Quirkbag

Category: Quirkbag Collections

  • Why Is Discipline Extremely Boring?

    Why Is Discipline Extremely Boring?

    Quirkbag Collection #46 – 31.05.26

    In many self-help books, discipline is always crowned champion of the basics to change your life. Everything seems to include discipline, like it’s a magical ingredient to a pot of stew. But what does discipline really look like? Is it draining the thrill out of your life to do all the things you hate? Or is it about consistently doing something for a ridiculously long period of time? 

    Well, maybe a bit of both. 

    My Idea Of Discipline

    The way I like to think of discipline is as a filter. It strains everything that happens in your life, at least the ones you notice. Discipline makes the decisions for you, determining whether an action or behaviour is acceptable or not. Discipline gives you the clear answer as to whether you should go to that club the night before an important event. It tells you whether an impulsive temptation is the right thing to give into. It’s like an “action compass” for us. We know inherently if the choice is beneficial to us or not. 

    This “action compass” is more reliable than we think. Its presence is what makes you feel guilty after something is done. You saw the better choice, but you didn’t take it. But if you did, and made every choice the “correct” one based on discipline, would that give an extremely fruitful life? Probably so, but only in the long run. 

    What then of the short-term? 

    When we discuss delayed gratification, we don’t think to appease the short-term human cravings. By pushing all the rewards to the future, we risk never even enjoying it. Yet, that never seems to be the main problem for most people. We know how to get our daily dopamine fix. Taking some enjoyment in the present moment is easy. The trick is knowing where to draw the line so that we are not constantly chasing instant gratification. That is where discipline comes in. 

    How To Get Disciplined

    Discipline is the by-product of consistency. Consistency is built through habit. Habit is built through (James Clear’s book “Atomic Habits”) repetition and reminders. Without regular practice, it’s very hard to become proficient at a skill. Besides, consistency to practice anything can itself be hard to achieve. Who wants to keep doing the same thing everyday for who knows how long?

    You do! You have to. 

    Consistency is what allows you to practice, build experience, gain knowledge and improve at literally anything. Constantly trying to do a task is what makes the task easier over time. But most people quit at the start. That’s when things can seem the hardest; when the path ahead looks the longest. It’s when you must fight the hardest against the urge to quit. 

    Consistency is playing the long game. Tell yourself that it will take time, that your growth will only be seen later, after all the boring, painful repetitions. Because it’s true. Knowing this makes being consistent easier. It makes doing the task again for one more day easier to accept. We must accept that the reward is not given today, but some day in future. And to redeem the reward, we must keep doing the task till that day comes. 

    If you measure consistency in terms of the number of days an action is done, the longer the streak, the more routine and normal it becomes, the easier it gets. 

    My Duolingo Streak Since 2024; Never Thought It Would Last

    The Auto-Pilot Discipline

    Discipline exists on a spectrum. Fixed routines, fixed tasks, fixed timing, fixed everything. Boring. Stale. Repetitive. But, effective. This is discipline elevated to auto-pilot – a lifestyle built around the systems meant to achieve certain goals. 

    Whether this discipline is good or bad depends on whether you can accept the resulting lifestyle. Not everyone likes the same lifestyle routines. 

    Auto-pilot deals with every possible choice with an outcome to derail the plan in advance – with discipline. No deciding what is for lunch because you have meal prepped. No choosing between new clothes because you take the train home immediately. Decisions are made ahead of time to avoid confrontation, temptation or autonomy. Life is without novelty, thrill or difference between days. Because everything is fixed, predictability and similarity cause boredom in day-to-day life.

    There is little to no room for ‘error’ because discipline has overridden autonomy. The default answer to anything is “no”. Autonomy is then the nemesis of discipline. Without autonomy, discipline reigns as default. Autonomy creates possibilities that cause distractions. Distractions that lure you toward undisciplined lifestyles. 

    A disciplined lifestyle is one that needs deliberate attention and decision-making. It can be done in advance (like in auto-pilot), or in the moment (avoiding possibilities). But it requires you to choose the harder, uncomfortable path. And this is why autonomy usually works against discipline. We avoid the choice that makes us different from others, that makes us stand out. 

    The Autonomous Discipline

    There is a point where discipline becomes easy. It’s autonomous. Your discipline filter works subconsciously, like a well-oiled machine, that you have so much trust in yourself to intentionally disregard what discipline tells you. 

    Saying yes intentionally to ice-cream while dieting. Skipping exercise amid regular training. Waking up later than usual without making your bed. 

    For some, breaking the routine, giving in to the easier, lazier option, may be normal. But disciplined people would feel discomfort the moment something is done in contrast with their identity. Someone who goes to the gym 5x a week feels weird if he only went 3x. Or someone who makes the bed daily finds it unacceptable to leave the bed messy for once. 

    Autonomous discipline is what I would say is the ‘license to deviate’. You have become so disciplined that you know the habit, routine and behaviour will remain intact even if you deviated from the default action. Skipping one day of exercise knowing full well you’ll hit the gym the following day is an example. This is likely the case when your actions, routines and habits have become part of your identity. 

    Having this ability to trust that you’ll choose the harder option again the next day is when autonomy is now acting in your favour. Autonomy no longer acts as the nemesis of discipline, but complements it to give a more textured lifestyle. You no longer need auto-pilot.  

    Are You Disciplined? 

    I’d love to say that I am extremely disciplined. To have the consistency in doing everything daily to achieve everything I want. But we’re humans. We’re flawed. We’re going to fail in some regard. And that’s okay. 

    Ironically, we only call it discipline when it comes to things we hate doing, rather avoid doing, but yet always beneficial to us in time. The things we love to constantly do are then called “guilty pleasures”. 

    Everyone can start with one task once a week. Whether it is a new hobby, a new goal, or anything at all, start there. Once you start, it gets easier to integrate the habit or task into a routine. Set low expectations but make the effort to complete the task. 

    It will be hard battling your discomfort, emotions and mental excuses to not do the task. But remember, to become different, to improve, you have to sit with it and let it happen. It may suck for a bit, but it won’t be forever. Start today, never stop.

    Consistency is never impressive in the moment, only at the END.

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    Hi! I’m Zac, the guy behind this serendipitous, quirky blog. I’m currently on a quest to find out more about myself before Uni begins – who I am and what life has to offer. This blog is my little space where I step out of my comfort zone to share my thoughts and life experiences. I hope you enjoy reading the weekly posts. Share them if you like, or not.

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  • You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know: Dunning-Kruger Effect

    You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know: Dunning-Kruger Effect

    Quirkbag Collection #45 – 24.05.26

    There are 4 stages of competence when we learn anything. They are known competence, unknown competence, known incompetence, unknown incompetence. You might know them simply as “strengths” and “weaknesses”. But you may be unaware you had particular strengths or weaknesses as you don’t know what you don’t know. That’s the Dunning-Kruger effect. 

    So…“What Are Your Strengths and Weaknesses?”

    The typical interview question aims to test someone’s self-awareness. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is easy if you have done plenty of things or have hundreds of hobbies. But most times, the question yields boring answers like “persistent”, “disciplined”, “careful” and “perfectionism”. Most people aren’t even sure what these words mean. 

    These are usually what people feel about themselves based on what things they have done. 

    The true test of strengths and weaknesses come when we face new situations. From navigating completely new environments (like travelling alone) to learning something new (a skill or job). The complexity and uncertainty involved shows who we really are. Like waves that polish the beach, our character is only revealed when we face different waves of life. 

    Through these experiences, the hard-earned wisdom of how we react, behave and think comes to us. Clarity about our character and style surfaces. We now understand how “good” or “bad” we really are at learning or problem-solving. The best reference comes from benchmarking ourselves against others at a technical or professional level. 

    Sometimes, it forces you to admit that you aren’t as “awesome” or “competent” as you thought. Bruised ego, poor you. 

    Now, think again. What are your strengths and weaknesses? A story or experience should float into your mind. Not a buzzword adjective. 

    Another Question: ‘What are some AFIs?’ 

    Simple. It’s the “known incompetence”. We think to improve upon what we know and observe. These can be tangible outcomes like accidents, mishaps or events or intangible observations like confusion, inefficiency or lack of communication. If you can see it, identify it, label it, you can probably fix it. 

    The hardest part comes when you try to fix what you don’t know is “broken”. That’s unknown incompetence. It’s like trying to find your shadow in darkness. 

    But you know there’s something there to tackle. You feel it. There’s an invisible obstacle impeding your progress. Like a 5 year-old in bed at night, you think there’s an imaginary monster. Ever hear the silence that falls upon the room when someone asks for improvements, that’s probably one reason. There’s the “imaginary monster” without a name that lurks. 

    That’s the Dunning-Kruger effect at work. You don’t know what is missing but there is something missing. How can you improve on something if you don’t know what you don’t know? If there is an invisible monster? 

    A Graph Of Perceived vs Actual Competence Showing Dunning-Kruger Effect
    Photo From Nesslabs.com/dunning-kruger-effect

    The Nesslabs article suggests meta-cognitive skills. That means enhanced self-awareness, more than what yields the boring answers to interview questions. Unknown incompetence needs you to “figure out what you don’t know”. But what if there’s nothing in mind to try? 

    The Pasta Method: Stumbling and Fumbling

    In learning about sales, I have received advice from others that trying absolutely anything and everything is what will help you gain knowledge. I call this the “pasta method”. This is not knowledge of sales, but of yourself. It’s to find out what works for you. 

    Learning how you come across to others and the way you speak help to increase your circle of known incompetence. Why? 

    Because you get instant feedback. A forgiving smile, a light chuckle, a confused look, an angry tone. Everything is the result of a certain trigger from you. You get to know what works. You get to know where you need to work on because of the observable signs of incompetence – their lack of interest, frustration, annoyance and more. 

    Facing the Dunning-Kruger effect requires more than just hard work or effort. It requires smart work. Hard work is easy when the task simply needs to be done, in repetition over time. Smart work adds a layer of thinking (a very difficult thing) which determines the direction of progress. In other words, smart work before hard work. Smart work brings changes, tests, experiments.

    Learning sales was easy initially because there were only so few sentences and words in the basic script. But the art of sales – holding conversations, breaking tensions and showing value – needs time and a lot of smart work. It’s easy to knock 1000 doors and say the same thing. It’s much harder to knock 1000 doors and use every door as a feedback loop to overcome the Dunning-Kruger effect. 

    You don’t know what you don’t know until you try something new and see yourself fail. Ask others for their feedback, actions or experiences with their learning progress.

    Now, smart work requires the “pasta method”. Throw everything and anything that you have heard or thought of and see what sticks. Then, assemble the pieces to see what you didn’t know works. That’s a stumbling and fumbling step towards killing the imaginary monster. Now, repeat it again. See why it’s tough?

    A Drop Of Wisdom

    Stoics believed that wisdom was the mother of virtues. From wisdom came courage, temperance and justice. It’s your ability to act and to not act. Wisdom comes from experience; knowledge comes from learning. We don’t know what we don’t know because we have no knowledge or wisdom yet. It’s space that has not been explored. 

    In Ryan Holiday’s “Wisdom Takes Work” about the stoic virtue, it is clear that wisdom needs time, just as compounding works with time. I always tried to fast-track and compress my learning curves in everything over the months. But sales taught me that hard-won wisdom and experience cannot be “optimised” or “expedited”. 

    You just have to take the time. Sometimes, the long route is the short route. I have met the Dunning-Kruger effect as I learn to do sales. Everyone will at some point when they try different things for the first time. But I hope that meta-cognitive skills (aka strong self-awareness) stay in abundance in people.

    That’s the only way we’ll ever slay the imaginary monster – by making it real. 

    Go ahead, read my other posts!

    Hi! I’m Zac, the guy behind this serendipitous, quirky blog. I’m currently on a quest to find out more about myself before Uni begins – who I am and what life has to offer. This blog is my little space where I step out of my comfort zone to share my thoughts and life experiences. I hope you enjoy reading the weekly posts. Share them if you like, or not.

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  • Learning To Let Go

    Learning To Let Go

    Quirkbag Collection #44 – 17.05.26

    A few months ago, I set myself the goal to let go of things emotionally and mentally. I thought it was a useful skill to start learning early. Learning to let go is one of the hardest skills around because it is completely intangible. It’s far easier said than done. 

    You might have met people who let things slide easily. They have no retention of negative influences and they move on quickly. Great, right? Meanwhile, you are stuck thinking about that casual remark someone said about you 3 months ago. That tiniest thing someone said or did just annoys you. How could you let it go? 

    An Emotional Impression Like An Anchor

    The seeming attack on our identity leaves a deep emotional impression on us. Whether it’s a random joke or a casual remark with zero malicious intent, it still feels personal, doesn’t it? It is an anchor for our mind. We can’t stop thinking about it. The speaker meant no harm but we felt hurt anyways. It’s why the memory lingers in our mind. 

    People love to tell us to “just let it go” – or my personal favourite line: “just walk away”. But it’s not as simple as that. Anyone who has tried to calm someone down by saying “just calm down” probably aggravated the person more. 

    “Calm Down” Does Not Create The Calming Effect

    The emotional impression leaves us hanging because our self-worth and self-esteem also come into play. Yes, those things make us feel bad about ourselves and add to our frustration. A random event or remark might make you question your own self-worth, thereby hurting your self-esteem. If something makes you feel inferior, you feel small, annoyed, frustrated that you are not enough. If something offends you, you feel hurt, defensive and self-righteous. 

    “I am just not good enough for that.”

    “Of course I am not blah blah!” 

    “Wow, he doesn’t like me at all. I must have done something wrong.”

    The memory of what upset you would keep replaying in your mind. Over, and over, and over. Before you eat, before you sleep, when you are on the train, when you walk home. 

    You just can’t let go. 

    2 Keys For Letting Go 

    The first key to letting go is understanding the context of our emotions. We feel a certain way because we think our identity is attacked. We think deep down that it says something about us that is true. It’s usually something we don’t like or don’t want to associate ourselves with. Our ego is bruised because the comment pointed to the “ugly” bit of our personality. Now, it is “too close to home”. But it’s not because someone is really out to get us. 

    We can choose to change that flawed part of us or simply ignore it. In ignoring it, we inevitably accept that we are that thing/remark/joke. And that’s okay because owning that part of yourself makes you less susceptible to feeling hurt again. It helps you let go of other people’s opinions of you, because now, you know that’s part of who you are. 

    The other key to letting go is clarity of mind. Clarity shifts your perspective from subjective to something objective. It’s not necessarily about you. Reframe what you feel as something that is involuntary – an emotion you observe and then let subside. The emotion can be your reaction, but knowing it reflects the other person’s experience, feelings, behaviour and intention prevents you from thinking you are attacked. 

    Sometimes, they might just be angry, or upset, or having a bad day. It might be anything else in the world unrelated to you. The clarity gives you peace of mind that you are safe, and that it is irrelevant to you. You then make it easier to let go of the trivial matter yourself. 

    Rejection Builds Clarity

    When I knock on doors after doors any given day as a salesperson, around 50% don’t open. Of those that open, only about 10% are willing to have a conversation. That means 90% are resistant, defensive, negative or even agitated. My one-to-one interaction with people means the response I get comes purely from the things I say or do. It is a direct reflection of my presence. Of me. 

    Or is it? 

    If we experimented with another salesman knocking the same door, would they have faced the same reaction from behind the door? Maybe. What they think of “me” (the salesman knocking the door) is probably not the same as what they think of “me” (the person writing this blog). But I am still the same person. Just as you are wherever you go. 

    Someone’s mood, day, recent experiences and their perception of “salesman” in general dictates their reactions. It’s directed towards what you represent rather than who you are in reality. It’s the same for donation drives, for roadshows and more. No one knows you. 

    The rejection, insult, remark, or thing is only an instantaneous action directed at their imaginary mental version of you. It’s not modified to fit the real personal individual – you. 

    It Does Not Always Reflect Things About You

    But does one reaction from someone define who we are? Or do we choose to define who we are? 

    But What If It Still Hurts?

    That’s being human. Letting go is not as easy as that “Frozen” song. I would like to say that it gets better, but I can’t yet. Like most people, letting go is still my goal. Just like that scene with Tom Cruise, it’s pretty difficult. 

    Here’s 2 ways to think about our responses. The first is “death by the second arrow”. The first arrow is the things we cannot control in life. The second arrow is how negative we feel and react to it. We die from the second arrow. We have to let it hurt but stop creating additional pain for ourselves. Letting go of the subsequent emotional reactions is blocking the second arrow. 

    The other way is the empty boat analogy I learnt online. When a man’s boat crashes into another boat in a river filled with fog, he is enraged and reacts aggressively. As the fog around their boats clears, he sees more clearly and finds the other boat to be empty. Now, who would be angry at an empty boat adrift? Thinking about some things as empty boats helps to alleviate the emotional triggers and regulate our reactions. 

    We will always struggle to let go because we are human. To achieve the epitome of letting go is having some mythical combination of stoicism and zen-like disposition. While that’s not realistic for most of us, I believe having some fraction of it still goes a long way.

    Letting go is a skill for life, one that gives permission to move on unburdened.

    Go ahead, read my other posts!

    Hi! I’m Zac, the guy behind this serendipitous, quirky blog. I’m currently on a quest to find out more about myself before Uni begins – who I am and what life has to offer. This blog is my little space where I step out of my comfort zone to share my thoughts and life experiences. I hope you enjoy reading the weekly posts. Share them if you like, or not.

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  • What Scuba Diving In The Ocean Feels Like

    What Scuba Diving In The Ocean Feels Like

    Quirkbag Collection #43 – 10.05.26

    You probably have heard people say that there is a whole other world under the sea. It’s likely said by an ocean-lover. But like a typical person who has never been near oceans or marine life, I felt that to be exaggerated. That’s until the typical person tries scuba diving in the ocean. I can say that you will gain a whole different perspective, literally and metaphorically. 

    Scuba Diving In Thailand 

    I recently received my PADI Open Water Diver course certificate after 3 days of practicing diving skills and ocean diving. Being a certified diver, I can better access and discover a new world underwater. As this was my first time diving (as part of the certification), my eyes were opened wide when I plunged 12m below the water surface. Now thinking back, I am glad I took that plunge. 

    At Racha Yai, Thailand, I went for 4 ocean dives. Each dive was about 40 – 50 minutes which means I was underwater for around 3.5 hours in total. The location had several interesting sights. I saw a shipwreck, natural and artificial coral reefs and plenty of fish. From parrotfish, to pufferfish, starfish and barramundi, they all started looking exotic to me. But that’s where my PADI instructor explained our sightings after the dive. Seeing these fish underwater up close and personal truly leaves you amazed at just how diverse and colourful wildlife is. 

    Diving is an intimate underwater safari, one without barriers. There are few other ways to be more connected to nature’s wildlife. 

    On The Boat After An Enjoyable Dive On The Second Day

    Experiencing The World Underwater 

    Thalassophiles (the fancy word for ocean-lovers) aren’t lying when they claim that seeing the beauty of the ocean underwater can change your perspective. For just about everyone, scuba diving for the first time is surreal. Compared to snorkeling, you get to be so much closer to the fishes, move with them and observe them more clearly. It’s your private visit to their home where you can see them swim in the corals.

    View Of Fishes At The Water Surface From The Boat

    There is a very personal element to seeing all the wild marine life up close with your own eyes instead of in the aquarium. The way fishes slow down as they notice you and vice versa gives you a magical moment with nature. 

    Being at literal “point-blank” range leaves you in awe of just how vast and populated the ocean is. And once you see how beautiful the world underwater is, you can’t easily ignore it. All of a sudden, the environmental threat to oceans and its inhabitants feel so much more real and personal. You now know what is at stake, because you have seen it yourself. 

    On one of my dives, my instructor led me into a school of fishes. Instead of swimming away, the fishes (two-spot barramundi) encircled me entirely, observing me observing them. It was a perimeter of fish. How absolutely surreal! 

    Seriously, how could you not feel heart-wrenched when you see or hear about threats to oceans after this experience? 

    How A Dive Feels: First-Hand Experience

    When I sunk into the ocean for the first time, it felt like I was going way too deep. And it is, because I was not used to the depth (even at 5m). But when you look around underwater, there is a vastness that makes you feel tiny. 

    As I descend, the most important skill is to equalise ear pressure often. If you master this and the habit of slowly breathing only through your mouth, the majority of the dive will be easier than you think. Breathing only through your mouth for 40min can be tricky the first time as your throat gets dry. Apparently this is very normal and divers just get used to it. It does get better in my experience towards the last dive. 

    Of course, water will go into your ears. It went into mine many times when I instinctively turned my head sideways or at some angle. And yes, you can’t get rid of it, obviously. But eventually, on the boat, you just try to keep shaking it out. 

    After the dive, I was extremely exhausted. It’s physically taxing to stay underwater for a long period. Most recreational divers would be tired, and so many people just fell asleep on the boat during rest time. Some did not even continue. Indeed, diving is not for the faint of heart. Like me, you might even get a headache and dizziness after the dives. Having a motion sickness pill helps partially. 

    How Did I End Up Scuba Diving?

    Going scuba diving in May is kind of random, no? 

    No! You can dive whenever you want. Only the sightings would vary over seasons. 

    Months ago, I looked into how I can broaden my horizons, expand my life experience. Scuba diving was just one idea. It caught my attention because I wanted to travel while trying new experiences. 

    It was not an impulse decision (although it would not be that bad as far as impulse decisions go) to try scuba diving. Of multiple adventurous experiences, scuba diving felt like an achievable one, not to mention how the PADI certification makes future dives easier. With a PADI certificate, I am now freely able to dive with a buddy (or alone, though discouraged) anywhere safe when I am ready.  

    The underwater world is now your oyster. 

    Boat Ride To Racha Yai Island For Another Dive

    The PADI Open Water Diver Experience

    The serious ones will simply look online for the course outlines, skill details and of course, watch YouTube videos. But going in completely blind, I was surprised by how the skills were more psychologically and mentally challenging than physically tiring. 

    The skills are based around safety-related situations and practical scenarios that can occur. One of the most useful skills is clearing water from the mask – seawater is bound to enter sometime. You will be tasked to flood and clear the mask. Other useful skills were navigation, retrieving the regulator (the thing you breathe from) and emergency ascents. 

    Once training began, it was tiring, but always worth the time and energy. The dive centre I went to was ‘Sharkey Scuba’, which came as a recommendation. There’s your no nonsense, highly structured and practically 1-to-1 teaching style. The pace of lessons can be modified, but following it, you’re almost assured to obtain the certificate. And when you do, it feels like you unlocked a new level in the game of life. 

    Diving Into The Future

    The ocean holds the chance of our long-term survival. I can’t say if I’ll have the chance to go diving again, though I gladly welcome any opportunities. Knowing how threatened our marine ecosystem is due to ocean acidification and rising water temperatures, we may not even be assured of the same beautiful underwater world in future. 

    It’s hard to know just how much we’re losing in our oceans as they suffer until we actually see what animals and life exist in the ocean. But from a non-thalassophile who has seen a fraction of the beauty underwater, our oceans are far more worthy of protection than you think. 

    Not everyone gets a chance to scuba dive in the ocean. But everyone deserves a chance to see what lives and ecosystems our oceans sustain. 

    In the words of Robert Swan: 

    “The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” 

    The ocean and its wildlife are part of our home planet. Scuba diving in the ocean is just a way to visit this lesser-known part of our Earth, a part that’s naturally beautiful, worth seeing and protecting.

    Go ahead, read my other posts!

    Hi! I’m Zac, the guy behind this serendipitous, quirky blog. I’m currently on a quest to find out more about myself before Uni begins – who I am and what life has to offer. This blog is my little space where I step out of my comfort zone to share my thoughts and life experiences. I hope you enjoy reading the weekly posts. Share them if you like, or not.

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  • Play The Infinite Games In Life

    Play The Infinite Games In Life

    Quirkbag Collection #42 – 02.05.26

    Franz Kafka left behind the idea that “the meaning of life is that it stops”. Sombre, but forever true. So much of our lives is focused on doing something for an end goal we think is ‘good’. We even forget other things exist. We complete trivialities that don’t ultimately add to the richness of our life story anyway as part of life.

    Yet, there are also infinite games in life that we can play. These are ‘goal-less’ activities that don’t offer conventional, external rewards but instead require you to see intrinsic value in them. And we can persist to play them for fun; because we’re humans. 

    Afterall, what we really have at the end are the experiences we tell as stories and the impact we made on others. Everything else fades. 

    Being more adventurous, I have started a bunch of new experiments in playing the infinite game. They are done purely for the fun of the pursuit, or for cultivating patience and persistence.   

    Doing Calisthenics (Sorta)

    Yes, that weird body pose you see people do is actually not that easy. You think you could do it if you tried and when you actually try, you have a humbling moment. I was humbled when I tried the crow pose for the first time. 

    The Crow Pose (Also Known To Me As Beginner Pose)

    Gym-goers understand the necessity of discipline to keep training for the desired body growth. It’s easy to just ‘hit the gym several times a week’. With calisthenics, there’s a twist. Mostly, you ‘fail on every single attempt, every single session’, until that one random try where you accidentally hold a position for one second. Unlike regular weight training, you can’t see progress easily or linearly with calisthenics. It’s a ‘trust in the process’ game.

    Precisely because there is no ulterior reward to practicing calisthenics, you have to do calisthenics for its own intrinsic reward. It’s an atelic pursuit with no ‘end’. You do it as a means of self-cultivation. 

    Mastering your own body weight is like a snail lifting its own shell. Not only does it take tremendous effort to move and balance your body in new ways, progress is painstakingly slow. It’s the ultimate undertaking to hone your patience, your discipline and your inner persistence. 

    Talk about building consistency, just try learning a crow pose by practicing it every single day. (I didn’t know I would bruise my triceps.) 

    I Knock On Doors 

    Besides calisthenics, the next best way to train your patience and frustration tolerance (a phrase I learnt from Alex Hormozi) is facing rejection after rejection in sales, similar to failing in calisthenics. 

    Recently I started doing door-to-door sales. Knocking almost 100 doors per day, I see first-hand what 50% open-rates and what 1 to 2% conversion rate actually look like. Ironically, I don’t find it gruelling to face these rejections. 

    Along A Corridor Knocking Another Door (Which Probably Did Not Open)

    Here’s where it gets kind of whacky. Because I aim to learn communication skills and train my patience, persistence and frustration tolerance, knocking on doors is another infinite game to play. There is no limit to how much I can persist because there’s always the next door.

    The amount of experience and depth of cultivation is proportionate to the number of doors knocked. It’s never guaranteed that the door opens. But it is guaranteed that I might face another rejection. 

    Of course, I won’t play it forever. No one should. No one will. We all fade back into the cosmos one day. But while we are here, this infinite game can be our companion so long as we see our growth, cultivation and even adventure in doing it.  

    Like Walking On Water – Surfing 

    It’s more than a cool activity. At least that’s what observers think. It’s surreal to watch, like a tightrope stunt. But hearsay from surfers, and this is hearsay, surfing is even more surreal from the surfer’s perspective. 

    They always feel free, connected with nature and above all mortal worries. That is until they drop into the water. 

    I tried surfing at TRIFECTA in Orchard recently. Constantly falling is the best way to get over the fear of falling. Failing is the best way to benefit from the infinite game. Unlike most sports, the meaning is to enjoy and be in the moment rather than ‘win’ a match. You don’t surf to win. You already win when you surf.

    TRIFECTA: Observing Other Surfers Before The Lesson
    Entry Tag For My First Surf At TRIFECTA

    Surfing, like walking or drinking tea, is an atelic activity. You don’t surf to commute…unless you work remotely under the waves. Neither do you surf to gain recognition from your boss…which does not make sense. Surfing is an adventurous experience which is non-exhaustible (so long as the laws of Physics persist, and I think they will), even long after you are gone. 

    Every fall from a surf is like another brush of persistence. You keep at it until surfing becomes natural, an endless option open to you to cultivate appreciation and patience. And in the meanwhile, you get to look good doing it. 

    I Ask: “What’s The Point?”

    I always loved that question. It’s a very ‘Jerry Seinfeld’ type of question, layered with confusion and a dash of judgement. What is the purpose of playing all these seemingly endless games in life? Pursuits that sort of go nowhere? 

    It piles loads of perspective and capacity onto your character. Growing up in a very goal and task oriented environment, this question was my mini Occam’s Razor. The answer must be definite and clear. I eliminated everything else and cut through all the BS. But maybe it was too effective for a teenager. 

    I never bothered to explore. Never bothered with serendipity. Not even with life’s possibilities. 

    If you have read Sahil Bloom’s “The Five Types Of Wealth”, then you might remember telic and atelic activities. I had plenty of telic activities. Everything was a means to an end and nothing else mattered. Not even making new friends or trying new things. Atelic activities are things that society places least value on. Things like staring at the sky, or taking a walk. They are things which are done for their own sake, not as a means to an end. 

    Trying things like calisthenics, surfing and other self-pursuit activities taught me that there are things worth doing on their own, regardless of outcome. The satisfaction it brings is innate, and cannot be taken away. It’s self-assuring, and it helps you understand yourself as a person. 

    Plenty of infinite games exist, if you choose to play them. There are activities or habits you can try for their own sake without needing a ‘return on investment’. The real value is self-imposed because it gives you new perspective and persistence training. 

    Say “Now That’s Interesting…”

    Yet another rather ‘Jerry Seinfeld’ question, but a better one. Instead of trying to chase something vague, for the immediate future, chase something real and tangible – something that makes you say “that’s interesting”. 

    Trying surfing was an entirely serendipitous idea, much like the theme of my blog. It was something new to me. Seeing the way people literally walked on water and glided in front of the waves was really cool for a city boy. 

    Trying new things with the only aim being to learn something from the experience led me to commit to calisthenics, a surfing lesson and even practicing sales. It’s a strange mix of experiences, much as life is for so many people, but they are all valuable in piecing together the adventure of our life story.

    Go ahead, read my other posts!

    Hi! I’m Zac, the guy behind this serendipitous, quirky blog. I’m currently on a quest to find out more about myself before Uni begins – who I am and what life has to offer. This blog is my little space where I step out of my comfort zone to share my thoughts and life experiences. I hope you enjoy reading the weekly posts. Share them if you like, or not.

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  • Trying Something New Is Scary

    Trying Something New Is Scary

    Quirkbag Collection #41 – 24.04.26

    Today was my last day at Ya Kun. I resigned due to a new job that required more time commitment. It’s been 4 months since I began working at Ya Kun, and albeit being a part-timer, it feels like a tiny lifetime. The journey has been bitter then sweet.  

    A Toast To The Toast 

    Most of the time, I toasted bread for the afternoon crowd till closing time. It’s not particularly glamorous. It’s certainly not a technically difficult task. But it takes patience and a ridiculous amount of practice to master quality and efficiency. I could never handle the morning crowd. Seeing order slips printed moment over moment made me shudder. Nonetheless, it’s a skill. A life experience. 

    Like everything we do, deep down we always know that there’s a day when it comes to an end. Today is that day for my time at Ya Kun. I remember my very first day learning to toast bread. Zero experience and no knowledge, but passable under no pressure. Even of late, my hands still shake occasionally. Anxiety is a lifelong, seasonal beast. 

    It’s comforting to know that growth and improvement do occur, even when it’s slow and negligible day-to-day. But it’s there, a tiny bit adding on to another bit. We have to trust that deliberate actions in favour of improvement add to the growing reservoir of expertise. 

    Every Beginning Is Another Learning Curve

    It’s tough to accept failure and defeat. Anyone who tries anything new knows it. Failure in private feels better, especially if there’s a fragile ego present. But maybe the more you fail, the more that your ego and skill may be strengthened which will make future learning easier. 

    The learning curve is always there for anyone with a new beginning. Even toasting bread (professionally). There was definitely a unique learning curve initially, even if it flattens out over time. But the experience builds calluses for the ego and the ability to learn.

    It’s inevitable that once you experience enough learning curves, you eventually know how to navigate the challenges of picking up the next new thing. You just know what to expect. 

    Every endeavour in your life, every adventure, every chapter, every experience that becomes your story exists because you took the plunge and went through the curve. That environment forced you to adapt and grow. Now you live to tell the tale. 

    Experience is itself the feather in your cap. Isn’t that awesome? 

    Excellence Is Beautiful 

    Some people look down on ‘simple’ jobs that are mostly repetitive, uninspiring and boring. It is boring once the learning curve is maxed out. But when it does, you are presented with a choice. Keep doing the same thing several thousand times in a row, or turn your skill into art. 

    One day I watched one of the aunties toasting bread at Ya Kun. I saw just how exceptional and smooth the whole process was. Zero wasted energy, just pure rhythm from one action to the next. This was not mere “experience”. People often miss the forest for the tree: the skill of bread toasting was elevated to art. 

    Honestly, it was gratifying to watch a master at work. More importantly, there is an indescribable beauty in excellence in general. Excellence at toasting bread, juggling, surfing, bartending, pottery and more. They all have the same charm, but we don’t notice it. 

    We are too distracted. We are bugged by unfinished work or difficult tasks. You have to be present in the moment, to see it for what it is without letting those 14 different random thoughts floating in your mind interfere. I wonder, how much do we truly appreciate the skillsets and art which others quietly give in service to us? 

    Disclaimer: this is not an excuse to use familiarity and comfort as a disguise for fear of new beginnings to avoid change. 

    A New Beginning Is Another Learning Curve

    As I soon embark on a new beginning in a new job, I know there will be yet another learning curve lying in wait. The thing about trying new things and having new beginnings is that we always try to make it perfect.

    We want to be “perfect amateurs”. But amateurs are flawed.

    We crave control and design the ideal circumstances to learn the skill or experience the thing. In truth, neither of them is ever perfect. They just are. It’s the fear of letting go, relinquishing our comfort and becoming absolutely terrible at something again that stops us. And it’s a very gripping fear. One that goes stronger every time I give in to it. 

    It’s tempting to simply stay in the comfort zone, especially if we navigated the old learning curve already. Being uncomfortable again feels most unappealing. 

    A new beginning is another learning curve. It implies failure, uncertainty and discomfort. But, all the things we have done prior to right now were once new and involved a learning curve. We did them anyway, so we have more adaptability than we think. Our minds are too engulfed in fear and anxiety. 

    If you have been wanting to close a chapter in your life, whether it is to quit an old routine, start a new one, try yoga, practice calisthenics, learn surfing or anything in the world, embrace the inevitable learning curve and just suck at it for a while. 

    A new beginning, toward anything better or worth pursuing, is just another learning curve. 

    Progress Is Not Linear – It’s Randomly Upwards

    I come across this quite often – “progress is not linear.” 

    What people mean to say is that visual metrics of improvement fluctuate on a small timescale. Over a long enough time horizon (weeks, months, years, decades), just like a stock market chart, the line goes up (most times). You can’t feel progress in the moment unless you see it. That’s why it feels like forever. 

    If you can’t predict it, it feels like randomness. And it is. It might take longer or shorter than you think. 

    I did not learn to pour a reasonably shaped latte-art heart or flower in a month. In fact, it took me almost a year to pour it consistently. Somewhere along the way my performance dropped, and I thought I lost it. In reality, it’s just one of those times when it gets worse before it gets better. 

    It Took Me Almost A Year

    Most of what I write seems like a reminder to myself to keep hanging in there. And I hope you will too. 

    Here’s a quote that might lower the stakes for you (and me):

    Everything is a win if the goal is to experience. 

    Experience the new beginning. Embrace the learning curve after.  

    Go ahead, read my other posts!

    Hi! I’m Zac, the guy behind this serendipitous, quirky blog. I’m currently on a quest to find out more about myself before Uni begins – who I am and what life has to offer. This blog is my little space where I step out of my comfort zone to share my thoughts and life experiences. I hope you enjoy reading the weekly posts. Share them if you like, or not.

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  • You Can’t Chase Happiness

    You Can’t Chase Happiness

    Quirkbag Collection #40 – 17.04.26

    We like to say that our life goal is to be happy. With children, we not only wish for their happiness, but we do things to try and create it in their childhood. In adulthood, it seems to just be something people say; then it’s back to work. 

    Over the past months, I have been trying to pursue and understand that elusive state of being known as happiness. 

    Happiness can be simple. For some people, it does not take much. A decent lifestyle, comfort food and a not-so-boring job. Fair enough. When I was in the army, I loved a simple cup of tea on the weekend afternoon with zero agenda for the day. That was happiness in hindsight. 

    But the thing about happiness, like every other emotion, is that it cannot be defined with metrics. It’s a feeling you get when you look back but one you don’t feel in the moment. 

    Key Factors For Happiness 

    Based on a Yale Course about the Science of Well-Being which I took, the two most important factors that affect your mood directly are exercise and sleep. Yes, no surprises there. And it’s research-based! Once you have a healthy amount of both in your lifestyle, happiness starts to reach a baseline. It helps to build the foundation with rest and exercise. 

    Certainly, money plays a part. Happiness levels rise with income as per the World Happiness Report. Beyond a threshold however, money starts having a diminishing impact on happiness. Money can buy most of your way toward happiness in terms of needs and experiences. But to be ap, it seems money has limited utility. 

    Just think, the best presents you have received are probably not $50 cheques (they are nice, yes, but not necessarily totems of happiness.) 

    On The Common Fallacy

    In the book ‘The Courage To Be Disliked’, we learn that we may expect too much of ourselves. Not that it’s wrong to try and reach Mars, but maybe we’re just too hard on ourselves all the time.

    Of course, it is not always due to our own ambition, but in part the tidal push that is the accelerating pace of life in modern society. We’re influenced to want more, to do more, and achieve more. But it does not really add to our ‘happiness rating’, does it? 

    We’re unconsciously raised to buy into the belief that ‘I’ll be happy when I (insert achievement)’. It’s the arrival fallacy. 

    We won’t be exactly as we imagine ourselves to be when a particular event happens. We won’t feel exactly as we think we might. Ali Abdaal mentions this too. The arrival fallacy tricks us into thinking happiness is around the corner of our milestone, after the next exam, the next promotion, the next something. It’s not.

    It never will be.

    And as any hard-working student will say, the emotion is more relief than joy, more liberation than excitement.  

    The Open Secret – Gratitude

    Self-help has made gratitude the go-to practice for increasing positivity and happiness. In fact, a similar practice was also mentioned in the Yale course I took. What’s the deal with gratitude? Is that truly the key to being so happy everyday?

    Well, the practice of gratitude only became self-help advice in the modern era. But the root concept may be far older. Stoicism offers the advice of “negative visualisation” – picturing how your reality would be without certain objects, privileges, opportunities or even people. In perceiving an alternate reality where we are definitively “worse off”, it puts what we actually do have into a more pleasant frame. 

    An extreme example involves imagining a sad (but inevitable) scenario in which your loved ones no longer exist – how you would feel, act, behave and think in that moment. Then, as a soothing reminder, you remember and notice that you live in a reality in which they do exist. That sense of relief and “thank god” is likely the point of “gratitude” in self-help. How’s that for reframing? 

    But the idea of gratitude is less about forcing yourself to thank something or someone. It’s a trigger to reflect about the way things panned out, perhaps to realise that while it may not be ideal, it is not all that bad either. And considering the possibilities, our circumstances might have been a steal. 

    I tested this gratitude journalling idea by reflecting about the things I am grateful for each day. To truly reap the benefits of this gratitude practice, I think it is less about having tokenistic acknowledgements of random events but the realisation that not all is lost. 

    Comparison Is A Thief

    In the pursuit to be happier, comparison is not helpful. In fact, most comparisons here end poorly, an outcome easily exacerbated by social media today. 

    The World Happiness Report 2026 had a tighter focus on the impacts social media usage has on happiness and well-being. The result is almost predictable. 

    A Chapter Summary, World Happiness Report 2026

    Happiness Is Fleeting

    Happiness is fleeting. You can’t really define or predict when happiness occurs. It’s not a particular event with fixed time markers. 

    Happiness exists in moments. Overthink and you’ll miss it. 

    If you recall the last time you felt truly happy, even though it is sort of a vague feeling to describe, I will bet it’s not really a thing that made you happy. The Science of Well-Being course from Yale reveals that experiences have greater impact on happiness levels than objects do when measured over a period of time. 

    For me, the happy moments exist as a period or an experience in my memory. It’s hard to create these moments because they just…happen. The moments are not forced. They are lived. It’s when you are truly in the moment – without thinking about what the moment means, or when it will end, or what comes after. It’s what people might call “the good old days”.

    And delivered in a dramatically astute fashion, “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.” 

    Chasing the moment to ‘find’ happiness is like a dog chasing its tail. You won’t find ‘happiness’ by wondering why you aren’t happy when you are in the middle of a vacation. It seems to not be something you can “manifest”. 

    The Pursuit Of Happiness

    I saw this video by YouTuber Lindsiann on the distinction between existing and living. It illuminates that dull, numb underlying feeling I get sometimes when there is no big reason for unhappiness. 

    The crux lies in the spark in certain moments. The feeling of being alive. Indeed, feeling alive for a moment in your day spikes all your emotions at once. 

    It’s that fear before doing something new or wild, that thrill of trying it, that courage of actually even being there, the openness to your life’s possibilities in that moment. The video offers the advice of ‘saying yes’ to new experiences more often to combat a monotonous existence. 

    As far as advice goes, it’s not half bad to seek new adventures every so often. It surely helps broaden your experiences and staves off the boredom of routines. 

    The pursuit of happiness is certainly not a short one. I often wonder if there are those who spend their lifetime searching and never knowing what true peace and happiness in their life feels like. Ironically, the harder we try to find happiness, the more it evades us. 

    And perhaps, upon accepting that fact, we. the overthinkers, can finally put to rest the endless quest for a formula to reliably create happiness. 

    Conclusion

    You may not be happy for a multitude of reasons. But most likely, it’s because you pine too much over something beyond your control or over-attribute your happiness to material items. You may also be a victim of insufficient rest, exercise, nutrition. Most importantly, you can’t find happiness by just chasing it like a to-do goal. It’s an elusive shadow that appears, then you realise.

    The world is not optimised for happiness. It’s optimised for collective progress and productivity. I find myself inching closer to the uncomfortable conclusion that happiness is something you live towards. There is no universal formula. You can’t buy it. And it means you cannot control it.

    But you can tweak your life to increase your chances of meeting it. Much like a sunrise, happiness is fleeting and uncontrollable, but you can catch it if you are present in the moment.

    Go ahead, read my other posts!

    Hi! I’m Zac, the guy behind this serendipitous, quirky blog. I’m currently on a quest to find out more about myself before Uni begins – who I am and what life has to offer. This blog is my little space where I step out of my comfort zone to share my thoughts and life experiences. I hope you enjoy reading the weekly posts. Share them if you like, or not.

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  • Why An Intentional Life Is Your Answer To Today’s Chaos

    Why An Intentional Life Is Your Answer To Today’s Chaos

    Quirkbag Collection #39 – 10.04.26

    The Modern Existential Overwhelm 

    Around 392 billion emails are sent daily in 2026 worldwide. That’s more emails sent per day than in the whole of 1995. 

    We live in a world with unprecedented speed. Everything is fast and it must be faster. Slow is seen as the dearth of intelligence and modernity. Slow is an anathema.

    “How can anything be this (insert your favourite frustration here) in 2026?”

    We’re so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff that exists in our lives. The trends and fads we’re fed subconsciously from social media and the toxic comparisons we make to judge our own “success”. We neglect to fully consider the value and meaning in these things we do. We just…do it. 

    Unsurprisingly, the ‘slow life’ movement was born in part as a means to combat the intoxicating effects of our modern pace of life. But more than that, the ‘slow life’ gives us a chance at really aligning our lifestyles to who we are and what we want to do – to lead an intentional life. 

    Designing An Intentional Life 

    After reading an indulgent number of productivity, business and self-help books, I found that an intentional lifestyle is a great step toward finding ‘meaning’ and ‘happiness’. Of course, this does not come naturally. 

    An intentional life requires you to think deeply about what aligns with your core values. Deciding what kind of lifestyle suits you best in this stage of life is probably one of the best steps forward. We all know how easy it is to fall into the abyss of social media, to want what others boast, to have what others don’t. 

    But it feels hollow. It doesn’t feel like you. 

    We often do the things other people do. Most of it comes from the societal pressure to fit in, to be accepted, to make friends. We’re led to believe that if they are looking ‘happy’ doing it, then we would be too. 

    Unfortunately, copying others is not a wise strategy here. 

    Choosing to shift towards a lifestyle which reflects your real priorities and values would bring you closer to feeling more fulfilled. And yes, it requires design and lots of trial and error. 

    Again, this does not come naturally. As Alex Hormozi sharply says, ‘it’s hard to have dreams when you have bills to pay.’ It won’t be achievable overnight. You just need to start simple. 

    Maybe wake up at 8am for one day. Spend more of the morning doing your favourite ritual and it could give you more energy. 

    It could be a new hobby like painting on the weekends. Perhaps night journalling before bed is something to help relax and unwind. 

    Rather than building habits, trying out new things can help you find out what tiny additions help make you feel more aligned with yourself. It’s the intention to experiment and try that matter. 

    Intentional vs Controlling – A Big Difference

    But what if life gets in the way? 

    It is bound to happen. Indeed, just because you intend to do something does not mean your schedule will allow you to. Maybe not this week, but some day next week. 

    It’s doing the task when the opportunity arises. 

    Having an experimental mindset toward the tasks is key because you are not building a habit. Skipping it here and there is fine, as long as you are intentional about doing it again. 

    There is a big difference between controlling – forcing changes in lifestyle choices upon yourself because you want to redesign your life – and intentional choices which are about making decisions with purpose. 

    Being intentional about waking up at 8am is not about a success metric. It’s not ‘did I or did I not?’ but rather ‘how does it feel to do it?’ If you’re not a morning person, at least you know. Or maybe you are a morning person, and you get to be intentional about how you spend your morning instead of rushing for the next commitment.  

    I read the book “Time Anxiety” which offered really practical tips for how to use your time while feeling more grounded. They can complement the intentional choices you make. 

    Being Intentional Makes You Different, So What?

    I realised making choices for myself may imply mismatches with other people’s choices. 

    You might schedule more gym sessions or night runs because you are intentional about your exercise. But it might mean giving up some ‘chill time’ with friends or roommates. And sometimes, people won’t understand it. 

    Being intentional about your own life, and by extension the way you spend your time and money, can make you seem aloof. It’s normal because your priorities or intentional choices in life don’t align with that of others’. 

    The fear associated with being different can be paralysing. The urge to just ‘go with the flow’ can be irresistible. But that’s always the case with change. We simply want the comfort of external acceptance. 

    I spent years in school just doing what I felt best for me, whether that’s eating alone to fit my schedule, or studying alone for maximum productivity. At times I felt completely detached. But eventually, I just came to terms that my plan was different from others and wanting to follow through meant doing it my way, intentionally. Accepting that was a relief because I no longer struggled to achieve both simultaneously.

    Nonetheless, it’s still beneficial to do social activities occasionally. In fact, you can even broaden your range of social interactions if you meet new people through, say, a pottery class. Intentional lifestyle choices need not be isolating, but it surely feels that way initially. 

    We’re used to doing what has been conditioned and ‘acceptable’. Being intentional is unusual (unless you’ve been doing that all your life) and new. That makes it different from what others are doing. But we have to accept that we’ll be different. 

    We’re growing into a version of us which we feel most aligned with. 

    Receiving People’s “Advice” 

    It’s not always a good idea to share your intentional lifestyle choices with everyone. Yes, people are supportive of self-improvement and betterment. But they aren’t always supportive of change, especially if it involves risk or a chance of failure. 

    As an example, if you’ve ever read any content related to the support from friends and family when becoming an entrepreneur, you’ll know that they don’t always give the best advice. They mean the best, but they aren’t entrepreneurs. 

    Hearing people’s reasons why your new intentional lifestyle choices are ‘not ideal’ or ‘bad ideas’ can be discouraging. But you’re choosing your intentional life, not theirs. One quote I remember hearing is that ‘everyone can have an opinion, but not everyone has a say.’ Jim Rohn similarly made the point that we should “stand guard” at the doors of our mind, lest any undesirable influences get in. 

    It’s important to choose who influences your choices and why. There could be good reasons to change your mind. Of course, your intentional choice can be small: a new hobby, a night-cycle, regular runs at East Coast Park. But it can be huge too, like quitting a job for freelancing, entrepreneurship or moving countries. 

    The bigger the intentional change, the more likely you’ll get pushback from people. Understandably, you have to consider the impact on your current life, and those who might rely on you. People’s advice is sometimes just their longer way of telling you ‘be careful’. 

    The Resistance Will Strike

    One of the bigger external obstacles to living a truly intentional life is that the world does not embrace your lifestyle choice. If daily cups of Earl Grey at 10am in a cottage with a view of nature is your intentional lifestyle goal, it might be hard to hold a full-time corporate office job concurrently. 

    Resistance occurs because your new and modified intentional life requires adding new tasks and subtracting old ones. But having a full-time job with uncompromising requirements can mean a whole lot of rigidity in your lifestyle. There might not be enough flexibility in your schedule to fit new hobbies or routines or tasks. It might be too difficult to negotiate work demands with the boss. Whatever the reason, just like playing Tetris, some things simply won’t fit neatly. 

    Then what? 

    Well…this is where we tell ourselves “I’ll try it later”, “maybe next time when things are less busy” and “that’s for the lull season”. And then it’ll never happen. These justifications become habits.  

    The Next Step Is Also The First Step

    The world is not incentivised to accommodate your change in lifestyle. It’s a machine that keeps chugging along. You have to find a way to serve your own intentional life. Because until you do, your life will be dictated by the demands of your previous commitments and be gripped by old unconscious routines that no longer serve you.

    That said, this is not a sign that you should quit your day-job and move to a sub-urban cottage for tea at 10am (unless that’s actually your ideal intentional life). I mean, with all the romanticised van-life and cottage-life these days, maybe they are on to something. 

    Instead, you could try tea sessions over the weekends, or a tea break at work on days without meetings, or take a slow morning for one day and see how it feels. 

    Before any huge swings in your lifestyle, it might be beneficial to consider the small steps to take toward a more intentional life. Like Tetris, play the small blocks first, then make space for the big ones. 

    Eventually, you nudge yourself towards an intentional life. From tea-breaks to slow mornings, your trade-offs might slowly start looking like a career change. Suddenly, moving across the world to experience the Californian sun or Italian wine is not so scary or crazy anymore. 

    But it starts somewhere. It starts with one tiny first step in your daily life. And the longer you wait to start, the longer it’ll be before you discover the right direction or intention for your life. 

    Key Ingredients: Time And Trust

    Taking the first step toward change will feel weird and scary, even if it’s the smallest task you add to a routine. Whether it’s stretching in the morning or moisturising your hands at night, it’s important to try not to let that discomfort or – as I like to say, “inertia” – override your choice to do the task. 

    There’s definitely some adjustments to be embraced. The awkward transition period is inevitable. No doubt it is partly due to the deeply ingrained old routines and lifestyles, especially if we have not changed the ones we grew up with. 

    It takes an average of 66 days (of doing the thing consistently) to build a new habit. That’s about 2 months. So use 2 months to experiment a new habit or lifestyle choice to see if that aligns with your intentional life. And hey, it’s always easier to quit doing something after a while than keep going, especially if it proved to be tedious or draining. 

    A Cup of Coffee with A Flower Pattern Latte Art
    Latte Art Was An Intentional Hobby I Started While Having My Morning Coffees

    It’s good advice to start small when implementing change toward an intentional lifestyle. Afterall, you might not survive a complete overhaul overnight. 

    Leading an intentional life is the first step towards taking back some control of your life’s direction. There’s nothing wrong with following the flow once in a while. But to really seek something deeply meaningful and aligned, making more intentional lifestyle choices is the way to start, especially in the excessively rapid pace of modern society.

    There’s no better time to start than now.

    Thanks For Reading. Click The Arrows For More!

    Hi! I’m Zac, the guy behind this serendipitous, quirky blog. I’m currently on a quest to find out more about myself before Uni begins – who I am and what life has to offer. This blog is my little space where I step out of my comfort zone to share my thoughts and life experiences. I hope you enjoy reading the weekly posts. Share them if you like, or not.

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  • Turning 21: Learning How To Start Adulting

    Turning 21: Learning How To Start Adulting

    Quirkbag Collection #38 – 03.04.26

    I recently turned 21. What a magic number that is. That one day in someone’s lifetime is probably the biggest age milestone that humans celebrate. But just imagine the disappointment being number 22 (then again, 22 is the title of a song by Taylor Swift).

    Apart from marking the start of adulthood, whether we like it or not, perhaps it also symbolises the beginning of one’s adventure in life, as intended by society. 

    What Does Adulting Even Mean?

    Turning 21 can bring the epitome of joy and celebration. But no one really tells you “then what?”. What comes after turning into an adult? 

    Most romanticised answers are “freedom”, “love”, “adventure”, “independence”. But really, the average person older than 21 might say “stress”, “work”, “responsibility”, “tired”.  

    Reality sets in for all of us somehow. And sure, life can become far better over the years with nicer jobs and lifestyles. Maybe that’s nearer to 41. 

    I met a young adult at work recently and on becoming an adult having to work, the response was indeed “yea it sucks”. But of course, it’s just one opinion. 

    It’s stressful to think about adulthood being linked with independence, especially as a switch that we can just ‘turn on’. Nothing in life is really like that. 

    Independence is inculcated and nurtured rather than ‘awarded’ by virtue of age. We learn as we go, independence comes when we learn to manage ourselves. And that can be really scary.

    One day you’re taking the bus home when you’re 12 and now you have to learn how to file taxes before you end up like Al Capone. (We don’t learn either after blowing the candles on our cake.) 

    If adulting means being completely responsible and independent and mature, there is probably no shortage of those older than 21 but aren’t actually adulting yet.

    Growing Into An Adult

    I used to think that age was like an adventure video game. Every year is like a quest chapter that unlocks once you complete the previous one and the game awards you new stuff. Age and adulting do not work like that. Many can attest that life rewards you with lessons after beating you down. 

    If you’re waiting for something magical to just happen in life at 18, or 21, or any age, it’s probably not happening. It’ll definitely not happen just because your birthday passed. Nothing just happens because of age. Maybe except chronic knee pain. 

    My Birthday Balloon

    Adulting can be so hard because our lives drastically change before we’re prepared. We’re not seen as young students anymore, not given as much benefit of doubt and everyone seems to expect more. Our problems change, life circumstances change, our friends change, our lifestyle changes. But what about us? You. 

    Did you change as fast as everything else? 

    Probably not. 

    It’s easy to pass casual judgement “how is he so childish when he’s 21?” based on sporadic observations, however compelling they may be. But as if maturity, or independence, or anything, just comes naturally to the birthday boy when the sun rises on his birthday. 

    Sunrise Behind My Silhouette On My Birthday Morning

    Maturing, growing, becoming independent, and adulting in general takes time. Some of us take decades, as insane as it might sound. I remember peers who were miles ahead in adulting even in JC, making their own life decisions, taking charge of the direction of their lives and surfing the tides of life. 

    I was not like them. Nor were most of us at 18. I was busy figuring out how to do better in the system while they unwittingly figured out how to do better in their life. 

    The exceptions are rare. That’s why they are exceptions. 

    Making Friends As A New Adult?

    Adulthood is a broad period of our lifetime. Spanning basically from 21 till death, adulthood is a one-way street. 

    As I grow older, I realise that relationships aren’t so easily labelled anymore. The people you know cannot comfortably be grouped as “friends”. In pre-school or kindergarten, everyone had to be friends. Everyone was referred to as each other’s friends, as the environment intended. 

    But as far as I’ve heard, that’s not the workplace. No, the workplace is serious business. It’s meant for work. We must all sit in front of computers and be busy for 8 hours a day unless we get chosen to sit at a bigger desk with other people for a few of the 8 hours. 

    At work, the assumption is that you don’t need friends to do the job. You don’t need the environment to make friends, because you should automatically take care of that as part of adulting. But we all know friendships can be seasonal. 

    I doubt anyone finds friendships easier in adulthood. Having to ‘manage them’ as though they are work appointments because our time is too preciously dedicated to work, that’s a little sad. Without intentionally drawing lines to design our lives to fully be ourselves, it’s truly so easy to fall into the trappings of a conventional, mediocre, boring version of life.

    If your life were a painting, the saddest part is when everyone who you have ever met, stranger or otherwise, gets a single brush stroke in it, and your entire painting is a mess created by others rather than by your own vision. 

    Better to make your own messy painting than accept that of others, right?

    Dealing With Adulting

    With university starting soon, I can’t help but think it’s the last checkpoint before the vast ocean of work ahead, whatever form that might take. 

    It remains scary, as it is to many others (perhaps including the reader, you), to think that beyond university, from the point of graduation to your death, you are going to be alone in your “adulting”. There’s communities of people with similar pursuits, clubs of those with common interests, but it’s not the same as that “school” environment anymore. There aren’t the same people who would stay in your class till the end of the year. 

    “We are in the same boat”, but it seems that the boat has somehow shrunk down so much. 

    It is unsurprising that most work relationships stay work-related. Maybe because it is easier to maintain that hierarchy. To keep the “professionalism”. The focus is after all on the work, and not the people in the workplace. Unlike school, people would rather keep their jobs to sustain a lifestyle than to treat it as a place for fun and bonding and disregard the stakes. 

    Embracing An Irreversible Change

    The most important aspect of being an adult is probably self-awareness. Being aware of the ugly mess that is some of our mental states, the randomness of our lives’ daily circumstances, the impact that we have on others and vice versa. We carry a lot of what we learnt and grew up with in school with us into this realm of adulthood. But the game has changed. 

    No one taught us that life is now completely in your hands, to do as you wish, as you can, once you graduate from the system’s game. Everything in adulting is for you to find out – and there’s a lot – none of which is quite covered as a subject in school. It’s just too hard.

    Adulting is new to me, as it once was to everyone. With blogs like this and the proliferation of media and content, it’s getting easier to learn the hard-won life lessons in this age than it was for the previous generation. Just think of all the perspectives, ideas, advice and regrets people share online and how you can seek wisdom from them. Here’s some.

    Figuring out what to do in adulthood is probably the single most recurring topic for those who are adulting. And I guess I am figuring that out for myself too, alongside this blog.  

    Thanks For Reading. Click The Arrows For More!

    Hi! I’m Zac, the guy behind this serendipitous, quirky blog. I’m currently on a quest to find out more about myself before Uni begins – who I am and what life has to offer. This blog is my little space where I step out of my comfort zone to share my thoughts and life experiences. I hope you enjoy reading the weekly posts. Share them if you like, or not.

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  • The Forgotten But Valuable Trait Of Meticulousness Today

    The Forgotten But Valuable Trait Of Meticulousness Today

    Quirkbag Collection #37 – 27.03.26

    We exist in an excessively rapid modern society, where knowledge work is so obsessed about speedy results. Because if Artificial Intelligence (AI) can do it and you can’t, then you aren’t needed right? But there’s an underrated skill that enhances your human presence at work. That’s the skill of being meticulous.

    Speed kills meticulousness. Machines can’t be meticulous (yet) unless you force it with prompts. Why else do you think students who copy-paste AI responses get in trouble? 

    Speed in tasks manifests like the pinball in a machine, always knocking and crashing between sides of the wall. Sometimes employers like speed for trial and error, but likely not always.

    Prioritising speed often comes with low quality output. Meticulousness requires your deliberation, your pause to consider the nuances and maybe derive a better alternative. You can deliver better human results by being meticulous than by being fast. 

    What Is Meticulousness? 

    You can easily find the dictionary definition. But more than just a description of a person, meticulousness is the difference between a scrappily completed task and a well completed one. And sometimes that directly impacts your impression on others, superiors or not. 

    Meticulousness is a skill you can build, a habit you can cultivate and a mindset you can adopt. It’s just something you apply to elevate the work you do. You could start with additional thorough vetting of your work; ponder and refine the tiny details of a report; or perhaps take time to be precise and clear in the presentation as a form of meticulousness.

    Most importantly, meticulousness is a choice. You can choose to be meticulous by putting in extra effort or energy to check, improve, test and simplify your work. Or you can just churn low-quality passable results.

    How To Be Meticulous? 

    Pay attention to the work you do. You know that phrase ‘going through the motion’? It’s a description of apathetic compliance. To become more meticulous, try doing the opposite. A good guiding phrase would be to put your heart into it and to do it to the best it possibly can. It’s almost like you are creating art. 

    Tip: Read Seth Godin’s book ‘Linchpin’ which discusses this concept of creating your art by putting your human touch into your work. 

    Borrowed “Linchpin” From The Library A While Ago

    If you have worked in F&B business outlets, it’s incredibly easy to see how standards and quality can falter due to lack of meticulousness. If anything, the reputation and brand of the business depend on the level of meticulousness the staff has to maintain the quality standards. 

    When I work at Ya Kun, there’s plenty of things to do before closing up, and sometimes, forgetting to do them means burdening others with extra tasks. Here, meticulousness makes the difference between being responsible and careless or shoddy. Being meticulous also forces the quality of toast served to be the best it can be, rather than chase speed at the demise of quality. 

    Ultimate meticulousness comes from genuine passion and care for the impact the outcome creates on others. That’s the kind of meticulousness that has been elevated to a dedication to the craft.

    I doubt you’ll get a fantastic cup of coffee if the barista paid zero attention to brew it. Same for food at any given stall. Same for any set of presentations, or any task you do. It takes intentional effort to do something well, effort that seeks to take care of even the smallest details to raise the overall quality. 

    Watch Where The Line Blurs With Meticulousness

    Being intentional, quality-driven and detail-oriented is not the process of chasing perfection. There’s a clear distinction between perfectionism and meticulousness. Perfectionism is an ideal, the vanishing point which cannot be reached. It’s a concept. 

    Meticulousness has an imperfect beauty to it. You can sense meticulousness, albeit its existence on a spectrum. It’s an homage to our human flaws because being meticulous in any task implies your desire to deliver high quality output and maintain high standards. On the contrary, being careless, haphazard and shoddy reflects apathy and indifference toward the task and outcome, which then highlights your character flaws. 

    While perfectionism is indeed the enemy in most cases, it’s not necessarily a bad springboard to develop meticulousness. Provided that you remember the goal is to be meticulous, rather than perfect, perfectionism can help you spot areas to improve, details to tweak and pushes you toward higher quality work or output. 

    Striving To Become (More) Meticulous 

    It’s incredibly hard to be meticulous under pressure, especially if everything needs to be fast. 

    Quality drops easily when there is a rush to complete tasks, especially if there are many of them. That could explain the off-standard coffee you get sometimes. 

    You’re likely to overlook details or neglect something. But meticulousness is key to excellence, even if you aren’t the smartest, finest or best at any given task. Cultivating or adopting meticulousness as a habit would benefit you over a lifetime. While you can’t be meticulous at every single task every single time, training the skill can breed proficiency at reducing errors and giving higher-quality output more often.

    Maybe it’s the dreary job, the stale office, the boring dynamics or the toxic culture that drives out the desire to be meticulous. But in an environment where most people aren’t meticulous, being meticulous makes you different. It makes you more valuable.

    So if you want to be more meticulous, pay more attention to the work you actually do, all the tiny details. Think about any mistakes or areas for improvement. You can elevate your work quality by doing it with all your heart. Meticulousness takes energy, effort, patience and is best nurtured out of care; genuine care for the outcome. The result is felt by those who see the work or output.

    It’s tedious and draining. And that’s why people don’t do it much anymore. 

    But you can.

    Thanks For Reading. Click The Arrows For More!

    Hi! I’m Zac, the guy behind this serendipitous, quirky blog. I’m currently on a quest to find out more about myself before Uni begins – who I am and what life has to offer. This blog is my little space where I step out of my comfort zone to share my thoughts and life experiences. I hope you enjoy reading the weekly posts. Share them if you like, or not.

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