Eric Tian

Today was an objectively good day. I had a great night’s rest, called my family, spent quality time with my partner, studied interesting topics, did some work, ate delicious food and even won a close volleyball game.

But even with these good days, my heart silently breaks at the injustice and suffering in the world. It breaks at the billions starving worldwide and the 600 million who live in extreme poverty. It breaks at the 700 million people who cannot read or write, who will be forgotten by history, and will never know a world outside theirs.

It breaks at the one million people who take their own life every year, the 20 million to attempt to, and the many more who suffer quietly in ways that people and numbers can never know.

It breaks at the cruelty of war and the spilled blood of innocent people. It breaks at the powerfully manipulative forces of religion, media, and cults, which promise connection and salvation, but often deliver division and pain. It breaks at the practices of racism, sexism and other -isms which lazily judge people by their group identity rather than the individual.

But maybe there is hope. Maybe there is hope in the power of human ingenuity, which has led to amazing feats like the lightbulb, electricity and mathematical questions that elegantly describe the world’s architecture. Maybe there is hope in the power of technology, which has given us the internet, the moon landing, and devices with unprecedented capabilities. Maybe there is hope in human expression, which has given us gifts of music, art, theatre and literature. Maybe there is hope in a deity, or time, or something greater than my understanding.

One time, I asked a Buddhist friend how he felt about injustice in the world. He said, “life is suffering,” and shrugged his shoulders. The first of the four noble truths. I remember how he smiled warmly at me. I remember thinking, “Maybe that’s true. Maybe that’s just how things are.”

But often, like tonight, it just doesn’t feel enough. It feels like we can do better than a that’s-how-things-are mentality – that we have a duty to better the planet we were placed on.

Perhaps we can only keep improving ourselves each day, one step at a time, until it’s our turn to change the world.

Something the hematology nurse said to me after I failed my first venepuncture this week:
“To get good at taking bloods, your job is to get through your first 50 fails as fast as possible. Celebrate your wins, sure. But only after you’ve failed 50 times will you finally begin to get good at it.”

Just one of those many examples where quantity beats quality.

Related: The Parable of the Pottery Class

When someone asks us for advice or feedback, it’s easy to accept the implied limits. But often times, the most effective answer is one that extends beyond the given boundaries.

Are there any typos here? No – but maybe we should talk about the unnecessary chapters.

Should I order a salad or fries? Depends – maybe we should talk about what your goals are.

Should I quit my job and pursue my dream or stay financially secure? Are there no other options?

One exercise I’ve been trying recently is to answer any closed, non-factual question with a “none of the above”. I say non-factual because some questions, like what gene mutation commonly causes acute promyelocytic leukemia, have correct answers. But for the others, where more subjective opinions or feedback are required, then unorthodox answers are usually a more honest and useful answer to the listener.

But more importantly, answering this way forces us to constantly re-examine our values. Choosing from a set of multiple choice questions is easy. “Do you think A or B is right?” You could flip a coin. No effort required.

Having to create a new answer, one to a deeper question, takes an enormous amount of energy. It forces us to enter empathic listening – where you tap into the speaker’s perspective – and work from there. When when you reach that place of empathy, it’s easier to understand a person’s real wants or needs. And over time, as we step into many people’s shoes, our own beliefs begin to evolve as well.

The best answers I’ve ever heard have always been “none of the above answers”. Take, for instance, Derek Sivers on the question “When you think of the word “successful,” who’s the first person who comes to mind and why?”

“The first answer to any question isn’t much fun, because it’s just automatic. “What the first painting that comes to mind: Mona Lisa. Genius: Einstein. Composer: Mozart.”

This is the subject of the book “Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman.

There’s the instant, unconscious, automatic thinking. Then there’s the slower, conscious, rational, deliberate thinking.

I’m really into the slower thinking. Breaking my automatic responses to the things in my life, and slowly thinking through a more deliberate response instead.

Then, for the things in life where an automatic response is useful, creating a new one consciously.

So what if you asked, “When you think of the word successful, who’s the third person who comes to mind, and why are they actually more successful than the first person that came to mind?”

In that case: first would be Richard Branson, because that’s like the stereotype – the Mona Lisa. And honestly, you might be my 2nd answer, but we can talk about that later.

My third and real answer is we can’t know, without knowing their aims.

What if Richard Branson set out to live a quiet life, but like a compulsive gambler, just can’t stop creating companies? Then that changes everything, and we can’t call him successful anymore.”

An unorthodox, but brilliant answer.

Do not mistake somebody’s ignorance for your limits. There are always more options than meets the eye.

Life is a series of experiments. And a great method for continuous learning is to review what worked each day, and what didn’t.

One method I’ve been trying is called the regret list. This is everything you did in day that you regretted in retrospect. It could be anything like what you ate for lunch, how you spent your morning, or the things you said to your colleagues. No detail is too small.

Once you have this, a simple game begins: avoid the regret list.

Some regrets are easy to deal with. Ice cream in the morning was a bad idea? Don’t buy ice cream. Answering unknown caller IDs never work out? Don’t pick up. All nighters make you feel terrible? Go to sleep.

But some regrets aren’t so simple. Feel miserable for arguing with your partner? Hate your addiction to drugs, porn or social media? Feel pathetic at your inability to focus? There’s no “just don’t do it” button. Complex problems require complex solutions.

The point of this post isn’t to solve these harder problems. I don’t have the answers myself. But the great thing about the regret list is that you can identify these flaws. You become conscious of your actions and your values. A pin is put on the map. Most activities that rob our lives are hidden behind unconscious habits.

Initially, the flaws seem too big to deal with. You could never solve that. Don’t even try. But after enough tallies in the regret list, something fun begins to occur: a shift. You look back on your list and think, wait, if I hate doing this so much, why do I keep doing it every day? and you begin to find solutions. And over time, as the problem becomes big enough to warrant action, an antidote emerges.

Life is far too short for continual regrets. Blunders and monstrosities will occur time to time, sure. We’re human. But to let these carry on, undisciplined, is to me a terrible shame. The pain that comes from dealing with problems pale in comparison to the pain that the problems will cause.

If this resonates with you, I invite you to give it a try. It’s a simple exercise that takes less than five minutes each day. And I hope that with reflective action, your life improves to new bounds, as has mine.

Lies can generally be divided into two types: white and black. A black lie is a statement we make that we know is false. A white lie is a statement that isn’t entirely false, but leaves out a significant part of the truth.

Socially speaking, white lies are considered more acceptable because we want to avoid hurting people’s feelings.*

Parents may not tell their children that they’ve been doing drugs, that they’ve fought with each other, that their savings are running low, or that one is in bad health. Withholding this information usually stems from a desire to protect the child from unnecessary harm and stress.

Yet dig a little deeper, and one finds that these lies stem from a lack of courage. It takes courage to admit that Mommy and Daddy smoke weed, that they hit each other, that they may not be able to afford the house, or that one might die soon. It is far easier to omit this information under the disguise of protecting the child, when the true desire is to avoid vulnerability.

Does this mean to always tell the truth? Not necessarily. Some truths may be catastrophically unproductive, such as telling a child that Mommy and Daddy might divorce off of one fight.

But it does mean that in cases where the truth is withheld, a great moral decision is required. Is the truth being withheld because of one’s fear of confronting vulnerability, or to genuinely protect somebody else? Is the reason for selfish, or altruistic reasons? In most cases, it is likely a bit of both.

The words we speak have real power. Be careful.

*White lies also aren’t any better than outright lying to somebody. By omitting a crucial fact from the truth, you cease to tell the truth. A government that withholds essential information from its people by censorship is no more democratic than one which speaks falsely.

When I was younger, I hated making silly mistakes. Of course, everyone does to an extent, but it terrified me an unusual amount. In light of blunders, I would often think thoughts like:

How stupid am I? I thought I was better than this? How many other things do others know, but I don’t?!

Discussing exams with peers was one of my worst fears because if I found out I had erred, I would feel terrible. The post-exam was more stressful than the exam itself.

I much preferred to stay ignorant in my knowledge. It was safer that way.

But recently, I’ve come to appreciate mistakes a little more. This enormous transformation came, of all things, from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

BJJ is an interesting sport. It looks very physical, because all the pictures show one big dude on top of another equally big dude, but it is heavily technical. If you don’t understand fundamental concepts such as centre of weight, the kinetic chain and leverages, you will never progress past the first belt. Being a martial art, where live rounds are encouraged, you also get very quick feedback.

If your technique is wrong, you find out immediately because you get smashed. This sucks and hurts a lot. But this quick feedback is the signal you need to adjust your game, and improve next time. At first, I hated rolling with other athletes, because I would get my ass kicked every time. It is impossible to be ignorant: your skills – or lack thereof – are shown in full display.

But over time, the mistakes improve you. The errors that were revealed to me became clear targets for learning and by focusing on those, my skills increased. And slowly, I began to enjoy live rolling more, because I could find areas that needed to be polished further. This attitude has also carried over to my life in general.

Answering questions in classes aren’t a big deal anymore. I don’t care if my answer is wrong: I will learn. Testing a new conversation topic isn’t scary anymore. I don’t care if it didn’t work: I will learn. Trying out new techniques in BJJ aren’t intimidating anymore. I don’t care if I get smashed: I will learn. The pain hurts for a moment, but the lesson stays with you for life.

There are many ways one can respond to mistakes. Ignorance is one; exploration is another. But at the end of the day, only one actually deals with it.

Choose carefully.

In psychiatry, conditions are usually “overdetermined” meaning that they have more than one cause. That anxiety you’re feeling probably doesn’t just stem from your boss, but also from childhood neglects, relationship problems and a subsequent lack of self-confidence. To pretend only one cause exists is missing the point.

It’s easy to pretend problems can be easily solved with one magical pill. But the best solutions are usually ones that acknowledge the true complexity of a situation.

I used to be addicted to video games. For me, my game was Dota 2 – I would play for hours every day for months, and not feel bored. And while I can’t say I’m particularly proud of this, there are a few lessons I’ve taken away from playing games.

One lesson is that the time you spend playing a game has little correlation with your skill.

Over my years of playing, I made friends with other gamers and over time, I could see how their rank was changing. Did someone move up from Archon to Legend? Or did someone move down a medal? It was interesting to see how their skill level was changing over time.

The strange thing was, the people who had the most amount of games were rarely the highest ranked. There were people who had over 5,000 hours on the game but had an average ranking. In fact, most of these players never changed their overall rank for all the games they played. On the other hand, I knew people who had played under 500 hours and were in the top bracket of gamers, on the verge of playing professionally.

Why was there such a discrepancy? Shouldn’t the players with more games be better with time? How can a gamer with 5,000 hours be worse than another gamer with 500 hours? It didn’t make sense to me.

The Power of Reflection

Because I was so curious, I asked the top players with fewer hours what they did to make them so good. And the common answer was quickly became apparent: reflection.

The top players were intentional about improving their gameplay. They watched guides from professional players and took down notes. They analysed their own replays and learnt from their mistakes. They never started a new game unless they had a game plan on what to work on that game.

This is what separated them from the rest of the crowd. In Dota 2, it’s too easy to mindlessly queue games all day, without adjusting for one’s performance. You win or lose, think “that was fun”, and just play another. Analysing your games is difficult and painful, whereas playing the game habitually guarantees some level of fun.

These top players weren’t naturally better at games than everyone else. Their hand-eye coordination had flaws, as did their IQ or memory. What they did to outperform everybody else was intentionally reflect.

Not playing to improve is fine, of course. Everyone has different reasons for playing video games. Some people like playing the heroes they enjoy and don’t mind leisurely queueing for fun with no real agenda. Some play to just relax with friends and have a good time. There is no right or wrong approach.

But the power of reflection, I think, applies to life as well. In my experience, I’ve found both older people who seem childish, and also younger people who are brilliant. The number of hours played in life didn’t correlate with character development. The key factor that distinguished them was how intentional they were with their growth.

Questions like,

• “What’s the best thing I can do right now?”
• “How could I have done that better?”
• “What did I learn today that will help me tomorrow?”

are so simple, but can be the difference between levelling up at the game, versus staying where you are.

In games, I find it worthwhile to see how strong your character can become. To really push the game and your character to its greatest potential. Staying at the same level for too long is easy but seems like a bit of a waste of time.

As Jim Rohn said:
“There are two types of pain you will go through in life, the pain of discipline and the pain of regret.
Discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tonnes.”

The most important moments of my life were generally pretty terrible.

Ending a toxic relationship made me nauseous for weeks. Starting a blog and YouTube channel felt way out of my comfort zone. And watching my father die in front of my eyes made me want to die with him.

These were all forks in the road; chapters of a novel where the protagonist undergoes some subtle but crucial change for the better. But though the trials suck, the reader understands that they are necessary for a great character and story. A story with no adventure or setback is not exciting at all. And so the trials continue, and through the discomfort, the development begins.

It is so easy to tend towards comfort. We live in the safest, cleanest and most abundant cities in history, and one can quite easily get by without exerting themselves much at all.

But the prerequisite for great things usually require some form of discomfort. Exercise feels crap but it improves your body. Emotional vulnerability feels crap but it improves your relationships. Hard work feels crap but it makes your work exceptional.

One of the things I’m trying to do more of this year is to lean into discomfort. To realise the things that scare me are usually opportunities for positive change. Some recent examples have included:

• Taking on a tutoring role at the medical school, even though I’m not sure if I have the time nor expertise for it;
• Volunteering to perform a cardiovascular exam in front of a group at the hospital, even though I wasn’t fully confident in the steps;
• Going out of my way to say hi to new colleagues at the hospital or gym, even though I’m naturally a severe introvert.

These little trials always give me a sense of dread in the moment, but once they’re done, I always appreciate past Eric for them. Each action is like a little soldier waving a flag saying, “Hey look! We’ve done this task you thought you couldn’t do. See – you’re more capable than you think!” And the more flags you see waving behind you, the more you begin to believe it.

As Oscar Wilde put it:
“There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”

The choice is yours.

I’ve always been a sucker for the “popular” tab.

What’s on the front page of YouTube? What’s trending on Reddit? What books are everyone reading?

There are a few reasons why I tend towards this.

First, there’s this social desire to know what everybody else knows, to keep up with the times. You don’t want to be that guy at the party who’s been living under a rock – it’s just not a good look. You want to say smart and correct things, and have people nod at your intellect.

Second, there’s this fear that you’ll be left behind, like FOMO. Maybe that new book that has critics raving is the best ever written. That new movie with 98% on Rotten Tomatoes must be amazing! You wouldn’t want to miss out on that, right?

But third, and most importantly, I follow the popular tab because it’s easy. Finding out what you enjoy is tedious work. There’s so many YouTube videos, subreddits or books out there that you let the majority decide what your interests are. It’s easier than having to sift through all that content, and sitting through some potentially awful pieces of content.

But at what cost?

When we watch the videos everyone watches and read the books everyone reads, our opinion necessarily defaults to the majority’s. There is little room for exploration and carving out one’s own unique interests. If you only consume media that is generally regarded as “good”, you will avoid everything else.

As Murakami wrote,
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

But we must remember: just because most people like something, does not mean you will like it too. No great books, movies or pieces of art were created for everybody. The beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

The best books I’ve ever read were rarely from a bestseller list. They were ones I chanced upon, perhaps from hearing it mentioned in a conversation, or just because I liked the cover in a bookshelf. I had often never heard of the author, and the ratings were often average on Google.

But after reading these, the bestsellers felt too safe, too predictable, too boring by comparison. From exploring the unorthodox, my tastes moved beyond the majority.

So instead the popular, why not check out the less known, more unique stuff out there? At first, it might feel strange to engage with authors nobody has heard of. The FOMO may hit hard, when everyone talks about the new bestseller on Amazon. But taking the road less traveled gives you a chance to carve out your own interests, and helps you find ideas that you personally resonate with.

The world is but a canvas to our imagination.