting and more. The soft skills have to be learnt: patience, communicating clearly, listening. But, the real kicker is the skill of learning how to learn. School does not have a subject on that, because it’s impossible to grade. You have to figure that out yourself. To compound your skills, you have to figure out which other skills are worth learning.
It’s never too early to take a course online, join community classes, enrol in Skillsfuture lessons (use those credits if you have them), read some books and even watch Youtube videos. But most importantly, skills have to be practiced so start small with no stress. Practice creates permanence, permanence breeds proficiency and with proficiency comes speed.
Your focus is the future, to compound these skills over time and acquire them for future usage so take it slow. These skills will come into play later after graduation. Build your skills, start spinning the compounding flywheel.
#4 Compound Your Knowledge
Unlike one of your past history exams where you get to memorise all the “answers” and regurgitate them under timed conditions, compounding your knowledge is not at all about memorising or remembering specific information from 8 (or 80, for history students) years ago. Rather, it is about broadening perspectives and, as Gene Hackman once said, “miles and miles of heart”. It’s an abstract concept.
Compounding knowledge might not seem important in the age of Artificial Intelligence, but knowledge about people, yourself and your life is perennially essential. Ironically, you cannot learn who you are by staring in the mirror. To learn who you are, you have to try new things to put yourself in all kinds of situations – new, easy, hard, sticky, complicated and more. They test your reactions, responses, critical thinking, resilience and more importantly, clarity of mind. The more you do, the more you can learn who you are, what you are good at, and where you want to go. When you find out that your identity is not fixed, that’s when real growth begins.
Knowledge Comes With Curiosity
The best knowledge I have gained has come from random serendipitous sources in unexpected moments.
Watching Crashcourse History in high school led me to learn about John and Hank Green, whose vlog channel I watched vastly improved my English. Reading “Poor Charlie’s Almanack” at Warren Buffett’s recommendation taught me about Charlie Munger’s mental models – to draw on critical concepts from various disciplines and apply them within and beyond their domains to solve problems. Warren Buffett further ingrained in me the phrase “Price is what you pay, value is what you get”. Watching the sitcom “Seinfeld” led me to understand how it takes complete devotion to hone and polish a craft as Jerry Seinfeld did over decades.
Compounding your knowledge is less about reading than about discovering and staying curious. While curiosity is another thing that you cannot “force”, it’s something that can be evoked. It’s easy to neglect curiosity when you are a student like I was. But let curiosity linger whenever it comes. You never know what you’ll find once you tug the thread of curiosity.
Some knowledge becomes little gems in your mind and when you least expect it, it might help you in a sticky situation (like job interviews or essays)! Knowledge does not pay rent in your mental real estate; rather, it can pay dividends.
Your Best Bet? You!
At 20, I have time on my side, though the illusion is thinking it always will be. To fully leverage the benefits of compounding habits, money or anything, the earlier you start, the better. You are your own best bet! It’s easier to bet on yourself today when time and compounding effects are your advantages. Unfortunately, there is such a thing as too late when it comes to the “magic” of compounding.
I am just starting to adopt a lifestyle that leverages the benefits of compounding. Trust me when I say it always feels “off” and “slow”, especially when you first start, or even after a while. Progress feels extremely unreliable. You will question (and I did) if going to the gym is even worth it anymore, or if gaining more knowledge is useful. Your life might look different from your peers. But with the right focus on your future self, delayed gratification will be your best friend, and the habits will compound over time.
Thanks to the internet, you can choose your own “masterminds” – the people from whom you can learn and take inspiration through their content, both personally and professionally. Not simply scrolling the “For You Page” littered with meaningless brain rot content, but genuinely curating your consumption based on values and lifestyles you resonate with.
It is less about the content you consume, but more about what you learn about yourself through their content. Perhaps that is what shapes the malleable young adult mind more than anything – content that triggers thinking and a desire to grow in a certain direction.
Everyone has “potential horsepower” and the ability to compound their health, money, skills and knowledge. Just start now.
It’s 2026! Happy New Year to all those reading this, though I suspect most of you reading would be from the future (2030 anyone?). The new year is yet another famed occasion for following tradition. Countdowns, parties, booze, New Year’s Resolutions. It’s a Santa wish list for the New Year. If you have been around long enough though, failing to follow through with New Year’s Resolutions is probably nothing new to you. Surely, you’d think after 2000 odd years that humanity (with lightbulbs and iPhones) can figure out why New Year’s resolutions don’t work.
Let’s hear it from a cranky 20 year old – me.
New Year’s Resolutions: A New Hope
New Year’s resolutions imply a new hope for people (anyone call for a Jedi?). A new year is a fresh start and a clean slate. Who doesn’t love to start new things? It’s fun and easy. That’s why it’s so common for endless lists of goals to be made before January. Everything feels possible when it’s fictional.
But when it comes to finishing those things, we are forced to confront our shortcomings. There comes the boring, tedious, dreary “work”. We no longer want that commitment.
“I can’t take another meal of this diet that tastes like cardboard” probably sounds familiar.
Or “this gym is simply too far away and too crowded” – the beginning of the end of yet another burst of fitness enthusiasm.
It’s no longer fun and thrilling. And so, one moment of weakness leads to another, and before March is here, the resolutions aren’t all that resolute anymore. The new hope that popped out around the new year quickly fades when the year is…not so new anymore. Now, your goals become work and your determination to achieve those goals is tested.
So what happened to those once invincible resolutions 2 months ago?
New Year’s Resolutions: Reality Strikes Back
The reality is that those resolutions probably weren’t that invincible to begin with. Here’s the uncomfortable truth: the dreary, tedious work was always inherent in your goal, it was just hidden by the short-lived excitement and hope around the new year.
Think about this New Year resolution: “I want to go on a diet this year and lose 5kg.”
Sounds good. It’s pretty common. But how?
New Year resolutions fail because it is easy to fall off the bandwagon. Rather than committing to the full year of dieting consistently with meal plans, for example, the thought process started with having a diet (the food magically falls onto the plate and those sneaky late night cravings mysteriously disappear) and ended with losing 5kg months later.
In other words, reality does not play ball with your imagination. Spoiler alert: it NEVER will. There will be times when fear, stress and temptation seize control of your “resolution” and it is in those moments when you get to decide how invincible and resolute those New Year resolutions are.
A new year resolution based on imagination without a plan rooted in reality is going to be like the Titanic – wrecked. It may feel like that plan could not be wrecked when enthusiasm is brimming around the New Year. Disclaimer: pinning hopes onto a New Year’s resolution without a solid plan is a surefire way to disappointment (unless you’re ridiculously lucky or disciplined).
Finding Resolutions to New Year’s Resolutions
Just because the number of the year increases by one and the Earth begins a new orbit around the Sun does not, in any way (and it pains me to say), give New Year’s resolutions any more achievable than it would at any other time of the year.
The Earth does not grant magical powers annually. But you can grant yourself all the magic you need. All there is to a feasible and likely-to-succeed resolution is a proper plan. So, for those of you that are sick of failing to stick with New Year’s resolutions: prepare to take some notes from the experts.
The easiest way to achieve a New Year’s resolution is to break it down into small actions, preferably habits that can compound. These small actions repeated over time consistently form a system which then acts as an expressway to your goal.
Before you fall into the trap of thinking that there is a one size-fits-all option, there is not. If you have been living under some rock, the most common tool advertised is setting a SMART Goal. That means you set a goal that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. For beginners (or even more experienced ones), this framework keeps a clear outcome in mind. But more importantly, it keeps you on track and prevents you from making the deadliest mistake – being distracted.
A proper plan consists of steps and actions that can be taken consistently, over a period of time, that when executed will at the end bring you the desired outcome. It will be tough
The trick to this is designing methods to prevent yourself from “falling off the bandwagon”. If you are the kind who likes precision and failsafe measures, contingencies and alternatives are useful.
New Year’s Resolution: Cutting Junk Food
If you intend to cut “junk food”, the basic routine goes – define junk food (list the names of the fast-food/junk food if you wish), steer clear of them, plan out your meals. But, you may then consider going the extra mile of writing and sourcing specific alternatives if all else fails. This could be meal-prep or eating healthy snacks.
Perhaps the greatest risk to the resolution is being hungry and not knowing what to go for; and in the uncertainty, junk food feels like a comfortable last resort. And before you know it, you sit in a pool of guilt knowing you failed to stick with the plan. Worst of all, you give up the whole thing after one slip-up. When the next year comes around, history repeats itself.
Not all is lost after one slip-up for a New Year’s resolution, especially if your goal is to “cut” rather than “eliminate”. If you take the effort to plan out when you allow for a “cheat meal” and when it’s time for healthy alternatives, you give yourself a real fighting chance at following the programme.
It’ll look different for everyone, but “everyone” is not your concern. Your concern is you. It might start with eating junk food 3 times a month, or 2 times a week. So long as the goal is a lower frequency than the current one, you are making progress.
You then have to accept that it will take time to achieve that resolution. If you should find yourself impatient to achieve that goal, think of it as motivation to keep going.
New Year’s Resolution: My Tips
Here are some of my tips, from my experience of building more consistent practices like writing this blog.
Your resolution is yours – own it. It is a promise you made to yourself and you ought to keep it as you would with anyone else. It should not be seen as “an interruption”.
Ignore judgement – focus only on what you want to achieve and not what others think of you while you are trying to achieve it; they usually can’t help you with resolutions.
Do it for an intrinsic reason – you have to want to do it for yourself and the benefits it brings for you. It is far easier to stick with it when you believe in why you are doing it.
To sum this up with brevity and levity, my biggest tip is this: New Year’s resolutions are just a hoax because if you really want to achieve something new, it does not need to wait till January. And if do fail to meet some arbitrary marker of success this year, take comfort in knowing you are not alone.
I recently spoke to an 18-year old at work, during which my brain only had one thought: “You’re 20, that’s older than 18! You’re OLD!” As you might know by now, I am that person who thinks too much about his life and the people in it. (Sometimes, even the people not in it.) Thinking about the past is a common human trait, but also a rather unique human ability as memory functions differently in other animals.
That said, indulging too much in walks down memory lane does no one any good. In fact, rumination leads to depression (I am not a psychologist, but some food for thoughtbout).
Often, I look back at my past schooling years and wonder what I have really done with my life. Personally, nostalgia does not fit the bill here, but wistfulness comes close.
The ‘Past’ At 20 Years Old
There is not much ‘past’ to think about at 20. Yes, many would concur. But because I am 20, every memory and experience feels stretched, feeling longer than it really is.
According to Oliver Burkeman’s book, ‘Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals’, all humans only get around 4000 weeks of time in their lifetime.
At 20, I have lived around 1080 weeks. That’s a quarter of my lifetime, most of which I hardly remember as a child. And of those I remember, fortunately, most are positive and silly memories.
When thinking about the past in terms of years, the immediate image that comes to my mind is always school-associated. Each year’s number is always tied to my stage of schooling. In 2020, I was in Secondary 3, aged 15 (ironically, it was one of my best years despite the pandemic; needless to say, I am not much into socialising) and I was introduced to Netflix. In 2015, I was Primary 4, aged 10. I mostly remember struggling in math class (a trend over the last decade) and being introduced to math tuition.
This is not surprising as I believe what you focus and spend most time and energy on growing up is probably what dominates your memory when thinking back to that time.
A strange observation of my own memory is that what felt like 3 weeks to a month in perception when I was 13, now feels like only 3 days, 8 years later. In reality, that 3 weeks to a month was 16 days. This is particularly so for vacations.
So, time compresses itself in memory. Only those parts that stand out stay while others are forgotten. By this logic, I might forget more things in my life than I remember when I expire.
Thinking About The Past, In The Future
I assume when old people look back on their yesteryears, their memories play like a highlight reel of their lives. The reel includes both the good and the bad, with the only criterion to be ‘played’ being that it must be an extraordinary memory.
It could be the first time you had a crush, or when your teacher scolded you, or when you made your first million dollars, or when you saw your own child for the first time.
Conversely, I doubt the first thing they remember is making that 105th pot of morning coffee in their old coffee pot, on the 4th of February, with a gloomy sky.
However, I believe they might remember making a pot of coffee on a specific morning. It could be the first day after college exams, when they wake up feeling fresh and free again, unchained from the burden of academia to be present enough that they notice the ambient noises and enjoy the simplicity of just being in the morning.
The ‘Past’ At 80 Years Old
60 years down the road, no one knows what might happen. But looking back at the past would probably still be trendy, just as we look back 60 years ago.
Who Would Have Thought?
At 80, there is plenty of ‘past’, so much that I hope I chuckle with content when I think about my ‘past’. My memories at 80 might very well reflect a smaller life than I lived. What I remember may only be a small fraction of everything I lived.
At 80, I worry that I’ll forget what it’s like to….
Run fast enough that I feel the wind in my hair and face;
Climb out of bed without feeling weak in my joints;
Look near and far without glasses;
Imagine a future with endless potential;
Lift relatively heavy objects safely;
Jump.
The things we take for granted in youth, we probably end up wishing it were granted to us.
So I suppose when we see young people in the future (those who are not born yet), we feel a pinch from Father Time, a sober nudge that our time is not infinite.
Knowing that we have used up much of our time, it becomes easy to say: “What I wouldn’t give to have my time back.” At the end of our one singular lifetime, it’s definitively clear how short it was. And it’s clear in part because our highlight reel of memories are not replayed in individual seconds, but in the number of extraordinary moments we had.
We could give up everything we have in this lifetime for another fresh start, but that means living this life again without knowing everything you currently do. And that brings you back to where you originally started.
We can think about the past all the time. But living on either side of time (in youth or age) is an experience you can only have once.
Think Less About The Past Until It Has Passed
A quote that I once heard from an older character in a movie goes along the lines of ‘we have more yesterdays than tomorrows’. A sombre reminder, this has always been lurking deep in my mind, almost always urging me to feel like every second needs to be valued and well spent. But any human not yet close to his expiration date knows it’s practically impossible to live like that.
Burkeman’s book explains our struggle to face our mortality, which leads us to find ways to avoid confronting it. Thinking about the past, reminiscing too frequently about ‘better times’ or ‘those days’ seem aptly like another manifestation of that struggle. That and because it always feels better and more comfortable in hindsight, even the uglier experiences.
Thinking about the past is then a form of escapism if it is an uncontrolled indulgence. But it certainly does not mean we should stop.
Perhaps it is apt to think of your past experiences as a single extraordinary moment or story in your memory collection, and all these compile into a book that is your life story. The more epic the experience, the greater the thrill; the more the experience, the longer the journey and life.
Try thinking about the past less, until it has passed, and experience other things. Your future self might just enjoy ‘memory dividends’ next time when looking back at today.
Some Christmas Market Decorations At Gardens By The Bay
Thinking About The Past Is A One-Way Street
Some common sense tells us we cannot undo or ‘correct’ our past mistakes. We can relive it as we think about the past, but it’s cast in stone. I try to remind myself that mistakes are not always bad.
Mistakes you made wholeheartedly and for all the right reasons become adventures of your youth.
Mistakes you made out of fear, that created an emptiness, become regrets.
Then it seems mistakes are inevitable.
No matter how much we want to, we don’t get to choose our time and there are no do-overs. Thinking about the past is a one-way street. And you can only do it once you have lived the past.
And that past is right now.
So, if there is anything to conclude about time and my life, it’s that it’ll pass. And so it does for us all. We reminisce about the good, rustic, rough-edged days of the past, so we should build a better future, so as to continue thinking about the past with pride and wistfulness.
If you look at your life hard enough, it fits into a typical template. Sometimes, it’s a depressing one, and you can’t help but wonder: is this the rest of my life? Depending on the environment in which you grew up, it differs for every person. Mine is: Primary School, Secondary School, Junior College, National Service, University, Work, Retire, Die.
Sound familiar? Oversimplified, sure. Accurate, almost eerily so.
I think too much like a grumpy old man for a 20 year old. I frequently ruminate about the purpose and trajectory of my life – and if I’m feeling really introspective – those of others’ lives too. As a habit, I picture their lives, jobs, personalities 10 years down the road and assign them to a particular ‘template’ of a person that I’d see on the street today – a corporate worker, a sales assistant, an insurance agent…
Though, if you’re struggling with finding that mythical ‘purpose’ or ‘meaning’ in life, check out this interview.
Introducing The Life Template
For some of us, our lives are ‘laid out’ paths. It’s like a life template for new humans (us, obviously) that gets passed down from parents and schools. They segment our lives so that the only goal is to progress from one stage to the next in a very telic-driven process, for the rest of our lives until we “finish” life. It becomes scarily easy to drift through life’s stages.
Be it law school, med school, Harvard, Oxford or any other conventionally perceived ‘success’ routes are examples of the life templates. Having only these goalposts as a teenager without understanding life’s possibilities can do more harm than good. (Although, conventional wisdom also states that parents and schools work toward the betterment of children, in theory if not in effect.)
Indeed, a sharp, clear goal with unwavering faith that ‘you must make it’ or ‘you have worked your life for it’ can push you over almost any obstacle. But a narrow tunnel vision for a 17 year-old whose whole self-worth and self-esteem ride on whether that goal turns into reality proves greatly risky. Failure to hit those goals can end terribly. Afterall, the life template does not usually include contingencies.
So what of the advice that we should only focus on ONE thing? If that ONE thing happens to be studying or following a certain life template without understanding why, it’s probably a case of misapplication. The advice serves to eliminate noise and not isolate your ability to explore life. And hence, upon setting your sights on something deemed worthy of pursuit despite the opportunity costs, in which you believe with deep conviction, the time is ripe for purely focusing on that ONE thing.
That said, the education system and social circumstances can make that realisation and understanding hard to obtain.
The Fastest 80 000 Hours
‘Work’ takes up the bulk of our lives, with an average calculated figure of 80 000 hours. Ironically, it’s the part that gets skipped over the fastest and most of it ends in a blur for most adults. As I fast forward through this ‘template’ of life, I see the well-trodden future which revolves around an office-bound job that sucks the life out of me. (I have not yet heard an office-bound worker passionately share his joy for the job.)
At the end of it all, the blur of ‘work’ would be the fastest 80 000 hours of your life.
For those who secretly crave more than a working life spent behind a desk and in meeting rooms, surely the question you ask after seeing your potential future would be: is this the rest of my life?
Is there an invisible force that simply pushes people further down into their life templates?
Call me young and stupid, but I stubbornly refuse to believe that this is all there is for us – a subpar life template. And so, it begs the question: Is this the rest of my life?
Having to spend 80 000 hours doing ONE thing that you hate and calling it a ‘career’ is a tough choice, but one you are totally free to make. But perhaps you are fooled by the life template. You can, in fact, do other things in 80 000 hours beyond the miserable job, if you so decide.
Going Beyond The Education System
Perhaps this is where my education system has failed me. I was not taught imagination. I discovered it after graduation. Conventional advice to ‘explore your interests’ and ‘pursue your interests’ are as useful as the bird chirping downstairs. The real intention, however, holds some value.
It is less about ‘interests’ than it is about your ability to go beyond the education system to learn about yourself and this world. And in supposedly ‘exploring your interests’, well-intentioned relatives and educators hope you experience some Eureka moment for your life’s trajectory.
Consider a fictional dude: Tom, 19, is on track to being a corporate mid-level manager, 35, overseeing ‘internal operations developmental projects’ in his stable, but boring and dry job. That might be his entire work life.
Is this a bad outcome? Maybe that’s a poor question.
A better question might be: Is that a life he deems worthy of pursuing?
Of course, everyone is entitled to ‘live their own lives’. But, that line does little to explain the average worker’s misery about the job. And while no rule mandates enjoyment at work, I would prefer 80 000 hours of average positive emotions over negative ones.
Whether a job to you is for money or for fulfillment, you are the only one that decides if it is worthy of your pursuit. Plenty of individual reasons exist to justify holding the jobs we do. Tom might choose his lifelong office job for the money and stability because he prefers the comfort. But the rest of us (not-Tom real humans) must not fall into the trap of believing that Tom’s life is meant for us.
We must think beyond the education system.
Find Your Own Life
As a student, I have been encouraged by the system to think more deeply. And perhaps I have manually brought that to overdrive. Thinking deeply can easily lead to overthinking and a sense of overwhelm without a tether to keep you grounded.
Deep thinking has its perks. You begin to piece together the puzzle that is your life and this world; to find your own life beyond ‘school’ or ‘friends’ or ‘sports’ and see who you really are.
Oh, and you’ll never find it easier to have a conversation with yourself confronting your life choices.
Conventional advice is not wrong. Neither is pineapple on pizza, or having cake for breakfast. It all depends on what you have decided to believe, and sometimes, that belief was ingrained in you from young. In that case, it might not even be your belief; it is your environment’s.
We question all our beliefs, except for the ones that we really believe in, and those we never think to question.
– Orson Scott Card, Speaker For The Dead
Your future life doesn’t have to be exactly like what you were told in the past.
The ‘good job’ and the life you will have can be entirely separate from the picture school paints. But school does not teach you that. And that’s my realisation as I turned 19 after graduation from Junior College. It has since sparked my curiosity to think about my life template.
The education system taught me to think about my work, but rarely emphasized the bigger picture. To you, who may be like my younger self: DON’T settle for the life template because you have not explored life, or because that’s what you’ve been told. Go and find your own life.
There is more, at least I hope there continues to be, to the future life than a measly life template.
At any stage in life, you will be in crisis. That’s a psychological fact, by the way. There is no one day in the future when “everything will be peachy”, as any aged individual would have you know. But always facing ordeals and challenges over your lifetime is a good reason to start figuring out the ways of overcoming great challenges.
And no, I doubt anyone can give you a snappy answer on “how to live your life”. That said, I’ll take a stab at one part of it; here is my open secret to overcoming great challenges.
Making The Big Thing The ONLY Thing
There’s no uphill battle like doing something new and big for the first time – learning to drive a manual car (like me), getting a new job, or singing in a concert, and – if you’re like me – taking the final school exam every single year. In these seasons of your life, at 15 or 25, nothing else in your world matters more than just completing that thing.
“Just let me bloody finish this!” is my common thought.
As a student, I only thought about exams (for about 10 years). Now, all I think about is passing my driver’s test and gaining different real-world experiences.
My point is: overcoming great challenges that exist now, whether it’s a goal or a circumstance, should be the only thing you focus on. We love to “multi-task”, but we suck at that. That’s also a psychological fact. So stop trying to be Superman and start being Clark Kent (the underwear goes inside the pants). Embrace that you only have so much time to do a few important things. Then start to do them.
Narrowing your focus directs your precious energy, time and efforts towards achieving or overcoming that challenge you are facing. It becomes…a priority. The list of priority is basically your to-do list arranged by importance, but you can still only do 1 thing actively at a time. That NEVER changes.
Good old “practice” applies to (and improves) almost everything; but doing everything at once negates its effectiveness. Practice won’t make perfect, but rigour brings you close. And that’s the secret to overcoming great challenges. Rigour: an underrated word that substitutes “grinding” or “hard work”, but with a minor difference. This difference, I find, packs a hell of a lot more than a punch.
The Difference Between Rigour and Practice
At 16, my physics teacher used to say “When you have time, practice some physics questions. If not how are you going improve?” He also said something like “If 10 questions are not enough, then do 20.” The class loved him.
Needless to say, as the impressionable and (rather) naive student wanting to do well, I did the 20 questions…and then some. But it was the “and then some” that made all the difference. The difference between rigour and practice is intensity. If practice is an evening jog, rigour is an all-out sprint…daily. Practice is playing for sport, rigour is competing at the Olympics. Practice is a willingness to accept, perhaps reluctantly, mediocrity but rigour is the outright refusal of it.
I only discovered this open secret to overcoming great challenges long after my exams and graduation from JC when I connected the dots inspired by a video from Alex Hormozi (yes, he is a running theme around here in this season of my life).
Rigour automatically sets you apart. There are not many people who hone their craft or skill intentionally with rigour. If you want to be a great podcaster, making 21 episodes would put you in the top 1% of all podcasters. When practice is done constantly, repeatedly and consciously, it evolves into rigour.
Pretty time-consuming, no?
If you catch my drift, you’d probably understand why the big thing in your life should be the only thing you focus on – it’s the only way you can apply rigour. In overcoming great challenges, you have to spend a great deal of time, effort and energy on it.
I hate to admit it to myself, but there are no shortcuts sometimes.
Do I Have Rigour?
My favourite litmus test for having rigour is simply measuring the input of time and energy. Now, the result-oriented among us would jump at me and say “you should see how much output you create and how much work you do.” They completely miss the point.
Rigour is about the time and energy you spend engaging and dealing with the pesky problem. It’s about making it the centre of your focus. Treating it like a burger to be assembled at a fast-food chain is not the way to go. Think along the lines of…finding the best way to assemble the best burger.
Here is what I do to apply rigour to accelerate my progress in some endeavour or overcome great challenges. I start by first dedicating an hour a day to doing the thing. If possible, make it an hour of deep work. Once it proves to be manageable, I add another hour a day. Should you find yourself dreaming of the particular problem or challenge, you know you are on the right track (I do not advise aiming for this).
In learning to drive a manual car in a driving school with a ridiculously crowded enrolment, I am forced into competition for available lessons. Passing the test becomes overcoming a great challenge, as if it was not tough enough. Conventional “practice” goes out the window here without practical lessons.
But the rigour is limitless. No one stops me from taking notes, reviewing lesson takeaways, watching videos, doing mental visualisations and talking to others about it (and let’s not forget the undue worrying that comes by default).
The Absolute Lack Of Lessons Available On An Average Day
Sometimes, I find my rigour seems unwarranted for something as trivial as learning to drive. It could be a relaxing process (how I wish it were so). But to save on cost and maximise learning, rigour is the answer. Indeed, sometimes circumstances limit our choices.
Like The Year, Life Has Seasons
Your great challenge in this season of life would differ from the one in 10 years. Undoubtedly, the next season of my life – university – comes with a new set of paralysing and debilitating challenges (but they say uni is a great time in life). You’ll never know what the next season or challenge is, but that hardly stops you from learning how to deal with it.
Knowing it will rain does not prevent it from raining, but you might consider bringing an umbrella. That said, the free-spirits advocate for “dancing in the rain” – a cinematically glorified act I have yet to try.
The seasons and problems will change (just think Taylor Swift’s “Eras”) as time marches on. Knowing that rigour is a tool you can use in overcoming great challenges provides some peace of mind, like a semi-safety net. But perhaps what it truly symbolises is your belief in your ability to figure things out, with the aid of rigour, no matter what.
Note to future self: everything will be okay in hindsight.
I am now in a strange period of time before starting university. I have 9 free months in totality – almost a gap year – before school starts. From now, there’s 8 months left. 8 months is a lifetime back in JC or high school. Days felt so long back then. Yet as of late, I find myself thinking: ‘What should I do?’
Nowadays, I am confronted by some of the bigger questions in life, the ones that school only mentions in passing before hustling you to the classroom for more lessons to pass your exams.
Do these sound familiar?
‘I don’t know what I really want to do.’
‘How will I make money in future?’
‘What should I do in this period of free time? I need to spend my time well now.’
‘What if I end up like those people hating their jobs?’
ENOUGH! You’re asking the right questions, like I am, but asking them all at once is a successful way to be overwhelmed. The next thing you know, you’ll be crippled in bed by anxiety.
The To-Not List
If you have things on your mind that you’d like to do, but have not come around to doing them (for all sorts of valid reasons you think you have), try NOT making a To-Do list. Yes, that’s right. Instead, make something like a To-Not list.
There is a suggestion attributed to Warren Buffett that you make a list of 25 things you would like to do, and circle the top 5. Place those 5 in another list, and instead of just focusing on those 5, you want to IGNORE entirely anything related to the 20 remaining things.
You might have come across this idea if you read some productivity/self-help book or watched some YouTube video. I learnt about this through “The 5 Types of Wealth” by Sahil Bloom, a book I recommend reading if you have the time to ponder about the bigger life questions. This book cuts through much of the modern BS we are accustomed to living in to unravel what truly matters to us. To you.
I struggled very much when deciding what to do for this period of time. I desperately wanted to ‘maximise’ this time. If you’re someone who constantly tries to optimise for productivity and performance, you’ll spend much time trying to squeeze in so many things you ‘want to do’ in this time. So much that it only satisfies your mind.
In reality, at the end of the day, you inevitably think ‘I didn’t do as much as I thought I would’. And the cycle goes on.
An Idea To Try Random Things
So, how do you overcome the “What should I do” obstacle? Well, I first discovered what this period of time is. Well, you can’t solve a problem you can’t define, right?
Ali Abdaal introduced it to me as ‘liminal space’. And so began my marvelous idea of trying random things in exploration.
Since I did not really anything in mind to do, I decided that regardless of what I did, so long as they are new and different things, I’d always gain something from the experience. Even if it was just the experience itself. Sometimes, the experience and stories are worth the effort.
You might think, “yeah, but I need to make money.” But unless the concern is so desperately urgent for today, consider how you actually have a lifetime to “earn money”; but you don’t have a lifetime of liminal space.
You, and I, will never get this era of life back. Most of the “later” and “someday” never come. And that scares me. Sometimes this is how the ideas become regrets, and the only chance to prevent that is now.
What do you have for “Later” and “Someday”?
Going for that summer beach trip with friends?
Diving to see marine reefs?
Reading that one book you keep thinking about?
Failure Is The Bill For Learning
There is no ‘life’ subject in school. You don’t learn how to live a life, because you can do it in so many ways. But growing up Asian, ‘successful life’, ‘good life’, and ‘the-only-acceptable-proper life’ always meant graduating university, getting a job, working at that job for decades and hopefully retiring to ‘enjoy the golden years’.
Experiences and abstract notions like joy and happiness were conveniently omitted (for sound reasons, I am certain). After all, how can anyone define your happiness, right?
You learn as you go, as I am now, through random experiences and actions. Sometimes I just want to stop doing everything and do absolutely nothing. And that’s perfectly fine. You just have to tolerate your brain pestering you endlessly with ‘be productive’ and ‘need to work’ like me.
It’s a cruel mind game. You can’t win.
In fact, you always lose.
An Excuse To Hide From Life
It’s incredibly comfortable to do only familiar things for a long time. (Maybe that’s how some people work decades at the same job.) But if you are like me, 20, able to do and try anything, this is as much time freedom and empowerment you’ll ever get before the “life overhead” gets to you.
This is where your story truly begins, where your adventure takes off. Like every hero in the movie, you face a choice: do the hard, crazy and heroic thing or pretend like nothing happened, shy away and wind up living life like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day (another classic by the way).
Short of throwing caution out the window, just consider doing that one thing you’ve been curious about, or afraid to try. Because if failure is going to hurt you, the time it hurts least will be now, when you have nothing to lose. AT ALL.
Now, doing anything and failing the first time will suck, believe me because I tried. But you get to choose between giving up and trying again like that hero in the movie.
Liminal space is liberating. For me, I have never had this much time and freedom to try and learn and explore. Yes, it is fortunate. If this has not been enough to convince you to try something adventurous (and this could be going to the cinema alone, or riding a bicycle all day across town…), if it has not convinced you to do something incredible for yourself, to stack experiences, then maybe nothing will.
My first Jet-Ski ride, because there’s never a “good time” for this. And I am never regretting just trying this for fun.
So that scary thing at the back of your mind? Try it. Keep that experience. And live to fight another day.
Some day you’ll either forget it ever happened or you’ll share the memories as you tell your stories. Either way, you lose nothing and gain everything.
“What should I do?”
Why not start with that thing you’ve always wanted to try? You might never stop.
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