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A Rep In the Books

Jan 5: The cold slender metal glided up my cervix, she was gentle. It was easy, I was out of the surgical room in hours - just a day surgery.

Jan 6: Screech. I slammed the brakes. His open trunk glared at me like the mouth of a roaring dragon, refusing to close. A remnant of my front bumper limped along the asphalt road as I shimmied to the side. I hit a Mercedes, my fault.

Jan 27: At midnight, I paced up and down The Path, on the phone with the police, locked out of my car. God damn it, where do I go without a winter jacket? It's freakin -20 degrees outside! Two guys stole my parka, along with my house and car keys. The security camera caught the whole thing. Proof is comforting, even when it proves you are having a bad month.

Shit happens. I shrugged. I was still, somehow, jolly.

Jan 28: We made eye contact. He raised his finger and signalled me to pull over. No sirens, just a $615 ticket. I had been fumbling with my phone at a red light, which is illegal and apparently, expensive.

That was when I broke. I lost my composure, which had been doing an admirable job up until then.

I wanted to cancel everything. I wanted to go home, curl into a ball and wallow in self-pity.

Well, I couldn't. The cop wouldn't let me drive because I was clearly distraught. I called a friend to bail me out.

Within a month, I managed to rack up close to $10k in damage, through sheer dumb shit, all my fault.

I won't aggrandize a cliche, but my friend said something helpful. Money comes and goes. For my circumstance, this particular outlay did not deserve this much suffering. Letting go of money, he said, is a skill. It takes practice.

The next day, I gave $1,000 to charity. I had already promised myself I would do this after my second rental unit was filled. January simply moved up the schedule.

I want to live a rich life. Rich in objects, yes - but also rich in generosity, perspective, and self-deprecating humour.

January was not a tragedy. It was just a repetition in a set, a set titled 'parting with money'.

I banked a rep in the books.

#life

It's Not Workaholism, But Something Close Enough to be Misunderstood

Over the years, many people have called me a workaholic.

Something about that label makes me cringe. Not because it is unkind, but because it is imprecise. It flatters effort while misunderstanding freedom.

I accept the compliment embedded in the accusation. Yes, I am conscientious. But the label misses the essential point.

I work almost to the point of workaholism, but not quite. The land is vast; there's simply a fence somewhere beyond the horizon.

I have an orientation, not a compulsion towards work.

Work is central, but not the pinnacle. A life arranged around work is not the same as a life consumed by it. Quality of life still claims a quiet authority over me.

The more accurate label is 'work-centricity', a notch down from workaholism.

Which is why, when I feel myself nearing the edge, I pause. I reclaim space. Resistance, perhaps - but more accurately, a desire to prove that work has not won.

Today, my mercenaries - taking the form of the alphabet - are on the frontline.

#SelfReflection

Tune Out

My projects no longer glide neatly along a railway track.

They are enmeshed in nets with no clear start or finish.

I am effective because I have zero tolerance for the unfinished.

So I move at god-speed to untangle messes.

'Unfinished' evokes a sense of unsettledness in me - I become antsy - so I work fast to get rid of the feeling.

But the crossed-wires have become so large that I cannot sort them out immediately, regardless of how much or how fast I work.

So the anxiety sits - day after day, week after week - impeding my effectiveness.

I am learning to slow down and tune out.

For me to handle complex, system-level problems, learning to let the 'wires stay crossed' without snapping is the ultimate leadership discipline.

#SelfReflection

Values That Outlast Us

Me: "You're Chaos."

Him: "I like that nickname, it makes me sound like a superhero."

We could not be more different: I was structured, he was spontaneous. I was even-keeled, he was moody. I was particular, he couldn't care less. I was serious-minded, he was playful. I was the adult, he was the charming delinquent.

I laughed. I cried.

-------

He was an environmentalist and an educator who taught in his green cape. When he spoke, I listened intently. I read his PhD dissertation - it was dense. "That's love," he told me.

Me: "You are very easy to admire, but you are very hard to build a life with. You give everything to the community and to your friends and family. But by the time you return to me, you have nothing left."

Ironically, I could not argue with his causes. Who could?

We didn't last. But his values did.

--------

Last week, I found an extra set of utensils tucked away on the top shelf of a cabinet.

Last night, I found a crock pot I've completely forgotten about.

This morning, I untangled a small universe of extra cables and plugs, each one leading nowhere.

As I pack and unpack for my new home, I feel the urge to go out and buy things - to fill the space with something fresh and uncomplicated.

But his voice lingers, faint but persistent: what can you repurpose?

I don't need more new. I need to look more carefully at what I already have.

Related Post: Violence to the Environment

#society #relationships #SelfReflection #values

Unceremonious Grandeur

Luxury. When my subconscious remains mercifully idle through the night and does not rouse me before dawn to dispatch imaginary errands.

Luxury. When QWERTY feels less like a tool and more like a ballroom floor, where letters glide rather than labour.

Luxury. When four orphaned households of one or two commune over one Christmas meal, becoming something larger than themselves briefly. This is not a gathering of abundance, but of inclusion.

Luxury. When my newly memorized address begins to feel like a home, not just a house.

Luxury, relishing the magic of simple magnificence.

#life

Embarrassing Mother's Pride

Scott Galloway, NYC Professor and serial entrepreneur spoke of his late mom buying him his first car at 16:

When I was 15, in California, you were what you drove. Just having a car was everything. You had no social life in high school in LA. There was no public transportation unless you had a car. We didn't have a lot of money. My Mom used to come home when I was 15.5 and honk the horn and we go into a garage of this giant apartment complex, and she would teach me how to drive stick in her 1977 lime green Opel Manta. And then on my 16th birthday, when I passed my driver's test, she came home and she had bought this shitty Acura, and she put her arms on my shoulders and put keys in my hand and said, "You're a handsome young man and you have a car." The best thing literally, I think of any parent or any mother... if you tell your kids everyday that they have value, they start to believe you.

He teared up.

I resonated.

---------

Mom was a widowed breadwinner who started out as a street vendor in Taiwan. We didn't have a lot, but she gave me everything.

I was her pride and joy. To her, I was perfect.

When I entered my teenage years, the pride got annoying. She flaunted my medals and trophies. I hated it and gave her the cold shoulder. I told her not to talk about me in front of her friends - it was none of their business. Hormonal teenager? Check!

I bought my investment property this year. After the walkthrough, I knew how proud Mom was of me. She gifted my aunts unsolicited, subtle brags. Even as an adult with a fully developed prefrontal cortex, I still rolled my eyes.

---------

I am innately confident.

I am so, because at a young age, my mom told me I had value and I believed her.

What I badger my mom over is one of the most powerful gifts she has ever given me.

Mom, thank you for being annoying.

#family

2025: Happy Birthday, Me!

Health & Fitness

Score: 7

The good: I can do four unassisted pull-ups now! I started with three band-assisted pull ups in July 2023. I now start all my sessions with 9 sets of 4 pull-ups: wide grip, reverse grip, neutral grip. In poor form, but they are mine. I stayed consistent with my training - no excuses - I showed up session after session. The bad: Vacation fat that I never shed. My mobility slipped in 2025.

2026 Goals: Maintain strength. Rebuild my mobility. Lean out.

Intellectual

Score: 9

A functionally intellectual year. This is a two-parter: (1) My new manager frames executive narrative like I've never seen. He overhauls my slides - instead of resenting it, I study his craft. In time, I will learn. My brain is wired for big picture, I just need reps. (2) I bought an owner-occupied / investment property. The learning curve was as brutal as expected: taxes, debt structuring, estate planning, renovations, home systems. I stretched my business muscle and forced my non-mechanical brain to participate.

2026 Goals: Hone my executive storytelling. Learn my home.

Emotional

Score: 5

Rough year. Psychological bandwidth is tapped: scope change compounded by long hours and tight turnarounds, new property, no steady emotional anchor.

2026 Goal: Return to Ling

Character

Score: 7

Better. No longer taking petty advantage of things that I shouldn't.

2026 Goal: Keep at it, room for improvement.

Spiritual

Score: 7

I paid it forward. Cashflow is tight, money is flowing out like a broken hose. Instead of tightening my purse strings, I donated freely. Despite a depleting bank account. I know I have enough.

2026 Goal: Keep paying it forward.

Love relationship

Score: 4

The breakup hit me blind. The pain is not acute. It lingers like a low-grade fungal infection - chronic and pervasive. I'm still discerning what to evolve and what to protect as authentically me.

2026 Goal: Not something I like to set a goal for.

Family

Score: 7

I am an okay daughter. Not emotional, not thoughtful, but I plan and provide. I took Mama and Mummy to Portugal this year. I spent $11k - worth every penny to see them light up.

2026 Goal: Spoil my parents and Yingko (my uncle). They are old. I don't intend to have kids. My generosity belongs with them.

Social

Score: 7

I don't lose friends, they stick around for decades. As extroverted as I am, I've stopped making new friends. I have finite amount of time and I try to spend it on my existing friendships.

2026 Goal: Maintain

Financial

Score: 9

Two decades of discipline paid off. The seeds I planted 20 years ago matured into a seven-digit real estate purchase. A second home. By myself. Still surreal.

2026 Goal: Stabilize my cashflow. Evolve my personal financial system to incorporate investment property complexity. Work toward a portfolio of doors.

Career

Score: 8

I worked my ass off. I am in flow. I know what I am doing and I know what value I bring to the team.

2026 Goal: Earn my promotion. Move further toward Strategy on the Ops-Strategy spectrum.

Quality of life

Score: 8

I no longer nickel and dime. I spend on good-to-haves, not just must-haves. I invested in skin treatments, ordered custom furniture and am moving to a beautiful neighbourhood full of character. I'm still prudent, but I am no longer Scrooge McLing.

2026 Goal: Maintain

Creativity

Score: 9

Breakups throw me into liminal spaces - the kind that wakes the artist. I wrote some of my best pieces this year. Creative, not functional. Toward the end of the year, time scarcity pulled me back to functional writing.

2026 Goal: Nourish creative strokes. Submit for publication.

#goals

The Long Short

"Consider me dead the next little while," I told my friends.

In the last month and a half, I've

Taken possession of a house

Completed renovation for two tenant units

Rented out a unit

Listed the second

I am now working on my own. I asked the contractor for a one week break, "Please go to a different job," I pleaded.

Reprieve.

Like a bocce ball rolling down the court, things moved - turn after turn, task after task. Not at torpedo speed, not with any breaks, just a steady, human momentum.

The time felt short, but the memories felt long.

Turns out, you can trick time a little by seeking out what's new. When your brain encounters new stimuli, it stretches your perception of time, making the period feel longer in hindsight. That's why childhood and adolescence feel endless: it's when everything still feels new.

Andrew Huberman on Time & Memories

So now, to stretch time with the people I love, I'll fill it with firsts - small adventures, shared discoveries, moments of newness we can savour slowly.

#life

Muse Wants to Play

She says: Let me out

I say: I'm trying.

She says: You took my playground away!

I say: Yes, yes I'm sorry.

She says: When are we going to play?

I say: Soon-ish. I have adulting to do.

She says: Fine. Be that way.

I say: Be good. Just a little longer. When I'm ready, never mind playground - I'll give you Disneyland! You'll be the happiest Muse on earth.

----

I don't have an Angel and a Devil in me.

I have a Muse and an Adult in me. I am dying to write. But renovating a triplex is not for the faint of heart.

My creative pulse hasn’t gone quiet - it's just pacing inside, waiting for recess.

Efficiency Backfired

"I get so antsy as the day progresses. I take it out on my team - I become directive and curt - that's not leadership."

Every three weeks, I sit with my coach. Call it therapy, call it maintenance. Either way, I flush out gunk.

He probed, "Why do you feel antsy?"

"Little things pile up. I schedule my meetings back-to-back so that I have long work blocks. But I don't have time between meetings to take care of the small stuff that builds up in between them."

And that’s when it hit me - a flash of lightning right between my eyes.

That's it.

It wasn't stress. It wasn't workload. It was the unfinished.

I'm an inbox-zero kind of person. I clear the small tasks and never look back. But when I can't do that, when the tiny to-do's start stacking, whispering, tapping me on the shoulder - my brain clogs, my patience thins and I start snapping.

It's not the big work that breaks me. It's the little things left undone.

Back-to-back meetings don’t suit my wiring. I need the quiet victory of small wins: tiny, satisfying closures that tell me the day is still mine.

#SelfReflection #business #management

Damsel in Sovereignty

Everything is a learning curve.

Ugh, what are all these knobs? How do I even program this automatic sprinkler? "Open sesame!" Shit, why isn't the garage door opening? God bless the fancy marble wall - now I gotta seal it? Oh CRA, straightforward tax provisions? Right, never.

The antidote? Intentional amnesia.

I time-box the remembering, keeping the plane of vision tight. I have no capacity to think beyond 72 hours.

My reprieve: I give myself twenty minutes to panic, ten to swear, five to breathe. Then back to pretending I'm capable.

I chose to do this.

These are my dues to pay for the reward that will follow.

Some nights I want to be a damsel in distress - to be rescued, adored and useless. But alas, no dragons, no prince - just me.

I crown myself a damsel, yes, but a damsel in sovereignty.

#life #goals

Blueprint for Becoming

2022 July: I declared my intention to acquire.

2025 July: I signed the purchase agreement.

2025 October: I collected the keys.

This week, I took ownership of my investment property.

My proclamation was more ambitious than my plan. North Star? Yes. Map? Not really. I gathered my compass and set out, knowing in my heart of hearts, I would end up where I was meant to be.

I took a team with me, hub and spoke. Volition was the hub; contractors, lawyers, numbers people were the spokes.

I did my first renovation project in 2015. It was pure chaos.

Then: Every Detail Mattered Now: Let go of control. Only A-level priorities are worthy of my neurons. Then: Penny Pinch Now: Invest. I outsource execution to preserve my headspace for strategy. Then: Task-At-Hand Now: System design. I simplify, systemize and prepare for future scale. Then: Ling Now: Team - the scaffolding that elevates my view, the experts who bring me options.

-----------

On the day my house closed, instead of celebrating like any new homeowner, I forced a laptop shutdown at 9:30pm, peeling myself away from the glow of the screen so I could leave the office and collect my keys from the realtor's lockbox.

At 10pm, I walked into an empty, dark house. Even the rattling of the leaves spooked me. Like a lost soul, I fumbled with keys and switches on the walls - there must be 50 of them, mapping the circuitry of a space not yet mine.

At midnight, I was pulling out 6 bins of moving waste left by the seller. Can't miss garbage day! Each bin eclipsed my frame, quietly reminding me who's really in charge.

It was a lonesome, powerful night.

I may come off sovereign, but there were nights and weekends when I wanted to curl up like a ball, to be invisible.

And yet, here I stand.

Three years after my declaration, I've arrived - keys in hand, compass still true, map still unwritten.

#goals #PersonalFinance #life

The Overlooked Consolation Prize

Hyperthymesia (highly superior autobiographical memory): the ability to recall personal life events with extraordinary accuracy.

Many partners have remarked incredulously, "How do you even remember that?"

I wish I were a math genius, that's probably more helpful. Who needs to remember stupid shit nowadays?

All you need is a laptop and functioning fingers: Ctrl-Find. Voila! The modern brain.

Universe, thanks for the consolation prize. You gifted me a coupon for 10% off intelligence. Redeemable only in the 1900s. Expired now.

So I thought.

----------

Turns out, the world of business rewards freaks like me.

Like a historian, I synthesize.

I bring up passing comments, random slack messages, loose trends from tangential meetings.

I don't need processing time, I don't need Ctrl-Find.

The anecdotes work like colour palettes - they hit the canvas and suddenly it's modern art that my colleagues nod at.

I retain business and organizational history with hyperthymestic accuracy.

It's not an interview skill I can tout - not resume material, not Nobel-worthy.

It's an overlooked consolation prize that Universe gifted me, I'd take it.

#business #SelfReflection

Kindness Check

I'm a Manhattan project in motion - a Trinity Test waiting to ignite.

I shuffle hastily as if something feral trails me, ready to pounce. I'm curt. Mom avoids me. Acquaintances, wisely, have stopped messaging - I've signalled that I can't handle the periphery right now.

First job mantra roots deep: "Act now. Do it today. Get results."

Pepsi, you etched that into me. Everything must be done yesterday. Inbox zero, always.

Man, who is this bitch?

What did Scotiabank's client service advisor and CAA's mortgage agent do to me? This entitled tone, who is she?

I've packed my life like sardines. The weight is mine, not theirs.

Oh my friend Marcus Aurelius, if he were alive and sitting on my personal Board of Directors, what would he say to me?

"Be kind Ling, especially to those who don't matter on your way up."

I've never felt more powerful and yet more alone. I'm scaling new peaks and steering major choices, all on my own.

Like a stone mason working on a slab of marble, each chip reverberates, sending shockwaves through the stone, leaving dust everywhere.

It's messy and I loathe mess.

I'm adrift without inner ballast, and I take it out on those around me.

Financial services staff ends up bearing the brunt of my emotional turbulence, and they shouldn't.

Ling, be kind on your way up, not because you might see them on your way down, but because unconditional kindness is simply the way.

#SelfReflection

Aristotle, You Sexist

Aristotle, Politics: "The male, unless constituted in some respect contrary to nature, is by nature more expert at leading than the female, and the elder and complete than the younger and incomplete." Aristotle, Politics: "The relation of male to female is by nature a relation of superior to inferior and ruler to ruled." Aristotle, Politics: "The slave is wholly lacking the deliberative element; the female has it but it lacks authority; the child has it but it is incomplete."

I started a lecture series on ancient Western intellectuals.

Philosophy’s greatest hits, circa 350 BCE.

The man who gave us syllogisms also gave us sexism, slavery, and a clause about children being incomplete humans. Bravo.

If I were a cartoon, you would see white smoke plumes gushing out of my nostrils - and I reassure you - not in a cute way.

You're telling me one of the greatest minds of human history was a misogynist?

-----------------

And then my mind wandered.

If I were born 2000+ years ago, would I think like a protest-marching, slogan-chanting feminist?

I'm using today's progressive standards to evaluate past norms. There's even an academic name for it: presentism.

Here’s the kicker: I’m no saint either.

I carry my own antiquated prejudices: blue collar jobs are less prestigious; trades people are less intelligent.

That's the garbage my elitist upbringing fed me, and I ate it up.

The brine has seeped so deep, I can't wash out the salt entirely.

I'm trying.

One day, future generations would likely shake their heads and say, "That woman, such a fool."

-----------------

As I posthumously gift Aristotle a slow, withering glare 2347 years after his death, I realize there's something fundamentally wrong about using modern standards to evaluate ancient traditions.

Every era has its rot. So do I.

#SelfReflection #society #curiosity

Indelible Mark

Happy birthday to the man who made me.

Fifteen years have passed since we parted. Time has stretched itself thin, yet your presence continues to hum in the background.

Even in the wake of our parting, I never doubted your greatness, nor the influence you left upon me. I did not idolize you - we were equals. But together we learned what it meant to strive, to build a legacy, and to shoulder a vision larger than ourselves. You believed in me, even when I didn't believe in myself. And in that belief, you carried me.

It is because of you that I am Ling today. For four years we circled as acquaintances. For three more, we stood as lovers.

To have known such a love, even once, is enough to render a life worth living.

#relationships

Rough Sketch of Courage: I Stopped Fleeing

Remember Breakup #20-ish?

True to my word, I showed Trauma who's boss.

I had two kicks at the can since my epiphany.

Both times, Old Ling wanted to flee. New Ling trapped her with invisible pylons.

"Stay. Ask what you wish. Figure out what went wrong. Do not run. Salvage what you can."

I floundered - my words stumbled, raw and graceless.

The most recent run was rough. With him, I felt a karmic pull, as if I had known him from another life. No butterflies, just ease and quiet familiarity.

I shed my invisible armour and probed, knowing he could wound me with every word I invited to land.

I stayed until I was sure he didn't want to.

The execution could use some finesse.

But I reached. I said I would show Trauma who's boss - and I did.

Was I embarrassed as I rambled?

Yes.

The proud soul in me rattled.

The queen in me urged me to hide my hurt. No one, should ever see me this exposed, this emotionally naked.

Still, I forced myself into a boxing ring with my avoidance.

------

My probing words carried no grace.

But I know, in the fiber of my being, I will rise. And when I do, it will be with poise, softness and undeniable strength.

#relationships #SelfReflection

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