October 2019 – Eric Tian

October 2019: Check-in

October 31, 2019 admin Comments 2 comments

A word comes to mind as I reflect on the last few months: Zenosyne. It’s defined as:

n. the sense that time appears to be moving faster and faster – especially as one grows older – speeding towards the inevitable conclusion that will arrive unexpectantly soon.

Currently, it’s the week of SWOTVAC for my final semester of exams, which means I’m unofficially done with my undergraduate studies. This comes with mixed feelings – relief that it’s over, gratitude to have met great people, regret about not having done more, uncertainty about the future – but perhaps the biggest feeling is zenosyne: that each day seems to last one second less, that time is relentlessly accelerating, forcing me to adapt or be left behind. The first day of undergrad feels recent, second year feels like a familiar friend and the start of this semester feels like yesterday… but now it’s over. This is both an unsettling and exciting call to action.

It’s now been 3 months since my last check-in post. This is my third iteration of this process and I’ve found it to be useful every time so I think I’ll continue doing these. And so, here we go again: What went well these last few months? What didn’t go so well? And what are my goals heading into the months to come?

The good

1. Running

Running-wise, the main focus of the last few months was the Melbourne Marathon (Oct 13^th), which is the first marathon I’ve ever done. Training for this was a crazy experience: running 60km+ a week, doing 30km long runs, foam rolling daily and maintenance work in the gym were all foreign concepts to me until a few months ago. Despite this, the process taught me a lot and the actual marathon was perhaps the funnest challenge I’ve ever done. In training, I was able to get a lot closer with my fellow MUAC athletes, appreciate the importance of rest and recovery and feel my body adapt as I pushed it to run longer distances every week. While I’m satisfied with my time (3:20:59, 4:43min/km), I’ve definitely been bitten by the marathon bug and hope to complete more in the years to come.

2. Reminders

To be honest, the last few months were far from ideal. While I’ve recently developed good habits of reading the Bible and socialising, other habits which I’d built over the last few years such as reading books in general and journalling have begun to fade away. I suspect this contributed to me feeling a little lost over September, eventually leading to burnout. Thankfully, I was able to learn from this hollow period, which taught me the importance of strong relationships, consistency and prioritising activities that are fundamental to my wellbeing. Provided I remember these lessons, I’ll take this period overall as a win.

The
not-so-good

1. Phone use

It irks me to admit this, but I’ve been spending an excessive amount of time on my phone in the last few months. I often find myself reaching for it when I’m bored instead of doing something more productive like reading, chatting to a friend or just being still. Most of the time spent on the phone isn’t even productive – it largely consists of mindlessly scrolling through social media or watching gaming videos and usually occurs when I’m procrastinating for something. Perhaps just getting started on tasks that need to be done is the real issue here.

2. Reading

For the first half of this year, I was reading about a book a week. And it was amazing. But for some reason, the practice began to wane and I’ve only managed 3 books in the last 2 months. It’s not like I have nothing to read – there’s currently 10 books and 2 audiobooks on my to-read list – but somehow, it’s lost its place as a priority. I think writing this is a good reminder to put reading back on the radar. After all, there is something magical about sitting alone under a lamp, book spread before you, and communing with someone whom you have never met.

Goals

So, in light of a fairly dull last few months, what are my
goals for the future?

Make things that need to be done as simple as possible
Rebuild reading and journalling into my habits, and not let any successes get to my head
Post at least 3 times a month here

I’m also flirting with the idea of setting up a YouTube
channel, where I interview strangers on the street and ask about random topics
such as joy, health, family or goals. I’ve found doing walk-ups in Christian
Union and my church to be an incredible (albeit intimidating) opportunity to
gain new perspectives on all sorts of things, and I think a channel like this
would force me to continue this practice.

Musings

The Dangers of Success

October 24, 2019 admin Comments 0 Comment

A few months ago, I was listening to a podcast episode whilst preparing dinner. The host, Tom, was talking to Irwin Winkler, a well-renowned film producer and director. Though the whole conversation was interesting, one dialogue caught me off guard when Tom asked, “What has 50 years in the business taught you about life?” Irwin’s response (edited for clarity): “That you can have great successes, you can have terrible failures, and both are really the same. You can never let…

3 Lessons from 21 Years

October 19, 2019 admin Comments 0 Comment

One of my more useful rituals is to use my birthday to reflect on my life’s journey so far and see what I’ve learnt, overcome or struggled with. Since I just turned 21 just over a week ago, I’ll use this as an excuse to remind myself of 3 big takeaways from the last 21 years.

1) Relationships matter

This is probably the biggest lesson, and is one which I’ve only truly appreciated in the last few months. Typically, I’d run away from spending quality time with people, using my introversion or ‘lack of time’ as excuses to isolate myself. However, I’ve learnt that genuine relationships are beautiful and knowing I have people I can freely talk to is liberating. Healthy relationships have the potential to ground, improve and comfort me in ways I could never achieve alone. It’s difficult to put into words. Of course, the converse applies for toxic relationships. Though it has been a struggle at times, being able to build healthy relationships through University, running or road-trips has been 100% worth it.

2) I really don’t know that much

Young Eric’s proclivity to give unwarranted advice, make up answers to questions he didn’t know and avoid admitting he was wrong revealed a serious fault: profound arrogance. It’s taken many mistakes and difficult conversations for me to realise that I really don’t know as much as I think. This applies to more than just University, whereby I now realise every biological process I study is severely simplified, but to many other facets – especially to people. It is perhaps through reading fiction that I realised everyone has their own story, prejudices and beliefs and are much more complicated than I could’ve imagined. If anything, being older has made me realise how little I know about anything – this is both an exciting and challenging thought to grasp.

3) Consistency beats motivation

The idea here is that little things done consistently over time produce big results, and the main word is consistency. I could write my own spiel about this, but I think this article by James Clear summarises this concept pretty well:

I have a friend named Nathan Barry who recently finished writing three books in just 9 months.

How did he do it?

By following a simple strategy. He wrote 1,000 words per day. (That’s about 2 to 3 pages.) And he did it every day for 253 straight days.

Now, compare that strategy to the classic image of a writer hiding out in a cabin for weeks and writing like a madman to finish their book.

The maniac in the cabin has a high “maximum speed” — maybe 20 or even 30 pages per day. But after a few weeks at that unsustainable pace, either the book is finished or the author is.

By comparison, Nathan’s maximum speed never reached the peak levels of the crazy writer in the cabin. However, over the course of a year or two his average speed was much higher.

This lesson extends far beyond writing.

Indeed, it applies far beyond writing. This concept of consistency has played a huge role in my development as a Christian (with devotions), student (with studying), athlete (with training) and friend (with catch-ups). When I’m consistent, I tend to do better. When I’m not, I pay for it later on (e.g. cramming for Uni, playing catch-up with relationships).

And that’s it! Other notable lessons from the last two decades and a bit include the importance of sleep and how legit books/audiobooks/podcasts are as learning resources. I look forward to seeing how my perceptions of these lessons evolve over time but for now, this is what I’ve gained from my time here.