Eric Tian

Tim Ferriss: “A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.”

I’ll admit it – I hate being vulnerable. When I play MMOs, I choose the tankiest class and equip them with the best armour. When I’m at uni, I only answer questions I know the answer to. When I’m suffering, I keep it to myself and put on a friendly persona.

This doesn’t always work out. Actually, if I’m being honest, it rarely does. If you harden your skin too much, you begin to crack and break. My most devastating memories have been when I’ve isolated myself from others and imploded.

Overwhelmingly, the most important moments of my life have been when I’ve taken off my armour. Telling my father I loved him before he died; informing a toxic person I couldn’t be their friend anymore; breaking down to my family in a cry for help. It felt disgusting at the time, but the feeling afterwards was liberating to no bounds.

Even here, many of my early articles I felt were too personal to post (see: Managing Imposter Syndrome; Challenges of Medicine; Restless Searches for Meaning), yet by some act of madness, I pressed upload anyway. These posts are often the ones people write to say, “hey, I really appreciated that.”

Perhaps I’m beginning to understand Neil Gaiman’s words from Make Good Art:

“The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.”

Every month at my old apartment, the loudspeaker went on and a man declared, “All residents: we are testing the fire alarm today. This is only a test: do not evacuate. I repeat: This is only a test.”

A few seconds later, the familiar wailing “whoooooOOOOOOPPPP… whoooooOOOOOOPPPP” would begin. After a slight pause, the loudspeaker would come on again. “Test complete.”

That memory has since been etched into my brain. “This is only a test. This is only a test.” I’ve found this mantra applicable to many other domains.

It’s tempting to treat everything so seriously – that one mistake will result in complete disaster. But really, most of the things we do are simply tests: an experiment to see what happens.

Some of my favourite moments began with a “see what happens” approach.

Let’s see what happens if I started running 5km a day.

Let’s see what happens if I actually tried to do well in school.

Let’s see what happens if I cut down my screen time by half.

The thing about a “test mentality” is that it’s impossible to fail if your only mission was to see what happens.

This is only a test.

Disclaimer: Caveats to this idea exist. If you’re a boyfriend, “testing” another girl could lead to you being dumped. If you’re a doctor, “testing” different drugs could land you in jail. If you’re a nuclear physicist, “testing” different parameters could blow up your lab. As a general rule, be careful if there are direct consequences on other people.

Sometimes, I wake up and think, I hope something goes really wrong today.

Something that would completely uproot the smooth road of mindless routines; that would announce itself screeching, “HEY! STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING!” and then create a thrilling disaster. An enormous speed bump, if you will.

My favourite chess games are the ones where I’ve made a spectacular blunder in the opening but claw back to victory. These chaotic games are much more exciting than the close ones, where all pieces are traded down to a quiet draw.

Similarly, my favourite journal entries to read are those written during a difficult time. The dark and fiery emotions that emerge uniquely from a disaster make the resolution so much sweeter.

I’ll admit, the disaster sucks when you’re dealing with it; you wish it would just go away and leave you alone. But the peace afterwards, where you come out scarred and burnt and collapse on a bed, are truly magical.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows has a word for this: lachesism:

n. the desire to be struck by disaster—to survive a plane crash, to lose everything in a fire, to plunge over a waterfall—which would put a kink in the smooth arc of your life, and forge it into something hardened and flexible and sharp, not just a stiff prefabricated beam that barely covers the gap between one end of your life and the other.

We’re always told to “write what you know”, but you often don’t know what you know until you write about it.

Adam Phillips: “Anybody who writes knows you don’t simply write what you believe. You write to find out what you believe, or what you can afford to believe.”

James Baldwin took this idea one step further: “When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know; what you don’t want to find out.”

The best thing about writing is that it’s a process of discovery. You can make connections where none exist, clarify half-shaped ideas, and find gold under dirt. Fundamentally, it’s a selfish, yet beautiful activity.

Imagine you are in a car and it begins to rain. Initially, the rain is barely noticeable – just a few drops here and there – but soon, the window gets so wet that you can barely see a thing. To see clearly, you would use your windscreen wipers to wipe away the gunk.

Now imagine the car is you. When the world’s dirt and crap lands in your face, what are your spiritual windscreen wipers? You might be able to drive safely for a while, but at some stage, to keep on driving is near suicidal.

When people ask me why I journal, my answer is: I have to. When the world implodes on itself, writing becomes my spiritual windscreen wipers. If I don’t clean my windows, I crash and burn.

Don’t forget to slow down and clean.

When I was kid, I wanted to fly. (Imagine hovering next to a plane! Cool!)

When I was in my early teens, I wanted to be invisible. (Picture of all the buildings you could sneak into!)

When I was in high school, I wanted to read minds. (Think of all the power you’d have!)

When I was in undergraduate, I wanted to stop time. (So much work! So little time!)

Now, I don’t want any of these things. The superpower I’d choose is to experience the world in its entirety. To read every good book. To learn every language. To learn every new skill.

When I went into a book store, I used to always go straight to the business section. That was what fascinated me. But now when I visit a book store, I head straight for the classics. If I pass by the business section, it doesn’t interest me anymore. My priorities have changed.

And maybe in a few months, I’ll go straight to a different part of the book store or have a new superpower I want.

We are always changing. Sometimes, it takes a question or a shop to reveal one’s metamorphosis under the surface.

When I was kid, I loved going over speed bumps.

When my parents drove over one just a tad too fast, the mix of fear and euphoria whilst airborne always reminded me that life could be exciting. When the car landed, I would think to myself, that was awesome! and hope for another one.

Flat roads may be safe but they’re also a little boring.

You know those what ifs that keep you up at night?

Those moments where you see something extraordinary and think, I wonder if I could do that?

Dear reader, if you’re in doubt about something that’s not in your life, try it. Often, the worst possible outcome is it doesn’t work out, in which you’d go back to your current life having learnt something new.

It’s the things I’ve tried in the last few years – things that most of my colleagues don’t do – that have made my life memorable. Some of these include:

• Starting a business
• Starting a YouTube channel
• Starting this blog
• Learning to code
• Asking out my partner
• Building a PC

I must confess, a lot of these have failed. But that’s okay – now I know first-hand, instead of always wondering. The ones that have sticked, however, have utterly transformed my life.

And if you’re interested, here are some secret callings that still remain to be tried:

• Finish a triathalon (eventual iron man)
• Give a TED talk
• Write a book
• Move across the world

As Abraham Maslow wrote, Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth).

Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.

One of my favourite songs of all time is Farmer Refuted from the musical Hamilton. It begins with a farmer singing a simple melody criticising the American Revolution:

Heed not the rabble who scream revolution
They have not your interests at heart

Chaos and bloodshed are not a solution
Don’t let them lead you astray

This Congress does not speak for me
They’re playing a dangerous game

I pray the king shows you his mercy
For shame, for shame

In response, American founding father Alexander Hamilton interrupts with a counter-melody over the farmer. The dialogue between the two is quite spectacular:

By itself, the farmer’s melody is linear and uninspiring. The song is slow, repetitive and simplistic. It is only when Hamilton jumps in with the counter-melody, where the song’s genius reveals itself. You begin to see different perspectives of similar issues and some criticisms of the other side. Each singer’s lyrics gives the other’s meaning.

In other domains, seeing multiple stories of the same issue can be extremely interesting. Even if some voices are wrong or unpopular, the net result of all these counter-melodies often paints a wonderful, nuanced picture.

We’re often quick to filter out paradoxical ideas in the name of consistency. Yet, things are usually more special when you break free from the accepted melody, and look for the counter-melodies.

Who knows? You might love the song even more.

Dear friend,

Think of all the billions of doors you closed just to take one step; all the destinations you didn’t buy a ticket to; all the possible futures you narrowly avoided.

Everything you’ve sacrificed to get to now.

Isn’t it strange to think how different your life would be if fate just tipped you into some other course, surrounded by new friends, mentors and soulmates? Maybe you’d tell them that it was all meant to be; that you knew all along that your paths would cross. That there could be no other way.

We never know how many things had to happen just right for them to occur the way they did. Perhaps a nobody who passed you by is a soulmate who simply missed their cue; after all, your soulmates now were once unknown too. It’s hard not to glance at a stranger in the crowd and imagine the life you could’ve shared.

Maybe we’ll look back on our lives and realise that it was all just a great coincidence. It’s a big world, after all.

You never know.