I saw my Pole teacher’s message while waiting for a health check in Thailand, and burst into tears.

Someone misses me.
I am missed.

Of all her Pole students, I must be the one with the most glacial progress, yet she misses me anyways.

I can’t understand it.

My worst enemy

I wouldn’t wish my mind on my worst enemy.

I am a classic example of what happens to a child whose only occupation was raking up accomplishments. Full marks at school, flawless piano performances, perfect ballet moves. All my extracurricular activities—quizzes, public speaking, even singing—were endured for excellence, not enjoyed. Apart from reading, everything I did for the first seventeen years of my life I did for accolades.

The isolation didn’t help. My parents and grandparents were my world. Dad once said in anger “You don’t need friends—you have us,” a statement seared so deep in my young mind it took two decades to erase.

Add to that a mother lacking the emotional support she needed to stay above water, never mind shower me with love, and I was primed for trouble.

When I had my first depressions, I didn’t understand why. I was a vaunted scholar living the dream in London. I was a cheerful person. I had a happy childhood.

It took a severe manic episode and subsequent incarceration in a psych ward to shake me up enough to accept something was seriously wrong. Misguided values, I decided. My life had crumbled because I cared too much about grades and being the perfect student.

So I refocused my efforts on relationships. I made fast friends everywhere I worked. I prioritised time with my partner. I organised coffees with strangers.

But having a loving partner and a solid group of friends didn’t quiet my vicious mind: You’re not working enough, you’re not doing enough, you’re not enough.

A refrain all the more potent for Dad’s trademark “Work harder or Mark will fire you,” which he levered every time I said I’d had an easy week.

Fifty therapy sessions parsing all this out later, I finally had to admit my problem lies deeper than values:

I believe, in my soul, that beyond my work, my writing, my latest pole trick—there is nothing to see, to appreciate, to love.

That if I stopped accomplishing, I would stop existing.

A question I can’t answer

It’s tiring. No matter how much I do, it’s never enough.

Every detail I miss at work, every newsletter I rush, every Pole trick I don’t execute—every little failure erodes my worth, amplifies the voice of my nemesis mind: I’m not working enough, I’m not doing enough, I’m not enough.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary—my partner telling me every day he loves me, my friends regularly making time for me—I still don’t see myself as worthy of interest or care without my accomplishments.

When I saw my Pole teacher’s message—you need to come back to me this instant—I couldn’t comprehend it. How can she want me back when I can’t even climb the pole?

I don’t have the answer.

But if I did, would I strive less, rest more, finally believe myself worthy of love?

What do you think?

Who are you without your accomplishments?

How much of my dilemma resonates? Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this post with someone you see for who they are, not what they’ve achieved.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,

Val

This was an asset early in life. I aced every exam because I was always ready, a string of successes that culminated in a coveted scholarship that paid for seven years of study at top institutions abroad—the beginning of the rest of my life.

But then I graduated, and being prepared became a liability.

Oblivious, I continued to strive for it. But instead of the grades and glory of my childhood, all I got for my preparedness was constant, low-grade anxiety.

So I’m giving up. And you should too.

First, a story

Yesterday Mum and I went to the Land Office to transfer Dad’s deeds to my name. She’d called and asked what documents we needed to bring. I’d called and asked the same.

We went prepared. Or so we thought.

As soon as we arrived, we were told the transfer of Dad’s second plot in a different province would take a month to process, not the one day we expected. I was leaving in a week.

Then, as we proceeded to transfer Dad’s first plot of land, the one with our house on it, we discovered the house dimensions were not indicated on the deed, nor anywhere in the system, which meant the deed couldn’t be transferred.

As Mum and I scrambled to message everyone we thought might know, the Land Officer nudged: You should go to the municipal office to get the correct information.

So I called up the municipal office—gotta be prepared, you see—and asked them what documents I needed to bring so they could certify our house size.

They gave me the list, I checked we had everything, then Mum and I rushed off to the municipal office. Only to be told, when I presented all the documents, that we’d come to the wrong municipal office.

So off Mum and I went again to the third government office of the day, where we finally obtained the correct paperwork before returning to the Land Office to complete the deed transfer, three hours later than expected, with Dad’s second plot still in his name.

Oh, and then, when we were leaving the parking lot, I drove us into a parked car.

An impossible goal

You know the moral of the story.

We think preparedness is a state we can reach, that if we put in enough preparation, we can be ready for anything.

But we’re wrong. Because there is no end state of “prepared” where nothing will go wrong. Something will always happen that you didn’t predict. Something will always happen that you couldn’t prevent.

And we know this. We know we can’t prepare for everything, yet being prepared is hailed as a virtue and so we strive for it—and suffer. We try to gather all the information, put in place all the precautions—all the while expecting something to go wrong.

We think we’re anxious because we haven’t done enough, but we’re actually anxious because we’re striving for an impossible goal.

What if we see preparedness, not as a state but as a spectrum? And instead of reaching for that elusive end state, focus instead on failing within a reasonable range?

Instead of trying to be prepared for that job interview, that big project, that first date, what if you just aim to be reasonable—and go for it? Would that not relieve the pressure, the anxiety, the burden we carry?

Yesterday at the Land Office was a farce. But I’ve been in so many other situations where I put so much into preparation and things still happened that I was completely unprepared for. When my first employee said she wanted to leave after a month. When I burnt out from caring for my post-op partner within a day. When I’d prepared for Dad’s death for four and a half years and missed his funeral anyway.

There is so much in life that we can never prepare for. So why torture yourself with the impossible?

Why not just do it and see?

What do you think?

Whenever I’m paralysed by preparation, I remind myself of Nike’s wisdom. I credit this bias towards action with all the good things in my life.

Is preparedness giving you grief? Would you ever just do it?

Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this post with someone who’s been preparing for something for so long.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,

Val

I want to be the best writer, the best Newsletter Manager, the best Pole Dancer, the most disciplined gym-goer, the most discerning eater, the best partner, the best friend—the best person, period.

And I want to be all this for one regrettable reason: validation.

Because I’ve lived my whole life chasing after “Well done!” First from my parents, teachers, and friends—and now from my boss, my partner, my peers.

For everything I touch, I crave to be recognised. Praised. Seen.

And because I already know, as soon as she sees this, my therapist will ask me to seek validation from the only source that will never run dry, I’m going to hand in my homework before it’s assigned (best client).

So here’s me validating myself for all I’ve ever done—and did not do.

Well done, Val

Well done, Val, for believing in your writing when you have little reason to. For showing up every week when your subscribers are shrinking and your email opens dwindling. For not giving up on your dream of becoming a world-class writer. I see you.

Well done, Val, for applying to be Mark’s Content and Research Assistant when you weren’t in the least bit qualified. And then, once you’d landed this dream job, for not balking at any of the tasks—research, blog, SEO, ads, social media, email, copywriting—you’d had to learn to excel. Look how far you’ve come.

Well done, Val, for proactively making friends the second you arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, for never shying away from a coffee with a stranger, for giving your acquaintances the time and attention they needed to blossom into friendships. I’m as surprised as you at the incredible community you’ve surrounded yourself with, but don’t ever forget to give yourself credit for the amazing friends you have.

Well done, Val, for all the difficult conversations you’ve started that strengthened your relationships and made you damn good at your job. For never choosing an easy “yes” over a tough “no.” For being honest and vulnerable when all you want to do is hide behind words you don’t mean.

Well done, Val, for being a kind person. For giving when you don’t need to, and always more than expected. Do you realise you’ve put a child through school, and are now sending another one to university? Aren’t you proud?

Well done, Val, for caring for the people in your life. For dropping everything that time a friend was hospitalised and rushing over to spend the day, for having your birthday party at another friend’s new restaurant so more people can discover it, for keeping your weekends free because that is sacred time with your partner. For calling Mum every week, for not forgetting friends you don’t see, for always wishing everyone well.

Well done, Val, for looking after yourself. For working out four times a week. For spending whole afternoons at the spa when your mind gets busy no matter how much work you have. For carefully choosing what you eat. It is OK that you don’t have the body you dream of. You are strong, you are flexible, and you are constantly in (the good kind of) pain. I recognise your hard work and raise you a toast to a long and healthy life.

Well done, Val, for going to therapy. For uncovering all those neuroses you’ve had since childhood. For acting when you’re afraid of the outcome. For naming your angers and letting (some of) them go. For persisting even when therapy bombards you with one unflattering aspect of yourself after another. For not being frustrated at your imperfect progress. For not hating the person you were, and still are. I don’t hate you either.

Well done, Val, for giving yourself the love you crave. For telling your partner every half day that you love him, and hearing his love in return. For recognising the love in all that your mother and friends and colleagues do. For accepting you’ll never receive the Hollywood version of parental love—hugs and kisses and you’re the best thing that’s happened to me—and deciding you don’t need it anyways. You are loved.

Well done, Val, for holding it together these past four years as Dad slowly died of cancer. For flying over when Dad had that spine operation and sitting with a book every day by his hospital bed while he waited, terrified. For, in Dad’s final burst of energy and will to live, moving him to that fancy hospital he was desperate to switch to. For taking Dad out to lunches and coffees, helping him up and down various steps and slopes, while he still could. But also: For holding your boundaries firm and not making promises you couldn’t keep.

Well done.

What do you think?

Let my unabashed self-validation inspire your own list:

What would you like to tell yourself “Well done” for?

You don’t have to share your list with me, but I’d be honoured if you choose to. Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response. If you can, share this post with someone who could use a generous serving of “Well done” from themselves.

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We’re still on an every-other-week holiday schedule, so I’ll see you in two weeks… In the meantime, stay thoughtful, and thank you for reading—I see and appreciate every single one of you,

Val

It took a year of therapy, and much reflection between sessions, for me to realise my partner was, as usual, right. I was an incredibly neurotic child, then an incredibly neurotic teen, and—until recently—an incredibly neurotic adult.

Anxiety has been the bane of my life. And I never even knew it.

My therapy journey

It’s funny how therapy works. When I began last November, I thought myself a happy, balanced individual. I wasn’t resorting to therapy to fix my problems—I merely wanted insight. I’d had severe mental health issues—depression, mania, hospitalisation, finally a bipolar diagnosis—but all that was in the past. Present Val was fine.

Then I actually started therapy and, four months in, uncovered a laundry list of issues I’d previously had no inkling of. Here’s the highlight reel I wrote down this May:

• I default to judgement, not empathy.

• I impose unbelievably high standards on others.

• I catastrophise.

• I am an incredibly anxious person, no wonder I’ve been called “neurotic.”

• I label myself “selfish” because that’s easier than working through conflicting emotions to arrive at a more nuanced, forgiving assessment.

• I feel guilty when I put myself first.

• I may be a people pleaser.

• I have laughably low expectations of people, especially my parents.

• I use unjustifiably harsh language in my negative self-talk.

• I am a people pleaser.

• I have low self-esteem.

• I have no self-esteem.

• I hate myself, always have… always will?

It’s six months later, and thanks to the heroic efforts of my therapist and my enthusiastic cooperation, I no longer hate myself. I don’t know yet if I love myself, but at least hatred is no longer in the picture.

I still suffer from most of the issues listed above. But I don’t hate myself for them. Because therapy has helped me understand that I am, as you are, human. We are not meant to be perfect.

There is no finished human product. There is no destination that therapy—indeed life—leads to (except, of course, death). Everything happens on the journey.

The Subtle Art of Letting Go

In my journey, I’m learning to let go. Of many things, but first the need for control that underlay my anxiety all these decades. Anxiety that I now recognise thanks to my levelled-up self-awareness:

You’re going to laugh, but—as recently as maybe six months ago—if I was scheduling a dinner date three weeks in advance and we didn’t fix a specific time, I’d get anxious. Yes, but what time? I’d press until my dinner date committed. Then if, on the day of or even the day before, my date changed the time we’d fixed three weeks earlier, I’d get annoyed.

If I made a joke and no one laughed, if I pushed back on something at work and was waiting for a response, or even if someone stopped replying to my text mid-conversation for no apparent reason, I’d get anxious. To the point where it would actually keep me up at night.

My anxiety made me fearful of everything. I was afraid my friends wouldn’t show up to dinner. I was afraid my every joke or comment or pushback would end relationships, make my loved ones angry, lose me my dream job.

You wouldn’t know it from the outside: I did appear calm, collected, confident. I’d take on new challenges, protect my boundaries, risk rejection as I initiated new friendships and published honest thoughts. But inside, I was always afraid.

And it’s all because of my need for control.

From my boss’s comprehensive collection of self-help advice, the one that has always resonated the most is his take on responsibility and choice: I am responsible for everything that happens in my life. And I can always choose.

For decades, I was at the bottom of that slope. I mistook agency for power. I thought my life was up to me, and only me. It was up to me to make this dinner happen at exactly 6:17PM in three weeks’ time. It was up to me to make everybody laugh with this well-timed joke. It was up to me to make this project happen at work in exactly this way. It was up to me to make this person my friend.

It was up to me to make Dad understand why I didn’t move back to care for him for the four years he battled his terminal cancer.

But of course, I was wrong. It wasn’t up to me. It was never up to me.

Because we can’t. We can only choose what seems the best course of action in the moment, then let go of the rest. This is not abdicating responsibility. This is accepting we are not omnipotent.

This is how I now live. Not in anxiety or fear. But in the freedom of knowing there is only so much I can do. And finally discovering, three decades late, that the beauty of life lies outside my tiny sphere, out there in the vast and—if you let go—life-affirming unknown.

What do you think?

Starting therapy is the best thing I’ve ever done. Period. For myself, my family, my friends, my coworkers, and my partner who for seven years quietly tolerated my many neuroses and loved me loudly. All credit for a less neurotic Val to me for doing the work, and to my therapist for therapising so effectively this past year and for, in my moment of need, giving me a hug and whispering: You’re not a bad person.

I intend to keep going to therapy. There is much left to unpack. And I am loving the journey through my tears. I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes.

Do you go to therapy? Would you consider it? If you do, what have you learnt about yourself?

Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. And if you enjoyed this, I’d be grateful if you could share it with a friend. Val Thinks is free to read, and always will be. And it can only grow through the support of its readers, i.e. you.

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We’re still on an every-other-week holiday schedule, so I’ll see you in two weeks… In the meantime, stay thoughtful, and good luck with holiday gift shopping!

Val

It was the summer job of a lifetime. A job I almost had to give up because my passport had been stolen in France one month earlier (a story for another time). But one miracle later, I found myself uniformed and walkie-talkied in London’s St Pancras station.

Eurostar ran like clockwork, but occasionally a train would get delayed which led to other trains being delayed and—you get the picture. When this happened, the terminal would fill up with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of frustrated passengers who had nothing to do but get increasingly angry. Our job, as Olympians, was to go around and defuse the situation with small talk.

One day, a train to Brussels was delayed and after scanning the packed terminal for the least intimidating target, I approached a middle-aged, slightly paunchy man who looked more bored than upset.

We got into a conversation, and he said something that changed my life.

What the passenger said

I’m visiting my son in Brussels, he replied when I risked asking why he was traveling with us that afternoon. I’m a truck driver, you see. I nodded and smiled, hoping my silence would convey both my lack of interest and my willingness to listen should he wish to say more.

My tactic was only half-successful. The man took my quiet disinterest as licence to share and launched into the intricacies of his sometimes-troubled relationship with his son, then his entire life story. Trapped, I shifted to a more comfortable crouch—the man was seated—and prayed my face would not betray my indifference.

I was drifting in and out of his career trajectory when the announcement came: Train to Brussels is now ready to board. I got up and was about to wish the man a safe journey when he touched my arm and said, his voice suddenly serious, “Remember this: Life is short. Life is sweet. Life is all that matters.”

Of all the things that happened in that dreamlike, hypomanic summer, the man’s parting advice is the only event that has stuck—imprinted for life.

A phrase to shape a lifetime

I am obsessed with life. Always have been. But until that moment when a random stranger so perfectly verbalised what I’d always felt, I had no idea why living was so important to me.

Now I do. It’s because life is short, life is sweet, and at the end of the day, life is all that matters.

In the three-year turmoil that followed that idyllic summer—depression, remission, depression, graduation, exuberance, mania, locked ward, another depression—the man’s imparted philosophy saved me. When I couldn’t get out of bed, or shower, or eat, or feel, I took comfort in the indisputable fact that I was still alive—that as long as I lived, I could have a future different from my present. When I was invincible and exuberant and wildly manic, I rejoiced in all of life’s opportunities and leaned in, recklessly—but also making memories I cherish to this day. After the shock of the locked ward, in the drugged haze that was my first months of freedom, I titled my inaugural blog “Living Time” so I could, each time I posted, remind myself that life was short and sweet, and that nothing else—the ward, the burnt bridges, the bipolar diagnosis—mattered.

Life is hard. And living is an endless struggle. To stay healthy, to stay sane, to stay hopeful and kind and productive and happy besides. So much expectation is placed on us by our family, our friends, our partner, our society—not to mention ourselves. There’s always something to do, somewhere to be, someone to please.

But strip away all that, and what do you have but life? Waking up to a day of possibilities. Sipping our morning coffee. Driving to work. Helping a friend in need. Surprising our partner with back hugs. Falling asleep exhausted but alive, hoping to wake up another day.

Life is short.
Life is sweet.
Life is all that matters.

What do you think?

A stranger’s parting words shaped the last decade of my life, and I hope many more decades to come:

What’s the best thing someone ever said to you?

And why did it resonate so? Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this post with someone else who finds life precious.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful, and live life to the fullest—

Val

I work out, vigorously, four hours a week. I never snack between meals. Years of forcing myself to the gym when I want to bail, eating vegetables when really I want cookies, and I am now in the best shape of my life. I am toned. I am strong. Yet, according to my BMI, I’m overweight.

Shocked and hurt, I turned to my online community for sympathy and indignation, posting a screenshot of my report on Instagram. Friends leapt to my rescue: You’re not overweight! BMI is debunked as a health indicator!!

But, a week later, I still hear “overweight” every time I eat, exercise, look at myself in the mirror.

The damage was done.

When labels hurt

All my life, I’ve been hurt by labels.

When I was young, it was the label “good student.” Then, when I won an all-expenses-paid scholarship (“the Thai scholar”) to study abroad, I became “the player” (manizer?), “the perfectionist,” “the president” (of my university’s Thai society). After I lost my mind and was locked up in a psych ward, I became “the patient,” “the has-been.” At my next job in a language school, I was alternately “the one with impeccable English” (IELTS 9.0! was how I’d be presented to prospective parents) or “the bipolar.”

“Overweight” is just the latest in a lifetime of labels that, without exception, determined how I saw myself. As the “good student,” I allowed myself to do only what I believed a “good student” did: finish my homework, revise my lessons, obey my teachers. There was no room for play, for exploration, for being a child. When I became “the player,” I poured all my energy into chasing boys, taking pride in my 100% success rate and letting friendships languish. “The perfectionist” was crushed by every little mistake. “The patient” believed she was defective. “The IELTS 9.0” thought English was all she’s good for. “The bipolar” was constantly fearful of relapse.

Labels help us order the world—you’re a student, a mother, an axe-murderer—by simplifying it. But this simplification, necessary as it is for sense-making, hurts us dearly when we start identifying with our labels, reducing our multi-faceted selves to just “X.”

Even when “X” is universally desirable like “good” or “kind,” there is danger in adopting them as identities. If a person sees themselves only as “good,” what happens when, in anger, they yell at their child who starts crying and runs away to hide? Will they be able to forgive themselves, reconcile this “bad” with their “good”? What if the “kind” person can never bring themselves to refuse any request, however large or unreasonable? What kind of life would that be?

As for “overweight,” I concede it could shine light on a problem that needs fixing, might even spur hardier souls into action. But in my case, the doctor’s pronouncement—you’re overweight—however well-meaning, completely negates my years of hard work, the milestones I celebrated, the challenges I overcame. If, after all that, I’m still overweight, still being told to exercise, to not snack between meals, then what’s the bloody point?

It’s what you do, not what you are

We’re never going to rid the world of labels. We’ll always want to label others, ourselves, that neighbour who never says “hello.”

What we can do, though, is stop identifying with them.

Easier said than done, I’ll admit. After all, I know full well identifying with reductive labels has hurt me my whole life. Yet I still have difficulty rejecting “you’re overweight.” Years of seeing myself as healthy and strong, of being proud of myself, of feeling happy—undone with a single defunct measure.

And that’s a label I disagree with. Labels I embrace: impossible. “Newsletter Queen,” “Detail Dominatrix,” “VALue”—all labels I’ve been dubbed at work that I take pride in and, as a result, identify with completely. Then my confidence shatters when I need help setting up an automation “Newsletter Queen” should be able to conjure blindfolded, miss an error “Detail Dominatrix” would have caught, waste an afternoon on tasks that don’t deliver VALue.

But in my as-yet-unsuccessful attempt to never identify with labels—good or bad—ever again, what I’ve found most helpful is to shift my focus from what I am to what I do.

It doesn’t matter whether I am overweight or toned or healthy or weak. What matters is that I go to the gym and don’t live on cookies. It doesn’t matter whether I deserve the moniker “Newsletter Queen.” What matters is that I do my work carefully and conscientiously. It doesn’t matter whether I am a good person or bad or untrustworthy or kind. What matters is that I act according to my values and don’t set out to harm others.

It also doesn’t matter whether I am right or wrong in scapegoating labels for all my ills. What matters is that I write my truth, and ask you to consider it.

What do you think?

Before you ask, yes, even after writing a thousand words to say I’m not overweight, I still think I am. Go figure.

Which of your labels do you over-identify with?

How can you pay more attention to what you do, not what you are? Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this post with someone who might appreciate it.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,

Val

36 isn’t an impressive age to live to. But given I thought my life had ended at 24, 36 is a feat.

Twelve years ago, I was barely living at the bottom of a metaphorical pit, debilitated by the third of a stubborn string of depressions that made university a far cry from fond memories. Then, in an award-worthy twist, when I finally managed to claw out of my hole of despair, I overshot and lost my grip on reality in a mind-bending mania that landed me in a locked ward at the age of 25.

I celebrated my 26th an ex-patient and lifelong sufferer of bipolar disorder. Defective and jobless—no hope of reclaiming the glory of my former life.

Yet today, ten years later, I work for my favourite, three-times #1 NYT bestselling author—in a role that not only enables the work-life balance of dreams, but that affords me the privilege to touch over a million lives, every single day. I am coupled with a wonderful human who makes every waking moment a delight. I live in a beautiful apartment in a vibrant, affordable city. I spend my hours café hopping, devouring books, and dining with inspiring, kind, and caring individuals I call friends. I am in the best physical shape of my life.

Won’t you pinch me?

Locked ward to dream life

My comeback—high-flying student rises from the ashes to dizzying professional heights—feels inevitable in hindsight. At the time, it was anything but.

Through all my depressions—once, twice, three times—and mania and stint in the ward, I had little sense of what it might take to restore the life of promise I’d enjoyed—a life that, with each fresh affliction, faded that tiny bit further into a distant dream.

Most days I barely knew how to get to bedtime—the “future” was out of the question.

But, being locked up in a psych ward did do something three depressions and a mania hadn’t. It gave me the urgency to fix myself now so I don’t, ever again, wake up strapped to a metal bed.

So, once released, I dedicated myself to deciphering what had gone wrong. Day after day I sat staring into the abyss that was my value system, searching for the culprits that had condemned me to a life of psychological pain.

In a yearlong process, I discovered the first of a series of missteps: until my downfall, I had identified myself solely as a “stellar student.” There was no room for other interests, pursuits, or loves. All my energy poured into being the best student, my self-worth determined by it. And so when I graduated, I literally lost myself: What am I now that I am no longer a student?

To make matters worse, my ironclad perfectionism—an unfortunate consequence of constant praise for perfect grades without the crucial caveat that there was more to life—had foisted unreasonable expectations onto every endeavour I attempted. I must make no mistakes. Mistakes were for other people—I wasn’t other people.

Throw on top of that an edict from childhood that I didn’t need friends. And no wonder my life had been, to put it mildly, out of balance.

With these insights I began to construct a new identity, to find healthier values to build my post-ward life around. But this was not a neat, purposeful journey. It was many messy years where I rebelled against all the values I used to hold dear, sleepwalked into more than one toxic relationship, and most days had no idea if my choices were setting me on a better path—or right back where I started.

36 hard-learnt lessons… just for you

Fortunately, it does appear, against all odds, I’ve made it out the other end.

To celebrate this most unlikely of birthdays, allow me to condense everything I’ve learnt—from lived experience, reflection, and recently therapy—into 36 gift-wrapped lessons, just for you, beginning with:

1. Exercise. The single best thing I’ve done for myself this decade. Exercise keeps me healthy in body and mind, makes me strong (lifting cabin luggage into the overhead compartment has never felt so gratifying)—even solves intractable work problems. And, in moderation, zero downsides. I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

2. Talking about moderation: Everything in moderation, including moderation.

3. Boundaries are the bomb. Many of you know I’ve been navigating tricky boundaries recently, but you don’t need a terminally ill parent to have boundaries change your life—trust me on this.

4. Trust isn’t transparency. You shouldn’t need to know everything about someone to trust them. Trust is not knowing, and choosing to anyway.

5. After exercise, the next best thing you can do for yourself is sleep. As many hours a night as you need to not just function, but be at your best.

6. One thing that’s guaranteed to ruin your sleep, by the way, is alcohol. I’m not going to preach abstinence. But I think it’s scientifically safe to say alcohol kills.

7. Your life will never change overnight. It changes as a result of all the little decisions you make, every single day. Will I bail on the gym? Do I eat the cookie? Will I call that friend? Do I work through the weekend?

8. A lesson I learnt the hard way: don’t have a single identity. Don’t just be a “student” or a “parent” or a “manager.” Be more than one thing, so that if your main identity should fail—you graduate, lose your child, get fired—you have alternatives to fall back on.

9. Physical and mental health go hand in hand. You can’t neglect one and expect the other to flourish.

10. Eat good food. And by “good” I mean healthful.

11. Give yourself grace. Sometimes all you want is a brownie—and that’s fine. You’re allowed a brownie. See #2.

12. Set up your environment to make desired habits inevitable. You can’t eat a whole tube of Pringles while Netflixing if you don’t buy Pringles for the house. (I want Pringles.)

13. You can’t control a lot of stuff that happens in your life. Don’t worry about what you can’t control.

14. If you’re worried about something you can control, do something about it. Use your worry as a cue to act.

15. Friends are important. Not realising this landed me in a psych ward. Just saying.

16. It’s better to have a few good friends than a great many acquaintances. It’s also possible to have too many good friends—friendships take time to maintain, and no one has all the time in the world.

17. If you feel you have no one to talk to, that’s an issue you need to address, urgently. See #18.

18. It’s easier to make friends than you think. Put yourself out there. Join groups. Initiate coffees and lunches. Invite others in.

19. Friendship is a numbers game. Not every stranger will become your friend. And if they do, that’s a red flag that you should revisit your definition of friendship.

20. You never know what an act will lead to. I walked into a bar one day and now I have someone to grow old with. Go figure.

21. So, say “yes” to new experiences. I randomly started pole dancing this year and it’s doing wonders for my self-esteem. (It’s also really painful and leaves nasty bruises. Can’t have everything.)

22. Say “no” to things you don’t want to do. Seriously. Don’t agree to avoid conflict, then complain afterwards.

23. Work isn’t life. The person letting work take over is you.

24. You don’t need to love your job. I do love my job. But I didn’t love all my jobs. Not loving your job isn’t an excuse to do bad work—or give up on life entirely. See #23.

25. Find hobbies you love. My therapist will dispute this and say it’s work, but my chosen beloved hobby is writing. It keeps me sane and creatively fulfilled.

26. Therapy is really, really useful. I’m a newcomer and have nothing but good words. It does get tough, and there is a lot of crying, but it’s work worth doing. Highly recommended.

27. Love yourself. Self-explanatory, but still worth unpacking: what does loving yourself look like for you? What will it take?

28. Love others unconditionally. Don’t hold someone hostage. Love is a gift, not a condition.

29. But your relationships should be conditional. They stop working, you walk away.

30. Don’t make your life about someone else. No one gets to determine your happiness but you.

31. Equally important, don’t bear the burden of someone else’s happiness. It’s not your problem. Really.

32. If exercise is your best bet for a well-functioning body (see #1), meditation will do wonders for your mind. Some say it’s not for everyone. I respectfully disagree.

33. Don’t be hard on yourself. It doesn’t help. See #11 and #27.

34. Develop your emotional vocabulary. Don’t feel “OK” or “bad” or “good.” Feel “conflicted,” “exuberant,” “serene.”

35. Self-awareness saved my life. It will save yours too.

36. You’re OK. Life isn’t an exam. We’re all works in progress. And no one knows what the hell they’re doing (I haven’t a clue). So love yourself just as you are, and know you can always be better.

What do you think?

There you have it—36 lessons I lived on your behalf, shared with love and gratitude on this momentous occasion of my 36th birthday. Now tell me:

What are your top three lessons for life?

Or 36, if you feel like it. Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you think someone in your life could use these lessons, feel free to share this newsletter with them. Either way, I’m grateful you’re here.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful while I go eat cake (#11),

Val

This line of reasoning didn’t seem problematic at first, but the ever-increasing vitriol with which my fellow creators are jumping on this bandwagon soon gave me pause: this isn’t right.

In fact, it’s rather silly.

Not every friend will “like” your posts

I have nothing against creators supporting each other’s work and commiserating with one another’s woes. I do it too. But I find this shared indignation against offline friends ridiculous, indulgent, borderline toxic.

Not every friend will “like” your posts, stories, status updates. It’s unreasonable to expect them to, and even more unreasonable to get offended when they don’t.

Of course, it’s nice when a friend supports your work. I love it when someone I know in real life “likes” my posts (OctopiCrunch I’m looking at you) and shares them and tells me how my writing resonates. But friendship isn’t reducible to a “like” on a post.

Friendship is wanting the best for you. It’s making time to meet up. It’s making sure you’re okay when you’re having a rough time. It’s wishing you “Happy Birthday” or “Happy Anniversary” or a simple “hello” to check in.

So what if your friend of fifteen years doesn’t “like” your posts? Does that negate a decade and a half of shared experiences, of laughter and tears, of encouraging words and comforting hugs and stern reminders when you’re going astray?

Exactly.

There’s more than one way to show up

There are many ways friends show up for one another. Some are more visible than others—like a “like” on a post—but none are any less valid.

I have a friend of eighteen years who barely replies to messages and whom I see twice a year at most, but the one time I needed her expertise she spent two hours on a weekday afternoon looking up obscure tax laws so she could advise me on how to deal with a pesky tenant. She showed up.

I have a friend of six months who I’ve met only twice but always has time to banter with me and have deep talk, sometimes simultaneously, in my Instagram DMs. He shows up.

I have a friend of seven years with whom I rarely chat but last month she reached out with her first-ever fundraising request and I immediately transferred what I could spare. I showed up.

There is no “friendship” playbook that everyone subscribes to. We all relate to, and show up for, our friends in our unique, snowflake ways.

Just because those outraged creators’ friends aren’t showing up by “liking” their posts, it doesn’t mean they’re not showing up in other, myriad ways.

If only they’d stop complaining long enough to notice.

What do you think?

How do your friends show up for you? How do you show up for them?

Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this post with a friend so they know you’re thinking of them.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,

Val

I now know that happiness was the gloss I’d papered over my self-hatred. The veneer under which I seethed at my many shortcomings. The excuse that for a decade absolved me from the unpleasant task of digging up my past to make sense of my present: after all, who needs therapy when they’re happy?

It’s got to get worse…

Would you like to hear the poem? I offer after telling my therapist I’ve written a poem titled “I am nothing” inspired by our conversation around my (non-existent) self-esteem.

Yes please, my therapist sits up, pen and notebook at the ready.

I flip open my nascent poetry collection and begin reading, my voice firm:

I am nothing. Written 29/03/25 at Tywi B.

Without my accomplishments, I am nothing.
Without my partner, my job, my friends, my writing.
My body a husk that holds a void.
A collection of thoughts, a mere humanoid. [What does humanoid mean? I stop to ask my therapist. Like an automaton? Good, I wasn’t sure I was using it right.]

I am nothing unless I’m seen.
My self-esteem non-existent, is how I’ve always been.
Do I hate myself and why?
Can I blame my parents or is the fault mine?

Before my partner I was unloved.
In the way I needed, how I wanted to be heard.
Now saved, I wonder if I’m free.
From this self-hatred that’s the province of me.

I am nothing, no good, defective.
A selfish and proud obsessive.
Wracked by anxiety, my drive to succeed.
Who else but me will fulfil my need?

Onto the page I pour my thoughts.
Untangled in silence, the space my privilege bought.
For I am blessed with fortune and pain.
A blessing [I hate that I’m repeating the word] and a curse I bemoan in vain.

Who am I? I ask.
Alone, what can I be?
What happiness is to be had
When all I have is me.

… before it gets better

Of all the things I expected therapy to uncover, and I had high hopes, I did not expect “I hate myself” and “I have no self-esteem.”

I started therapy so I could understand my past—the depressions and manias of a decade ago—and not my present. When I had my first session four months ago, I was the happiest I’d ever been. I had healthy emotional, psychological, and physical habits. I loved the person I was (or so I thought) and was proud of the years of daily work I’d done to shed my former, defective self (alas).

They say therapy has a way of making you realise just how f*cked up you are, and I guess, in my case, the internet is right. Over sixteen weekly sessions some of which tearful, I learnt, in this order:

• I am not a people pleaser.

• I default to judgement, not empathy.

• I impose unbelievably high standards on others.

• I catastrophise.

• I am an incredibly anxious person, no wonder I’ve been called “neurotic.”

• I label myself “selfish” because that’s easier than working through conflicting emotions to arrive at a more nuanced, forgiving assessment.

• I feel guilty when I put myself first.

• I may be a people pleaser.

• I have laughably low expectations of people, especially my parents.

• I use unjustifiably harsh language in my negative self-talk.

• I do things for others that I don’t benefit from, so maybe I’m not selfish after all?

• The only thing I don’t catastrophise is actual life and death situations. Huh.

• I am a people pleaser.

• I have low self-esteem.

• I have no self-esteem.

• I hate myself, always have… always will?

It’s been a tumultuous four months as each fresh session revealed a part of me I did not know was there, a part I had to reconcile with all the other parts I thought were there but maybe weren’t there after all.

It’s been confusing, taxing, at times troubling. But, even though therapy has unearthed more questions than it answered, I am infinitely grateful to myself for the decision to start, and—it goes without saying—to my therapist whose comforting presence and unyielding support has carried me through the myriad twists and turns of my messed up mind.1

It’s a long road ahead. But it’s work worth doing. And I’m glad I’m doing it.

What do you think?

Do you go to therapy? If you do…

What reckoning have you had in therapy?

If you don’t go to therapy, is it something you’d consider? Why/why not? They say therapy is like brushing your teeth but for your mind. Yet I’m not one to defer to the wisdom of the crowd, and I’d genuinely like to hear your thoughts on the matter. Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this post with someone who’s your safe space despite not being your therapist, or perhaps your actual therapist if it wouldn’t cross your line.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,

Val

Your partner/parent/child/friend/dog may love to hear it. It’s flattering, romantic even. But it’s the last thing you want to say to, and hear from, someone you love.

Here’s why.

“I can’t live without you”

The internet abounds with puppy-adorned images of this quote and its many variations: “I can’t imagine life without you,” “You’re the one I can’t live without,” “I am nothing without you,” “I’d rather be nowhere with you than somewhere without you”... you get the idea.

But let’s pause for a second: What does it say about you that you can’t live without your partner/parent/child/friend/dog?

• You are scared of being, and dying, alone.

• You rely on your partner/parent/child/friend/dog to fix your problems.

• Your happiness is conditional on your partner/parent/child/friend/dog loving you.

• Your existence is predicated on another, your survival their responsibility.

• Again, you get the idea.

I see no scenario in which a relationship of “I can’t live without you” flourishes. The very belief that you can’t live without someone guarantees co-dependency and, ultimately, toxicity.

Yet, every second of every day, dreamy-eyed lovers everywhere whisper this in each other’s ear, believing the pronouncement irrefutable proof of their envied and eternal love.

A healthier basis for relationships

A healthy relationship is a coming together of two individuals who are just fine on their own, yet choose to be with each other because, together, they are more than the sum of their parts.

Meeting my partner of seven years is the most wonderful thing that has happened to me. But I do not need him.

If we break up tomorrow, it will be crushing. But I will survive. Because I have a life outside of our relationship. It will suck for a while, but eventually I will be fine. And so will he.

My boss has a saying which I’m going to butcher (sorry Mark), “Love should be unconditional, but a relationship always conditional.”

You should love your partner/parent/child/friend/dog unconditionally, i.e. expecting nothing in return, but no relationship should be eternal. It stops working, you walk away.1

When you can’t live without someone, or believe you cannot, this stops your relationship from being conditional upon it working. And that’s when you end up in toxic dumpster fires believing you have no choice but to burn.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Your life is your own. If you feel you cannot live without someone, that’s a red flag that you need to reconsider where you’re spending your time.

• Are you giving yourself time to reflect on who you are, your likes/dislikes, your desires/goals/values independent of your relationship?

• Are you giving yourself time to build a life outside this relationship? Nurturing friendships, pursuing hobbies, going for spontaneous massages?

• Are you giving yourself time to reflect on whether this relationship makes your life better? To have the hard conversations that answer this all-deciding question?

I am simplifying of course. Your reality will be complicated by financial, legal, social, offspring considerations. But I ask: Do you really not want to have a life outside your relationship? Suffer mistreatment because you’re afraid of dying alone?

“I can’t live without you” is no way to have a relationship. “I can live without you, but I want you in my life because with you it’s so much better,” is a far better basis.

Don’t you think?

What do you think?

Is there someone you can’t live without?

What can you change in your life so you can choose to be with them, rather than feel you have to? Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this post with someone you don’t need, but truly want in your life.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,

Val

My therapist waits for me to continue, her expression contemplative.

Mom’s been caring for dad for years and instead of helping I use my mental health to justify not being home. It’s selfish, I know. I’m putting myself first.

My therapist finally speaks: You feel guilty you’re not taking care of your dad.

Yes.

But who’s taking care of you?

I look up, surprised first by her question, then my answer. No one.

Who’s taking care of you?

I come from a communal society where, whatever stage you are in life, someone is culturally assigned to care for you. As a child, that burden falls on your parents. As you grow up and form relationships, the burden of your care shifts to your friends and, if you have one, your spouse. Then, when you’re old and decrepit, your children are expected to take up the mantle.

Taking responsibility for a friend in need is common practice. Getting embroiled in a spouse’s family disputes isn’t frowned upon. Ditching everything to care for aging parents is the norm. To the point where a friend with two daughters once told me, in all seriousness, she would keep having children until she had a boy because men take better care of their parents.

At first, I did not question these conventions. Then I learnt about boundaries and now I can’t unsee the absurdity of this set-up where everyone is expected to be responsible for everyone else, but not themselves, never themselves.

She’s abandoned wholesome Thai values in favour of selfish Western ones, is the affliction my Thai elders have undoubtedly diagnosed me with. But the blinders have been lifted and the more boundary violations I observe amongst friends and family, the more entrenched I become in my supposedly Western views.

When you’re a child, of course, you can’t take care of yourself. You need your parents to feed you, clothe you, put a roof over your head, school you in the ways of the world. But surely there must come an age when you develop the ability to care for yourself, to find food, buy clothes, pay rent, refrain from breaking the law.

To me, this society-wide expectation that there will always be someone to care for you is a collective abdication of responsibility for yourself. I will not take care of myself because my parents/friend/spouse/child will. Which leads us to ridiculous situations where a 30-year-old expects their mother to do their laundry, a 40-year-old calls their best friend at all hours expecting to be coached through their latest marital spat, a 50-year-old demands to move in with their adult children because they’re lonely.

These are made-up scenarios. But speak to enough of my compatriots and you’ll find the truth in my fiction, this fiction I’ve distanced myself from by becoming an expat, thereby removing myself from the social norms of both my native and adoptive countries.

The norm I advocate, in their place, is this. Provided you’re above the age of 18, 20 if we’re generous, your answer to “Who’s taking care of you?” shouldn’t be, should never, be: my parents/friend/spouse/child. It should be, “No one.”

Scratch that, it should be: “Me.”

No “guilt” in self-care

Do you feel the need to justify taking care of yourself? My therapist asks. I nod weakly. Well you shouldn’t. I hear her next question before she asks it: Why do you need to justify doing something for yourself?

For someone who has wholeheartedly embraced the concept of taking responsibility for myself, I am incredibly inept at not feeling guilty when I actually do it.

I feel guilty when I take an afternoon off work because I feel overwhelmed. I feel guilty when I take a day to myself while my partner is grieving. I feel guilty when I tell my father I’ll only visit him twice a year because more frequent trips home would derail my life.

I feel guilty when I do all of these things. Not crippling, devastating guilt. Just enough to hum unpleasantly in the background and prompt me to always justify putting myself first, and occasionally write a newsletter about it.

But why?

If I accept that I am ultimately responsible for myself, which I do, then why do I struggle to embrace manifestations of that responsibility?

It’s as if I’m wired to be abhorred by doing nice things for myself. Going to a café to read, getting a massage, saying “no” to a work task that doesn’t have to fall on my plate, accepting a free drink from a friend.

Has “self-care” become too much of a buzzword that I automatically respond to it with scepticism? Did my school of thirteen years embed our school motto—serviam, to serve—into my psyche so thoroughly there is no space left for me? Or do I harbour a hatred for myself so secret I only become aware of it in idle moments?

At the end of the day, I have little idea why I am the way I am. But I do know my therapist is right: there is, should be, no “guilt” in self-care.

Taking care of ourselves—whether that means exercising, eating well, or simply getting a hand massage—is the ultimate expression of adulthood. It is us taking responsibility for our well-being and not expecting anyone else—not our parents, our friends, our spouse, our children—to bear the burden of our care.

It is, I believe, the only way to live.

What do you think?

Thus ends my commentary-confession-manifesto for a way of life I’ll defend to my death. Now for this week’s question:

Do you feel guilty putting yourself first?

Do you feel the need to justify self-care in all of its incarnations? Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this post with someone who takes care of themselves unapologetically.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,

Val

I laugh. I know.

My therapist continues, now serious. How will your friends initiate if you don’t give them the opportunity to?

I was afraid no one would.

Well now you know.

Now I know.

Dinner in three weeks?

For as long as I remember, I was always the person who initiated. Coffees, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, drinks—I’d always know how long it had been since I’d seen someone, and when I deemed it time to reconnect, I’d reach out.

I took pride in this proactivity, considered it a testament to my pristine organisation and commitment to friendships. I do this because I want to take responsibility for making and keeping friends. I don’t want to put the burden on others. This is a good thing.

But what I told myself and what I knew to be true were two different things. I wasn’t going first because I was taking responsibility for my social life. I went first because I feared if I didn’t, no one would.

My partner also knew this. And for years he’d nudged, a suggestion my therapist now echoed: How will you know you have friends if you don’t give them the opportunity to show you?

For years I’d resisted, claiming I’d established an unchangeable pattern with all of my friends and that really, it’s fine, I don’t mind initiating. Yet all along I lived in fear, convinced I’d never meet any of my friends ever again if I stopped asking them out.

Do you want to grab coffee sometime?

Until two weeks ago, when I had this conversation with my partner for the tenth time and finally decided to take his advice.

I’m not sure what changed. Two months of therapy had made me more attuned to my predispositions—only took me 35 years to realise I’m an incredibly anxious person—and I had resolved to get better at letting go. But also I was tired. And a tiny bit curious.

My partner and I were wrapping up our holiday in Bangkok, and I restrained myself from filling my first week back in Ho Chi Minh City with coffees and lunches and dinners, to see if anyone would reach out once they knew I was back from my daily Instagram stories.

Turns out I didn’t have to wait. Days before our return, a close friend messaged to see how I was doing and: Do you want to grab a drink when you’re back? I was pleased but not yet reassured—he had been one of the few who’d always checked in on me, so his taking initiative was not sufficient to dispel my fear.

But then I got back to Ho Chi Minh City and within the first few days two people I’d wanted to befriend had asked me out—Do you want to grab coffee sometime?—and I had two meals in my calendar that two different friends had initiated.

My friends initiated! I excitedly reported the result of my experiment to my partner, then my therapist. I have friends, is the hypothesis I confirmed to myself. And for the past two weeks I’ve been walking on air.

It seems silly now, looking back, that I believed so completely that none of my friends would have asked to hang out with me if not prompted to at regular intervals. I see now this came from a place of insecurity—no one wants to be friends with me—and distrust—no one can get their act together to maintain our friendship.

Yet as recently as two weeks ago, my fear was real and unshakeable, as solidly rooted as my belief in my non-worthiness, which I wrote about last October.

As my fear has faded, so has weakened this belief. It’s still lurking in the recesses of my mind, but with time, I hope to one day believe, truly believe, I am worthy of friendship.

Until then, I’ll have to keep giving my friends the opportunity to show up, and see who chooses to.

What do you think?

To be honest, even with mounting evidence that my friends can be trusted to claim space on my calendar, it’s still going to be tough for me to hold back, to not go first as I always have.

Are you (also) that person who always initiates?

Why do you go first? Why not? Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this post with a friend before they share it with you.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,

Val

When I saw the job posting, I couldn’t believe my luck. I had just wrapped up my stint at a Bangkok-based travel tech company in preparation for my move to Ho Chi Minh City to join my partner of two years. I was in need of employment, and a remote, well-paid gig writing for a #1 New York Times bestselling author was far superior to any professional scenario I could have dreamt up.

I had one week to write my application, and that whole week I agonised. With no relevant experience, no Master’s degree, no publication under my name—the first Val Thinks wouldn’t arrive in 33 inboxes for another nine months—I had to really impress to stand a chance. 

In the end, I gambled it all on a playful CV and a reveal-all of my chequered past when asked to describe my long-term career goals: 

I used to have a career goal. My ambition from university days was to land a top job at Boston Consulting Group, which led to an unsuccessful internship application and much daydreaming. But then, life happened. 4 depressive episodes, 1 manic, 1.5 month in a mental hospital and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder later, I came to adopt a different life approach. Out went the career goals of old, in came a focus on the process. I became a firm believer that life happens on the journey, not at the destination—it’s not so important where you end up; what matters is the stuff along the way. So, instead of career goals, I now have one guiding principle for my process of life: maximise the time I spend doing what I love. Or, as you might say, choose my suffering and suffer the hell out of it. [...]

I beat 600 other applicants to land my dream job, which turned out to be everything I hoped for, and then some. I can’t be more thrilled to work for Mark, the wonderful human that he is, and get to help millions of people live better lives, every single day.

Yet my story doesn’t have a happy ending.

How I lost my way

Somewhere in the past four years—juggling my dream job, this newsletter, subtitles translation, and getting in shape—I lost my way.

When I signed up for this life, I was all about the work—the writing, the translating, the exercising. I had chosen my suffering and would gladly “suffer the hell out of it.”

But then I saw results, and everything went wrong.

When my boss and colleagues started praising my performance, my validation-craving self responded by shifting my source of professional fulfilment from doing the work to being praised for it. The more likes and comments I gained on this newsletter, the more I turned to them as validation for my skill. The first time a subtitles editor commended my translation, it made my week, left me hungry for more. When I first saw a version of myself I liked in the mirror, I came to rely on that reflection to get me to the gym on mornings I’d rather lay reading on the couch.   

The more positive results I saw for my efforts, the more I zeroed in on them as a source of validation, of motivation, of fulfilment. I depended on them, and for a while I thrived.

But then the praises at work dried up, the newsletter comments ceased, the subtitles editors stopped bothering with feedback, my tummy flab returned—and I became miserable.

While busy chasing results, I’d left behind the conviction that made all my dreams come true in the first place. I’d forgotten that life happens on the journey, not at the destination.

Life happens on the journey

Last week, after four years of slowly but surely straying from the enlightened path, I finally had my wake-up call in the wake of a newsletter existential crisis.

For months, I’d been obsessing over my barely-growing subscribers and ever-declining open rates, asking myself over and over: What am I doing? What is Val Thinks about? What do readers want? Have I lost it? What *is* “it”? Is weekly too often? Should I take a break? Can I afford to? Or do I just give up? Does anyone even care?

The longer these questions preyed on my mind, the less inclination I had to write, the more behind I got in my schedule. Finally, last week, I ran out of runway. I had one finished newsletter scheduled for Friday, but nothing for the week after. 

Not only was I in an existential crisis, the whole endeavour was threatening to come crashing down around my uninspired writer self.

So I heeded my own advice and took a break. For three days I did not write, did not so much as glance at my newsletter. But my crisis was rooted too deep and I returned as unwilling as ever. 

In the end, what came to my rescue, and I did not see this coming, was Reddit. My financial planner and dear friend Patrik had been suggesting I get on the platform to find new readers for some time. That week we had one of our hours-long, life-affirming coffees, he showed me how it worked on his phone, and I was finally convinced. I joined that very afternoon and dove into conversations around writing, contributing what little wisdom I’d gleaned from three and a half years of Val Thinks, existential crisis be damned. 

My first rescuer—there were two—was a writer one year into his journey. He had asked a question about stagnation that drew the attention of my struggling self like freshly-dripped coffee in the morning. I pondered his dilemma, then carefully typed out the following advice: 

I'd start by asking yourself: what's the one thing you do it all for? Is it, like me, to write? Or is it to build an audience? Or to build connection with your readers? To become an expert on your subject matter? And so on.

Get clear on your North star, and forget everything else. It's the best way I've found, maybe the only way, to keep going week after week and not lose your passion.

Writing that comment to a stranger on the internet was the wake-up call I needed. I had started my newsletter three and a half years ago because I wanted to write, and write regularly—likes and comments weren’t even on my mind. I had applied for my dream job four years ago because I wanted to do the work, not be praised for a task well done. I had gotten into subtitles translation because I loved the challenge of transposing an experience across language and culture, no matter whether an editor liked my work enough to tell me. I had started exercising because I wanted to be healthy and strong, not so I could fall in love with my toned reflection. 

I had committed myself to all these things because doing them gave me joy—results and recognition played no part. But then results and recognition poured in and I forgot what I was in it all for. 

One day after my awakening from four years of misdirection, a second Reddit stranger secured my salvation, responding in the same thread:

If you're being “called” by something—then it exists and is calling out to you.

Your writing into your niche is your response. Do it for the love of it. Write what you wish existed on the blogosphere.

Don't do it for an “outcome”—be the outcome—a writer and author on your niche subject. The very writing is the outcome.

Be the outcome, write what you wish existed. 

And with that, I sat down to write this post.

What do you think?

Because I’m human and we’re silly forgetful creatures, I’m sure going to forget again and you’ll have to remind me to focus on my journey, never my destination. Enough about me though:

What’s the journey you choose?

What is your process, the suffering that you love? Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this post with someone who could use this friendly reminder.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,

Val

Photo by Vlad Bagacian on Unsplash

See that wild-haired loony? Looks like she escaped from Sritanya! 

He’s such a nutter. I don’t know how he’s not locked up in Sritanya! 

You should see someone or you’ll end up at Sritanya! Ha Ha.

Sritanya is where my father sent me in January 2015 when I lost my mind. 

In less than two months, I quit a job I was happy with before decrying my “evil” former colleagues on social media, bought an apartment in the middle of nowhere to escape from my parents, gave up living there after a week, eschewed food in favour of soft drinks and alcohol, lost a tonne of weight, started smoking heavily, partied most nights, filmed myself singing in dozens of videos which I then posted to my Facebook “fanpage,” did get discovered by a DJ, manoeuvred myself into more than a few compromising situations, volunteered to be an accent coach for a play despite having zero facility for accents, ran a red light because the car radio told me I was part of a motorcade.

Everyone but me was aware something was off, seriously off. But no one knew quite what to do and for a few blissful months I indulged in one reckless act after another. 

Until the final straw: I told my family and friends I was going to the UK to reunite with a former lover who had asked me to marry him (he hadn’t). I then began making preparations for my visa and flight (business class).

This, my father decided, would not do. Me travelling alone to the UK was out of the question. 

So, unbeknownst to me, calls were made. And on one otherwise unremarkable day, with the help of a well-meaning ploy which I readily fell for having lost all capacity for logic, I found myself strapped to a bed in Sritanya’s special women’s ward.

What a wake-up call.

Waking from mania

My one-and-a-half-month stint in that psych ward was the best thing that ever happened to me.

First because it cured me of my madness. On top of being heavily sedated (vitamins, they said), on the day of my admission I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder Type I—the severe variant involving full-blown mania where you’re completely untethered to reality, like I was—and swiftly put on medication.

Having always refused to take antidepressants for repeated depressive episodes while at university in London, this time—for the first time—I wasn’t given a choice. Every morning and night I lined up with the other patients to receive and, in one practised gulp, swallow whatever cocktail of medication our doctors had deemed appropriate for each of our ailments, which ranged from mild anxiety and depression to Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia.

And, loath as I was to admit a faulty brain, the pills worked. In less than a week I was once again lucid and cognisant of the shit I was in.

I woke from mania to find myself in the worst possible nightmare: being behind bars.

Forever changed

Being locked up changes you.

Every afternoon after visitation hours which I’d spend with my mother in the front lawn gazebo, I’d be ushered back into the ward and the metal door would shut behind me. 

Hearing the click of that lock is the worst feeling in the world.

The hollowness, the complete loss of hope, your soul shattering into a million pieces—what you feel the second you lose your freedom is not like any emotion you experience over the course of everyday life. It’s a level of suckage you can’t possibly comprehend unless you’ve lived it, and I hope you never do.

Hearing that click every single day for a month and a half gave me a resolve that nothing will ever shake: I am never getting locked up again.

As life goals go, this might seem unambitious. But this single determination has wonderful, far-reaching implications.

Not being locked up again means religiously taking care of my mental health. It means taking my medication every morning and night, eating well, not drinking to excess, going to the gym, unconditionally loving my partner, nurturing my relationships with friends, finding time to read and go on long walks, meditating, saying “no” to unimportant things, not taking on too much at work, making time for creative pursuits like this newsletter.

And that’s not all.

Being behind bars also works wonders in the perspective department. It made me realise that most things in life are, at the end of the day, not that big of a deal.

Four years ago, I quit a well-loved, well-paid job so I could move to Vietnam to be with my partner of two years. And numerous friends and acquaintances have since expressed awe at what they say must have been a torturous decision. How brave of you! How did you know it was the right move?

And to everyone, I say: It was a no-brainer. I wanted to be with my partner. It wasn’t viable for him to move, so I did. The decision didn’t require me to be brave. And in fact I didn’t know the move was right—I couldn’t have. But this didn’t matter. If our relationship combusted the second we stepped foot into our apartment, I’d simply move back and find a new job.

To me, the only high-stakes decision—the only one worth fussing over—is one that could land me behind bars. And, as it turns out, 99% of decisions in life don’t fall into that category. 

Should I apply for this job I probably won’t get? Should I start a newsletter not knowing if anyone will read it? Should I ask my favourite author to be my mentor? Should I tell the brown-eyed stranger I met at the bar that I’m attracted to him?

On none of these occasions was “getting locked up” a potential outcome, so I didn’t think twice. And now I have a job I could never have dreamt of, this newsletter read by hundreds of kindred spirits, a New York Times bestselling author for a mentor, and a brown-eyed partner who makes every second of my life a delight.

And had any of the outcomes been different, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. 

Because I’d still have my freedom. The freedom to decide what time to get up in the morning, to choose what beans to brew for my morning coffee, to walk to my gym, to work in my favourite café, to live my life however I choose.

When my father committed me to that psych ward, he wasn’t—as he feared—scarring me for life. He was giving me the gift of a lifetime.

What do you think?

My time in Sritanya was unpleasant and at times disturbing. I wouldn’t wish my experience on anyone, but I am forever grateful it was gifted to me. Take away that month and a half and I may never have gained the resolve to live well and—for lack of a better word—courage to always shoot for the moon.

Have you had an experience that forever changed you?

Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this post with a friend who inspires you to be a better person.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful, and it’s good to be back,

Val

Photo by Mitchel Lensink on Unsplash

If I come across as confident or enlightened when you read this newsletter, it’s because I’m serving you a highly-curated snippet of my mind that I’ve laboured over to rid of all ambiguities.

I’m neither confident nor enlightened. In fact, I’m often a mess.

I’m not particularly knowledgeable about the world. I’m not well-versed in human psychology. I’m full of biases and prejudices. I often contradict myself. I don’t hold the secret to a better life. Most of the time I don’t even know myself.

In short, I have no clue. I’m just making it up as I go along.

And the truth of it is: you are too.

We have no clue

There is frighteningly little that can be known about life.

We cannot know what the future holds, if we’re going to slip and fall in the shower this morning, if a colleague will dump a mammoth project onto our plate this afternoon, if we’re going to win the next lottery we buy, if a tsunami will destroy our beloved beach destination before our next holiday.

We cannot know how to reach our goals, make our wildest dreams come true. We may have ideas. We may have plans. But there is no knowing which of them—if any—will get us across the finish line.

We cannot know what’s responsible for our successes. Was it the all-nighters? That person we started chatting to at the café who happened to be friends with the right people? The alignment of stars? Any event is shaped by countless forces—most of which we’re not even aware of—and so trying to determine the root cause of anything is an exercise more futile than fruitful.

We cannot know what someone is thinking or feeling unless they tell us, and even then the veracity of their account can never be verified. Most of the time, unless we’re exceptionally attuned to our thoughts and feelings, we don’t even know what’s on our own mind.

The scale of our ignorance is vast, so vast it’s difficult to grasp. We think we know what we’re doing when we’re really just tumbling through life blindfolded.

We don’t have a clue.

What to do?

Our forced ignorance, frightening though it is, can be incredibly liberating. If only you choose to draw the same conclusion I do.

Instead of getting distressed by the vast unknowns—the future, the secret to success, the minds of others, the mysteries of life—I encourage you to be emboldened by the fact that despite not knowing, life goes on.

We don’t need to know the future in order to wake up every morning and go about our daily routine. We don’t need to know the secret to success in order to do good work and feel a sense of accomplishment when we go to bed each night. We don’t need to know the minds of others in order to have meaningful connections. We don’t need to know any of it in order to live.

There is no secret to life that unlocks eternal happiness. There are only flawed recollections, imperfect understanding, invented hypotheses, and limitless trials and errors.

Knowing isn’t where life happens—it’s doing. It doesn’t matter that you have no idea whether you’ll get that job you applied for, whether your friend will cancel dinner yet again, whether your partner will still love you in ten years, whether you’ll die tomorrow. What matters is that you open your eyes in the morning, get up from bed, and get on with your day.

No one has a clue, and yet we’re here—me writing this sentence, you reading my words; both thinking, breathing, living.

What do you think?

A bit of a strange question, but I’m curious:

What do you not know in life?

Beyond the future, the path to success, the minds of others, the key to happiness—what else can’t we know in life? Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this with someone you do know.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,

Val

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

The lanky waiter jots down my order and retreats. I plug my laptop in, take my mouse and its mat out of my suitcase, place both on the table, then settle down for an airport work session—boarding is in just over an hour.

Whenever I’m flying internationally, which of late is often enough, I come to this favoured spot on Level 3 of HCMC’s airport—an airy restaurant/café with a commanding view of the runway. Impressive though it is, the view isn’t what draws me—I’m here for the numerous sockets and the strong WiFi and the comfortable couch.

And the coffee, though it’s overpriced and rather shitty.

The same lanky waiter re-appears with a tray delicately balanced on his left arm, interrupting my reverie. With his right hand, he carefully places my Americano on the table, well away from my laptop. Good man. I flash him a smile in lieu of the tip he won’t get—I’m already getting gouged for the coffee. The waiter nods politely and once again disappears.

I’m about to start working when my eyes register the mini cookie perched on the saucer of my Americano. I pick it up to investigate. Seems crispy, smells buttery—probably delicious.

But I don’t eat it. And when I gather my things to go board my flight an hour later, the tiny cookie remains on the saucer—it lives to tease another day.

Don't eat the cookie

Letting cookies live another day has not been an easy habit to adopt. For more than three decades, i.e. most of my life, I was the consummate Cookie Monster. Every time a complimentary cookie/biscuit/biscotti arrived with my coffee, the condemned confectionery would disappear straight into my murderous mouth.

It’s so tiny. It’s just one piece. What harm can it do?

As it turns out, quite a fair bit.

One mini cookie may not sentence you to a life of obesity, but having a mini cookie every single time you’re offered one, well, it adds up. Say your favourite coffee shop always gives you a cookie with your latte. If you go twice a week, by year’s end you’ve had a hundred cookies—which you’d never dream of eating all at once unless you’re trying to give yourself diabetes.

But it’s not just the cookies. When you get in the habit of telling yourself “a mini cookie won’t hurt,” it’s a short hop from there to “small things don’t matter.” And then you find yourself ordering a “mini” roll cake with your “short” Starbucks latte a few nights a week then wonder why you’re not shedding weight sweating buckets in all those spin classes (this happened to a friend).

So yeah, don’t eat the cookie.

Small things matter most

When it comes to health and fitness, it’s not the 2-hour workouts once a month that make a difference, but the 20 minutes you spend in the gym every morning. The weeklong crash diet might help you fit into that outfit from a decade ago you wanted to wear for a big night out, but the weight won’t stay off unless you commit to small habit changes—like not eating the cookies—for years and years.

The same is true for most, if not all, areas of our lives.

Whether or not your relationships will flourish isn’t determined by the occasional grand gesture, but by the small things—checking in to see how a friend is doing, washing the dishes when your partner cooked, giving your parents a hug when you see them.

Whether you succeed in your career doesn’t come down to that one massive project you pulled off five years ago; what sets you up for lifelong success is consistently doing all the small things right—never missing a deadline, having an eye for detail, being proactive, not slacking off when the boss isn’t looking.

Financial freedom doesn’t come from the few windfalls in your lifetime, but the small amounts you routinely invest over decades. Happiness isn’t meeting the love of your life; it’s appreciating the moments of joy that occur every single day—waking to the sound of birds chirping, catching up with a good friend over coffee, finishing that work project that’s been stressing you out.

It’s the small things that matter most, every single time.

What do you think?

Now be honest:

Do you eat the cookie?

Literally and metaphorically. Do you pay attention to the small things that matter? What are those small things that make your life worth living? Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this with a cookie fiend you care about.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,

Val

Photo by Tamas Pap on Unsplash

“Great, thanks. On my way down,” I reply, slightly out of breath as I manhandle my suitcase into the tiny lift. My maybe-driver says OK, and I hang up.

Sure enough, when I emerge into the lobby on the ground floor ten seconds later, I see a man seated by the entrance. He also sees me, gets up, approaches.

“Let me take your suitcase to the car,” he smiles warmly and extends a hand. My brain immediately goes into overdrive. What if he’s not my driver? What if I’m about to hand my suitcase, with my laptop in it, over to a scammer? What if he /is/ my driver but decides he’d rather steal my suitcase than drive me to the airport? What if he’s honest but absent-minded and forgets to put my suitcase into his trunk, consigning all my essentials to eternal life on the pavement while I’m being driven to catch an international flight?

The maybe-driver-maybe-scammer’s hand is still outstretched, the smile on his face becoming a little strained. I’ve taken too long to answer and now he’s wondering what’s up.

“Sure,” I flash my most gracious smile and hand him my suitcase. The man’s face relaxes. He takes my suitcase and wheels it out the front door, soon out of sight. The only thought on my mind as I turn to the receptionist to check out of my room: that’s the last time I’ll ever lay eyes on that thing.

A world without trust

When I applied to university in the UK a decade and a half ago, I was asked to submit a short essay alongside my statement of purpose and test scores. The topic might have been assigned, or might be I chose it myself—whichever it is, I ended up writing my essay about trust.

Fifteen years is a long time, and my memory is more than a little hazy. But the gist of my essay was, the world can’t function without trust.

Imagine a scenario where:

• You don’t trust that your partner is telling the truth when they tell you that they love you. (They’re going to dump me as soon as they find someone younger/prettier/smarter/funnier.)

• You don’t trust that your immediate family and closest friends have your back. (If I ever ask them for help, they’re just going to laugh in my face.)

• You don’t trust that your employee will do the work you assigned them to the standard you expect. (They’re going to make a royal mess and the client will fire us.)

• You don’t trust that your taxi driver will take you to your destination. (They’re going to drive me to an abandoned scrapyard and rob/rape/enslave me.)

• You don’t trust that Amazon will deliver the item you just paid for. (I’m never seeing my money again, never mind that bath mat I just ordered.)

• You don’t trust that your waiter will brief the chef on your food allergy. (I’m going to take one bite and die a horrible death.)

What a world that would be. A world with no relationships as we know them, no working in teams, no getting in cars other than your own, no online transactions, no ordering food or eating out if you’re allergic to, say, gluten.

Remove trust from the equation, and what’s left?

Daring to trust

Thankfully, the man who took my suitcase was my driver, and when we arrived at the airport forty-five minutes later, I discovered he also hadn’t forgotten to put my suitcase in his trunk. I was right to trust him.

But did I know my trust was well placed when I handed my suitcase over to this stranger in the hotel lobby? Of course not. And herein lies the tricky thing about trust:

Past interactions may indicate someone’s trustworthiness, but it can never guarantee it. When you marry the love of your life, you can’t know that this person, loving and caring and honest as they are now, won’t take a paramour ten years down the line. When you hire an employee, you can’t know that they’ll be as competent and hardworking as they’ve led you to believe. When you get into a hired car, you can’t know if your driver will drop you off at your destination or rob you blind.

I once heard on a podcast, a long time ago now, a take on trust in relationships that I won’t ever forget:

Before this, I believed transparency to be integral to trust—the more someone reveals of themselves, the more trustworthy they are. But what I heard turned my thinking on its head. Transparency doesn’t breed trust. Trust is about not knowing, and choosing to put your faith in someone anyways.

Every single day, more often than we can count, we are called upon to dispense trust like a trust-vending machine, without ever getting paid beforehand. Do we trust that our partner’s really going to an evening client meeting? Do we trust our teammates to do their share of the work? Do we trust the security guard to look after our parked vehicle? Do we trust the market seller to not overcharge us? Do we trust the motorcyclist to stop for us at the crossing?

Without ever knowing whether our trust would be handsomely rewarded or brutally abused, do we choose to trust despite it all… and keep the world turning?

What do you think?

Trust is a fascinating topic that I’ve been meaning to write about for a while. And I hope today’s question gets you thinking:

How can we know when to trust?

Do you require absolute transparency, or does blind faith suffice? Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this with someone you trust.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,

Val

Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash

A light knock on the door and mom pops her head in. “Want mangoes?”

“Yes please,” my face lights up. I love mangoes.

“I’ll bring them up for you.”

The door closes and I turn my attention back to the DVD player. I press “Play” and the well-worn machine groans noisily as it swallows the disc and gets to work.

I flop back onto my red beanbag and reach for the remote just as the familiar theme tune begins to play. So no one told you life was going to be this way. Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's DOA. The large flat screen now displays the main menu. I select the right audio track, English subtitles, then “Play,” and settle in for another episode.

It’s March 2015. For the next eleven months, all my days would consist of Friends and mangoes, and I’d make the most important decision of my life.

The person I was

I don’t remember much of my childhood and teenage years. But I do remember close friends remarking how “robotlike” I could be and how I reminded them of a “bull charging at a target” whenever I had my heart set on something—be it an A on a history essay or a cute boy at school. I remember being surprised by these observations and taking them as compliments. Good, I’m a determined and hardworking person.

I never saw anything wrong with this picture those who knew me best had painted of me. Not when I fell depressed in my first year of university, then again in my second—not when I had to take time off my fourth and final year because I was incapable of attending classes and writing assignments. University is more challenging than I expected and I’m lonely, I told myself, then—convinced behavior change would cure my depression—self-prescribed to-do lists, long walks, coffee with friends, and journaling.

For a while, those remedies seemed to work. Each time I found myself at the bottom of the by-now familiar pit, I’d claw my way back up and—exhausted yet exhilarated—unfailingly emerge into the light. I’ve solved depression, I’d tell myself. No, “life.” I’ve solved life.

And then, a first-class degree in hand and working a first job with an enviable salary, feeling very much on top of the world, I lost touch with reality. Mania took hold of me with a vice-like grip and at the age of 25, I was committed to a mental institute, where I’d remain for the next month and a half until my release in March 2015.

The person I wanted to be

After my release, I fell into a depression—not as severe as the ones I’d battled previously, but it lingered. I was taking medication for Bipolar Disorder Type I, which we now knew I had. But the pills did little to lift the fog. For eleven months I stayed home and binged on Friends and mangoes, scared to show my face to the world now that I was—I felt—disgraced and worthless.

But, depressed, disgraced, and worthless though I was, I did have one life-altering realisation while growing roots on that red beanbag: now is when I choose who to be for the rest of my life. Three depressions and one manic episode later, my eyes were finally open to the fact that something was wrong with the picture my friends had painted of me—the robot-bull always heading inexorably towards a target.

My life had been unbalanced. For two and a half decades, I had prioritised being a good student, then a good worker, above all else. I was driven by relentless ambition and a ceaseless desire to be productive at all times, at the expense of everything else that made life worth living—family, friends, leisurely walks, gazing at the sky, small moments of joy.

So I resolved, as I was about to rebuild my life from the ground up, to become a different person. Behavioral change, I saw now, would not suffice as a solution to my mental-health troubles—I also needed an identity reboot so I could live a more balanced life. I needed to be more than a “good student/worker.” I needed to value more things than productivity. But what.

Perhaps on account of all the Friends I was watching, I decided on relationships—friends especially—as the new cornerstone of my life. I’d still value work and productivity—they’re integral parts of me even now. But those values would no longer take centre stage. In their place would be forming and maintaining meaningful relationships. All the time and effort I used to unthinkingly pour, robotlike, into being a good student/worker, I’d now intentionally dedicate to being a good friend/daughter/partner.

And so, when I got my (second) first job as service personnel at an English language school, I prioritised being a good colleague over being the best employee, initiating coffees and meals to get to know the people I spent my days with. And though talking to teenagers petrified me, I forced myself to approach the students and practice making small talk. It was always awkward—none of it came naturally after two and a half decades of zero awareness or development of my social skills—but deciding relationships were my salvation, I stubbornly soldiered on.

It’s almost ten years later, and I’m a far happier person than I ever was. I feel I’m living a more balanced, wholesome life—a life peopled with those I care for and those who care for me. My new identity—valuing relationships above all else—is not without its downsides—I’ve come to perhaps care a little too much what others think of me. But I’ve been self-aware enough to counter that potential imbalance by also directing attention to the beautiful things in life that are in my control: making morning coffee, hitting the gym, going on long walks, meditating, and the like. On the whole, my reimagined identity has served me well.

And without that decision I made almost a decade ago, none of this would have happened. I’d still be a robot-bull charging at one target after another, blind to all the joys of life.

Choosing who I wanted to be was—and always will be—the most important decision of my life. What’s yours?

What do you think?

Eleven months and an overdose of Friends was what I needed to make the most important decision of my life. Have you made yours?

What’s the most important decision of your life?

Was it a job you didn’t take? The course you insisted on studying? Proposing to your lifelong companion? Or is it a decision you’re about to make? Are you grappling with it even now? Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this with an important person in your life.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,

Val

Photo by Ilse Orsel on Unsplash

My friend’s reply was instantaneous: “I think loving yourself and how you look is nothing wrong.”

I was about to provide another glib justification for my newfound obsession with mirrors, and my friend’s words stopped me dead. Can it be that looking at my reflection—an act of vanity society tells us to refrain from—is actually a form of self-love?

Have I been unnecessarily chastising myself all these months?

“Magic mirror on the wall, who's the fairest one of all?”

I’ve always been vain, an unfortunate side effect of achieving heady success early in life. GPA 4.00 (the perfect score) through twelve years of schooling, frequent medalist at inter-school contests of various skills not all of which useful (case in point: how to correctly curtsy to different levels of royalty), Thailand’s representative (aged 15) to a Red Cross Youth conference in Japan, prestigious scholarship to study in the UK, a place at Oxford University… The first twenty years of my life were a series of accomplishments, each one more dazzling than the last.

I knew I was good at many things, and I was never shy to flaunt my talents.

The one thing I was never happy with, though, was my looks. I was a chubby teenager, and before that a chubby child. A well-meaning adult once surmised water was the culprit—I doth hydrate too much—but more likely it was the tubes of Oreo’s I binge-ate while illicitly copying answers from the back of exercise books so I wouldn’t have to do them.

Apart from brief periods when I was manic,1 I’d always been overweight. The mirror was my mortal enemy. I’d steel myself to look and see reflected back my protruding tummy, my fleshy legs, my flabby arms. I liked my face well enough, but I’d always hated the rest of my body. Whatever diet I put myself on, I could never lose the flab. And then I was hospitalised after a disturbing manic episode and gained so much weight on delicious hospital fare2 that, when released, I was the heaviest I’d ever been.

When I discovered weight training and began slimming down after committing to an effective exercise regime and a sensible diet,3 I was more shocked than anyone to see a different me in the mirror, a leaner, more muscular me.

I fell in love with this new me. Whenever I spied a mirror, I would steal a glance. I became obsessed, and ashamed—each time chiding myself: you’re being vain, stop it.

Vanity… or self-esteem?

For the first time in my life, I liked what I saw in the mirror. I felt pride where once there was only disdain. I had a whole new body, and it was all down to me—all those 9am workout classes and skipped snacks had beautifully paid off, literally.

But this joy was tinged with shame. I was ashamed that I had become so vain, so obsessed with my appearance. Until I read my friend’s words:

I had always associated admiring yourself with vanity. Catching your reflection in the mirror was an unequivocally bad thing. It had never, ever crossed my mind that this could be a form of self-love, a good thing to indulge in, even encourage.

The more I replayed my friend’s words, the more I began to believe them. I used to hate my body. Now I love it. How can that not be a good thing? Maybe what I’m calling vanity is in fact self-esteem? But how can I tell which is which?

When does one’s nourishing self-esteem become prideful vanity? When does validating self-love become toxic self-indulgence? If what I felt towards my childhood accolades was vanity and my current obsession with my new body is self-esteem, what criteria am I using to distinguish one from the other?

If working out at the gym three times a week is an act of self-love, is admiring your body whenever you spy a mirror also one? If celebrating a win at work with a quiet glass of wine is an act of self-love, can we say the same for recounting all your professional accomplishments to someone you just met at a networking event? If the occasional spa day is an act of self-love, what about the occasional whole chocolate cake with glazed cherries on top?

How do we draw these—dare I say arbitrary—distinctions so we can live a happy, healthy life and not piss off all our friends?

If you’re expecting an answer, I’m sorry to disappoint. I’ve been racking my brains for a week and nothing coherent has emerged from my apparently inadequate pool of wisdom.

But I can tell you this: these days, I no longer tell myself off when I look in the mirror. Instead, I smile and congratulate myself: Well done. This mini self-esteem boost then motivates me to keep returning to the gym for those 9am workouts, and to not order that whole cake with glazed cherries on top every time I have a chocolate craving.4

What do you think?

You know it’s coming:

How do we love ourselves in a non-toxic way?

Is there good and bad self-love? When does self-esteem become vanity? Why is the world round? Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this with someone who might just know the answer.

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Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful,

Val

Photo by Caroline Veronez on Unsplash

If utopia existed, I imagine it would look a lot like this.

Which is why, each time we’ve stayed at the resort, I’ve asked myself whether I’d want to retire here, join the dwindling ranks of French and Francophone retirees tutting at the noisy holidaymakers, spend my days writing and peacock-watching from my front porch, gorge myself silly on croissants and Camembert, go for an afternoon dip then lie reading in the hammock by the pool until the sun sets and dinner is served.

What a life it would be.

No, what a lovely place to die.

Where will you go to die?

I think about death a lot, more than the average person. I also happen to think the average person doesn’t think about death enough.

It’s curious how little thought we spare this event that will occur with a 100% certainty, while fantasising far more about things whose probability is, if we’re honest, close to zero—like becoming a millionaire, quitting your job to travel the world, that white house by the beach, selling tens of millions of books (guilty).

Not that we shouldn’t allocate some headspace to figuring out how to make our wildest dreams come true. But considering we will all certainly die, should we not think about death just a little more?

We plan for our degree, our first job, our promotion, our career switch, our spectacular success, our holiday, our retirement. Why shouldn’t we plan for our death?

Obviously, you can’t plan when death will come knocking. But, provided it doesn’t come calling before your time, there’s much that you can plan and prepare for.

Starting with: Where will you go to die?

Do you want to die in the familiarity of your own home? In which case you’ll have to consider how elderly-friendly it is. Do you need to install a stair lift? Shift your bedroom to the ground floor? How about care? How easy or difficult will it be to find, and afford, daytime and nighttime care? And then there’s provisions. Can you easily get groceries and essentials if, say, you can no longer drive or walk?

Or, like me, do you prefer to die in the convenience of a retirement home? In which case you’ll have to decide to which establishment you want to entrust your future; how much money it will cost; when you want to sell all your possessions, pack your life into a single suitcase, and move to your new home.1

Lots of questions to answer, details to work out—and the clock is ticking.

But why?

I will likely die alone. Statistically speaking, men don’t live as long as women. Add to that the significant age gap between me and my partner, and the probability that I will die alone creeps very close to 100%.

The knowledge that I will spend the last few decades of my life—hopefully not too many—without my partner by my side is a major motivator for me to make plans around my death. Where will I be? How will I spend my days? These questions acquire a desperate urgency as soon as I accept the inevitability of the partner-shaped void my future holds.

I have no siblings. I’m not close with relatives my age or younger. My parents, aunts, and uncles will be long gone. I have wonderful friends I hope to grow old with, but it will be unfair on them—not to mention plain silly—to task them with my future happiness.

My partner and I don’t plan on having children. Even if we changed our minds, which is highly unlikely, I’d never saddle mine with the burden of my old age, as those from my cultural background are wont to do.

Taking charge of your death, I’d argue, should be among the most important tasks on your lifetime to-do list—up there with regular exercise, eating well, nurturing relationships, and investing for retirement. And don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating you spend your days death-dreaming, give up on living. On the contrary. Taking the reins of your death prompts you to accept its inevitability, an acceptance which might actually spur you to live more fully, more urgently—to do what matters now rather than later.

Have you saved and invested enough to live on post-retirement? Have you got people—family, partner, friends—you can grow old with? Do you have meaningful hobbies that will sustain you? What will happen when you can no longer care for yourself?

These questions, if you’ve never asked them before, can be overwhelming. In which case, start with the simple, practical matter of where you will go to die.

Then let your answer to that guide the rest.

What do you think?

Am I being morbid? Maybe. Do I think these are deadly important questions to ask? Definitely.

Where will you go to die?

Would you rather grow old in your living room, or find new community in a retirement home? What thoughts have you had, if any, about your impending death? Any advice for me and other readers? Please hit “reply” or leave a comment—I read every response and I’d love to hear from you. If you want, share this with someone you’d love to grow old with.

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Since you’ve read this far, I’ll assume my writing resonates and you’d be interested to meet me in person. I’m going to be in Seoul (South Korea) for the next couple of weeks. If you’re also around and want to meet up, just reply to this email. I’m keen to get to know you and (very important) thank you for reading my writing.

Until next Friday… Stay thoughtful, and maybe see you soon,

Val

Photo by Aaron Andrew Ang on Unsplash