Eric Tian

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.

Some paradoxes I’ve come to love and accept:

1. The more you know, the more you realize how little you know.

Every time I feel myself taking one step forward in mastering a new domain, I suddenly see ten more steps revealed to me. The dumbest years of my life are when I’ve felt the smartest.

Related: the Dunning-Kruger effect

2. The more choices you have, the less satisfied you are with each one.

From psychologist Barry Schwartz:

“Autonomy and freedom of choice are critical to our well being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don’t seem to be benefiting from it psychologically.”

Related: The Paradox of Choice

3. Every good creates a potential evil.

Providing clean water is good but it also creates inequality for people with dirty water.

When you raise the standard, you also invent opportunities to hit below the standard.

4. The more you fail, the more likely you’ll succeed.

It is ironic that one of the key ingredients to success is its exact opposite, failure. Yet, in defence of failure, J.K. Rowling writes:

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.”

Related: The Parable of the Pottery Class

5. The highest highs have the lowest lows.

The relationship that you treasure the most can also destroy you the most.

The more you gain, the more you have to lose.

If you asked me what my best purchase of 2019 was, I would unequivocally say my bike(s). Here are five reasons why:

1. Reminder on valuing your life

If you know how to cycle, riding a bike is generally safe. However, if you ever need the occasional reminder that your life is fragile, cycling can be great for that too.

Whether it’s a precarious car just brushing past you, an anxious pedestrian running across the road, or unaware drivers opening their door right when you’re passing them, your next momento mori encounter is just around the corner (literally).

2. The importance of insurance

Getting a bike is great because it also teaches you the importance of insurance. If you have a fancy bike, the first thing you should do is to get an even better lock. If you tie up your bike with a cheap lock, you’re practically screaming for it to get stolen.

If you were ever angry at school for not teaching you about insurance, fear not – allow your (stolen) bikes to educate thee.

3. Low-impact exercise

Exercise beats a sedentary lifestyle in almost every possible measure.

Cycling is great because it’s both fun as you can go out and explore new sights; and it’s low-impact for your lower body. Unless you’re unable bend your hips (in which you should really get that checked out), practically anyone with basic coordination is fit to cycle.

4. Making commuting interesting

If you have the luxury of being within cycling distance of your work, riding your bike as commuting can be great fun. Here are some things you can do:

• Chase down a tram/bus/car;
• Enjoy the breeze as you whiz past people, buildings and traffic lights;
• Race some fellow cyclists;
• See how many tight spots you can navigate through without stepping off the pedal;
• Chat to other cyclists before you race them again.

The possibilities are endless.

5. Freedom

Freedom is high on my list of values and cycling is the epitome of freedom. To explain, let us consider the limitations of alternative forms of transport – walking and driving – and see why cycling has the best of both worlds.

Driving is great because you can go fast, and fast is fun. However, driving sucks because you consistently have to stop at traffic lights, you can’t pass other cars in the same lane as you and the cost of insurance, fuel and general maintenance can really add up.

On the other hand, walking is great because it’s liberating – you can generally walk wherever you like, whenever you like. If you want to overtake a slow walker, walk on the grass instead of the footpath or jaywalk (safely), go ahead! Yet, walking sucks because it’s slow. Walking over 10km for one trip is generally out of the question, because it would be both too slow and tiring.

Now, back to cycling. Cycling essentially has the best of both worlds, because:

• It’s fast like a car, easily averaging 20km/h, meaning you can travel practically everywhere (unless you’re going for a long roadtrip, in which case you’d need a car for luggage anyway); and
• It’s just as free as walking, because you can walk your bike! I know, crazy right?

Bikes are great.

If you say, “I’m never eating chocolate ever again”, that’s a rule. It’s also not a very good one. You could last a few hours, perhaps even days or weeks, but if you see your favourite chocolate on sale after a long day of work, you might give in.

Rules can be very powerful. Rules govern how society runs, how people treat one another, and even how we behave ourselves. Unnegotiable rules like drinking water every day, or to never smoke can alleviate mental space for harder problems. But the problem is, like the chocolate rule, people change. So, how can a rule be followed when the person the rule is for continuously changes?

The explanation for this shifting and paradoxical behaviour is called the empathy gap: a cognitive bias where people underestimate the influences of visceral drives on their attitudes, preferences and behaviours. This explains why one day, you detest chocolate, whereas another day you want nothing more than chocolate. Our hormones can quite literally dictate our mood.

So, how does one make lasting, effective with such shifting personalities? Professor Sendhil Mullainathan, in an interview with The Knowledge Project, suggests we treat ourselves like a democracy:

A lot of people I’ve seen pick rules willy-nilly. That’s just handing over power to the person in that moment who thought that was a good idea…you really want to protract the process of picking a rule.

Suppose you want to implement a rule, like “no dessert after meals”. That’s not a rule that’s been decided; that’s a rule that’s been proposed. Over the next week, ask every self that emerges how they feel about this rule. If by the end, every self agrees with this rule.. our confederacy of selves are all in agreement.

Well thought-out rules have the property that they are ones many parts of our selves subscribe to.

It’s not inaccurate to see ourselves as mini-democracies. How we behave when we’re rested and full is completely different to when we’re tired and hungry. This means that for the sustainability of a rule, get permission from all selves. Because all it takes to destroy a rule is one rebellious person emerging.

To set effective rules, make sure all your parts agree first.