What does it mean to have differing “Life Goals”, and how important is it to a relationship?  There are so many questions in life.  It’s good to be accepting of everyone, but at what point do you draw the line and say that there are some things that you need in a relationship.

In the end, I’m happy… but is that enough?  Happiness is so subjective.  There are some cores to people that you just can’t change.  Someone’s view on life (heaviliy influenced by culture, upbringing, religion) are some of these.  If two people have very different cores, can they resolve it with each other and still be together?

This is the question that I am facing.  This is the question that I need to figure out.  I’m not the type of person who tries to sugar coat stuff.  I’m blunt and really believe that if you do something do it well, and do it right.  If you are going to do something, do it well or else don’t bother.  There’s just no point in doing a mediocre job at something, since someone else can do it better.

I’m not sure where this path is leading.  It really can go either way.  We look at it now, and we are both scared that this difference is inevitable.  Will we ever know 100% for certain.  I seriously doubt it.  If it is not meant to be, then I would rather not waste my time.  But right now, things are uncertain.  I’m happy, but realistic.  Is it that I just expect too much from people?  Is it that, when I am with someone, I want them to be so much more?  Is it wrong for me to have such high expectations of people?  I really just can’t say.

All I know is that it would be easier to keep my big mouth shut and not say anything at all.  I would offend less people, be more accepting, and just assume the negative until proven positive.  But, at my core, I feel I am inherently an optimistic person.  I really do believe that people can and should achieve more than what they think they can.  It can be inspiring to some, but it can be extremely negative to others.  I’m not sure where that line is.  Am I pushing people to be better people?  Yes, I am!  But why?  I think it has something to do  with the fact that, me, being a motivated individual, needs help in staying motivated.  What is the best way of staying motivated?  The best way is by surrounding myself by the motivated people.

Great people don’t work alone.  I know not everyone needs or wants to be a great person, and that type of personality is hard for me to resolve with.  Why is it that people don’t care about what they do?  Or is it that people just don’t think work is that important in their lives?  If so, why spend over 8 hours a day working it?  I’ve said before, I wouldn’t be happy just staying in one place, content with the status quo, willing to just go with the flow and let the river take me where it’s heading.  I don’t know why, but this is something very core to me.  It’s one of those things that I wish I could change, but realize I can’t.

I told a friend the following:

It’s like I’m rowing upstream, when everyone else is going downstream… then those people are looking back and taunting me pointing out how much further they have gone on the river.

I hate that feeling, that what I am doing isn’t right.  I know I’m a hippocrite telling other people what they should do, and at the same time feeling bad when other people tell me what to do.  It’s wierd in that way.  My world has to be consistent within my world view.  I try to surround myself with people who are consistent with it, I’m sure this is true for everyone.  My problem is that I can’t sit and watch other people be miserable.  If they are happy and going after what they really want in life, I have no problem.  It is those people who aren’t, but are convincing themselves that what they are doing will make them happy.  Who am I to judge, but would it be right to just be a sycophant and not say anything?

I know, I should be more accepting, but where does accepting become sycophantic?  I know I shouldn’t tell people what they should do… I’m trying to think of the selfish reasons why I do it.  In the end, it comes down to the fact that I suggest to people things in order to see how they will react.  People choose the people around them.  Just like a friend who always picks good movies, I create a consistent image of someone based on their opinions.  If someone is unhappy and not doing what they love, it forms a framework around that person.  It’s like a lense that I start seeing the person through.  Similarly, if someone goes after their dreams, it forms a framework around that person.  For me, I need to be around doers rather than sayers, dreamers rather than realists, leaders rather than followers, passionate people rather than apathetic ones.

I’m not sure where this path is going.  I’ve always believed in experimentation.  If you really want to know something, you just have to try it and find out.  I’m not one to listen to others and avoid things that they say to avoid.  I’m not one to prolong things longer than they need to be.  One of my most influential professors, Randy Pausch, once said:

I got more from that dream and not accomplishing it than any of the ones that I did accomplish.

…

When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you, it means they gave up.

…

Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care.

…

Fail early and fail often.

~Excerpts from Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture

I guess all I can do now is to go down this path.  Whether I like it or not, whether other’s like it or not.  I won’t be happy unless I’m going for something, and I need to surround myself with people that are visionary, that believe in something.

Sometimes I wonder how much of someone’s life is the culture they come from and how much is of their own making.  Being American, I’ve always been brought up to believe that you are what you make of yourself… no one, not family, not friends, not society can tell you who you are and dictate your life decisions.  But, I meet people every day that tell me that “You can’t possibly understand what it’s like to be X” (insert culture or race in the X) or  “You don’t understand what it is like to have so much responsibility” or “You grew up in such a priveleged society, so you have no idea.”

It really bugs me when people say that.  For one, they have given up on the idea of explaining their choices and decisions.  I’ve always believed that every decision in life needs to have a logical reason behind it.  It just has to make sense.  When someone can’t explain why they are doing something, it just makes me think that they don’t really care about themselves or their dreams.  I still strongly believe that you are what you make of yourself.  Everyone likes to tell you how to live your life or that you need to do such and such.  If you listen to all of that, then of course you are going to feel like you have great responsibilities.  If you do the much harder thing and listen to yourself, then the responsibility is only to yourself.

I would say that a staggeringly high percentage of people I know (nearly 90%) can’t convince themselves that if they really want something, they can get it, and they can get it right now.  People are really good at giving excuses… and not many people are good at doing anything.  Growing up in the U.S. isn’t about being priveleged, it’s about being taught that if you have a dream, you go after it… responsibilities or not, what matters is the journey.

I know this isn’t the case in other countries, and I often wonder if I had grown up in other countries if I would think just like the people I know from these countries.  Would I feel that responsibility takes precedence over personal fulfillment?  Somehow, I feel this part of me is so core to who I am that I would feel the same even if I had grown up in a “less priveleged” society.  Then, these people couldn’t use the excuse that “You can’t possibly understand what it’s like to have so much responsibility.”  You define your own responsibilities.  The responsibilities don’t define you.

Why is it that the most interesting people in life are the people that want, no need, something out of life?  There are some people in life who just passively live life, and then there are those people who actively live it.  What do I mean?

Someone who passively lives life is someone who is so contented with the way things are, or so unmotivated to do anything about their current life, that they just let life happen to them.  Someone who actively lives life is someone who needs something out of living… maybe it’s a thrill, maybe it’s a dream, maybe it’s a passion.  People who actively live life are not happy unless they get something out of life, and they are willing to go out on a limb to pursue it.  It’s something that emanates from every fibre of their being.

The people who want something out of life are the most interesting because they are looking for something.  Maybe I identify with it because they are risk takers… they are movers.  To them, it’s worse to stay in one place, job, situation too long even if it means the next thing might be less satisfying.  What makes it worth it is that they are going somewhere, and there is a direction to it.  The passive liver convinces themselves that they are on top of the mountain and that there is nothing more to see.  The active liver always believes that there is something more if they just keep on climbing.  Even if they are at the top, they never stop wondering if there is more and pursuing it.  You can never go back down the mountain.

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat
But always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed

I hope you still feel small
When you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Promise me you’ll give faith a fighting chance

…

I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Living might mean taking chances
But they’re worth taking
Lovin’ might be a mistake
But it’s worth making

Don’t let some hell bent heart
Leave you bitter
When you come close to selling out
Reconsider

…

I hope you still feel small
When you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Promise me you’ll give faith a fighting chance

~Lee Ann Womack, I Hope You Dance

It seems like when I am happy I have a lot less to write about.  I really can’t think of a point in my life where I felt so content and happy with the way things are.  I’m not in the location that I dreamt about, but still, I am doing what I enjoy and I am with a person that really makes me happy to be who I am.  I watched No Reservations again with Angel last night.  One quote from it stuck in my mind:

Kate:
I wish there was a cookbook for life… the recipes telling us exactly what to do.  I know, I know, you’re gonna say… how else can we learn.

Therapist:
Actually, I wasn’t going to say that.  You want to guess again?

Kate:
No no, go ahead.

Therapist:
What I was gonna say was… you know better than anyone.  It’s the recipes you create yourself that are the best.

I’ve created my own recipes for life.  I hope the result are good.  I stopped listening to what people told me I should be doing a long time ago.  I stopped caring what people think.  In the end what matters is what I think… and I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my entire life for it.  For some reason, when I am happy, I have less stuff to write about.  I guess the majority of my writing ends up being rants of some sort or another.  When I have nothing to complain about, I just don’t have much to say.

So, I guess it’s a good thing that I don’t have much to write.  It means that I’ve reached a point in my life where I am truly happy.  I really hope this lasts.  I’ve finally found the balance that I’ve been looking for in life.  I’ve started cooking almost every day for me and my girlfriend.  I’m spending time working on a game that is finally my own.  And honestly, there are worse places in the world I could have set up shop than Kuala Lumpur (see posts about Singapore).

Maybe it’s because I spent Christmas alone this year. Maybe it’s because I’ve never met anyone like her before. She is the most amazing person that has ever crossed my path. It reminded me of a scene from one of my favorite movies Great Expectations:

Is it possible to love someone so much that you would give up your past, your family, and everything? What’s it mean to be a success and accomplish your dreams. More and more, I’m realizing that my dreams are including Angel. Before I met her, I thought that I could live alone and be happy. But, more and more, I see my future not as me, but as us. I realized that all this pursuit of my dreams… it was all to find someone else who supported and facilitated those dreams.

If I ever accomplish my dreams, the accomplishment isn’t important. It’s who I get to share my dreams with that matters. I miss her a lot these days. How do you know when two people are in love? The answer is simple… you don’t. When two people are in love, there’s no one thing that can describe that love. All you have left is how you feel.

To feel so passionate about someone… isn’t it the same as feeling so passionate about a dream. If you can really believe in your dreams, only then can you be passionately in love with someone. That’s when “everything I do, I do it for you… anything that might be special in me… is you.”

Angel has done a 10 day meditation before where you sit in the forest and don’t do anything but meditate for 10 days.  This means, no video games, no TV, no internet, and no talking.  Also, you are not supposed to be sleeping while you are meditating.  I couldn’t imagine myself doing that.  The boredom would drive me crazy.  That’s the problem with my mind… it always has to be thinking or doing something.  It never shuts off.  It would be convenient if I had a switch, and oftentimes, I have wished for a switch to turn it off.

So, now this relates to my current situation.  I’m trapped in Singapore for Christmas, no one I know is around, and I’m in one of the most boring and mind-numbing places I could have imagined.  My business partner, Jaff, whose place I was staying at, kicked me out of his place since his family is around, so now I’m living on the office couch.  So now I’m spending Christmas alone, in the office, typing up this blog entry.  I guess you could say that this is definitely one of the lowest points of my life.

On the other hand, I got to thinking about the meditation session that Angel did.  In 4 more days, I move out of this place and I’m not looking back.  By the time I get out of here, I will have stayed in Singapore in relative isolation for almost 9 days.  I can tell you that the 5 days that have passed, I’ve gone without any meaningful social interaction all day.  I just stay in the office, surf the web, read a book, sleep.  I know it’s not meditation, but maybe it’s the closest that I can get without going crazy.  In any case, it’s definitely a struggle, but it gives me time to think.  It’s nice to just be in a place with no one else around… believe me, it’s pretty difficult in Asia since there are too many people everywhere.

So like a double edged sword, this story may have a happy ending.  I’m biding my time until the end.  4 days seems like an eternity, but I’ve been waiting an eternity for what will come next, so it’s well worth the wait.  I’m happy to get out of this country.  They say that things grow on you the longer you are there.  Singapore never grew on me… and I’m quite happy to let it grow on someone else.  I learned a good lesson coming here and trying to start a business.  I learned about business, but I also learned about living.  Both were not the direction I wanted to go in, but if I hadn’t tried then I wouldn’t have known.

Everyone does it… but I really don’t like to do it.  I would be denying it if I said I didn’t though.  What I am talking about is comparing yourself to others.  Especially with things like Facebook and Friendster, it’s really easy to find out what has happened to friends from high school, college, past jobs, etc.

So what is it about me, about human nature, that every time I see my friends doing great stuff in the world, I think “what if I followed that same path through life?”

• I have friends who are now mid level managers in the corporate ladder, friends who are now senior programmers or even leads of certain areas.
• I have friends who are just now getting their PhDs and ready to teach.
• I have friends who are fulltime professors.
• I have friends who are just now beginning to travel around the world.
• I have friends who are married, have kids, and own their own house.
• I have friends making 3 or 4 times as much as I am going after the money instead of their non-money making passion.

So here I am, the transient… the person who decided to veer off and pursue their penny-less existence as an artist.  Here I am with a loan bigger than a down payment on a moderate sized house.  Sometimes I feel like I’m being left behind… or maybe I am trapped in a stage of my life that these people have already passed a long time ago.

Would I be happier if I worked a better paying job, less fullfilling, giving me a chance to do management, and possibly living in a place I am much happier?  They say that the cost of your decisions is the road not taken.  In economic terms, it’s the opportunity cost.

If I had gone the corporate route, climbed the ladder, I could be a lead programmer now.  My resume could look a lot better, I have no doubt about it.  But honestly, it’s hard for me to care what other people think, especially what other companies think.  I have never had a problem with employment, but sometimes I wonder whether my crazed country and company hopping will eventually come back and bite me.

In any case, it is always in the back of my mind whether I took the right path.  There are moments in my life when I believe that I have no regrets.  In the bagful of marbles, a few will succeed and shine and many will be left behind.  Would I be happier if I had taken the steady route to success, instead of my haphazard romp to find meaning in life?  I think the ultimate answer is No.  I think looking at all my friends doing great stuff in the world shouldn’t make me jealous.  What matters is that I took the risks.  I know that I will never wonder if I was too safe.  Even if I don’t end up a shining star, I know that I tried a road less travelled.  And, as the Robert Frost poem goes: And that has made all the difference.

It’s a constant battle for me.  There are those lucky few that never have to fight this battle… that never have to make the choice: the choice between people and place.  Many people have told me that it’s not the place that matters as long as you are with the right people.  I used to think exactly the same thing.  Now I realize that people can make a good place better.  People can make a bad place bearable.  But, without both the people and the place, you will not be happy.

I read this article recently about what makes a city a happy place.  I guess there is this emerging research being done on how to measure “happiness.”  I find it really intriguing.  It seems that place does have some factor in determining the happiness of the people who live there.

So I’m in a dilemma.  I have the choice to move to a place that I really love.  A place that makes me happy just by being there.  I have friends there too, but I can make friends wherever I go.  What is tough is that Angel is up here, in a place that I don’t feel as happy in.  Can I ever be as happy here as the place I want to move?  Will I be happy if the person who makes me happiest is not with me in the place that makes me happiest?  Will I be happy if I am with the person who makes me happiest but I am not in the place that makes me happiest?  Is it even possible to have both at the same time?

These are the questions that have been bugging me recently.  I don’t have the answer, but I will be forced to make a decision soon.  I am like a scientist, trying out different things and experimenting.  Luckily, Angel is also experimental and understands that experimenting means that you will reach a lot of dead ends before you figure out the formula that works.  I’m so lucky I am with someone that will be with me to figure things out together.  There just aren’t many people like that in the world.

I’d like to think that I live my life in a logical way to some extent… well at least it makes a lot of sense to me.  Right now I’m doing this startup with a “friend” of mine.  Now, I’m sure you can tell how that is going with the fact that I put quotes around the “friend” part.

Well anyway, I think about my life and some of the decisions that I’ve made and I wonder whether I made the right choices in my life.  And I think I’m pretty certain that everything in my past has been resolved at this point.  My most recent decision… the one to come here and startup a company with this “friend” in Singapore… I’m still debating about.

The reason this is a conundrum is that even though my girlfriend is nearby… she told me to make this decision without taking her into account.  I totally agreed with her.  So without thinking about the advantages of being near her, I still decided to come here to Singapore and start this company with this “friend” I barely knew.  I’ve been here only about a month and a half, and already I am seeing some major cracks in the foundation that is this company.  I still plan on seeing it through for at least a year, but I feel like I’m slowly dying inside.  Here’s the breakdown:

1. Business: The business is going so-so.  I’m starting to believe less and less in the idea and that it will honestly work.  Furthermore, I’m not sure I trust my business partner.  I get the feeling all he cares about with this venture is money and he will stab me in the back the first chance he gets when he doesn’t need me anymore.  If I leave after a year, I basically wasted a good year of my life.
2. Life: This is a conglomeration of many factors, but I realize that I’m not happy here.  I’ve met some Singaporeans whom I don’t have much in common with.  I don’t like the location at all, and, no Singapore isn’t growing on me.  And, I’m starting to lose my strong sense of identity in this conformist society.  I long for someone to stand up and just yell at the top of their lungs “I’m an individual!!!”  Coming to Singapore makes me even miss living in the US.  At least there is freedom.  Singaporeans don’t seem to mind that they are told how to live, their media gets censored, and soon their private lives might be open to the government (i.e. ODEX for example).
3. Relationship: I’ve never been happier in terms of my relationship with anyone before.  I go up to visit my girlfriend in Kuala Lumpur twice a month and I have to say I love every minute of it.  If I hadn’t come to Singapore, would we still be together?  Would I still feel this way about her?  Would we have really known each other at that point?  I feel like I understand her so much more now that I’m here.

Anyway, so that’s what it comes down to… the reason I came to Singapore isn’t turning out the way I planned (i.e. the career).  Also, I’m getting really depressed in my life here.  I’m still looking for a place to stay, but I think I’m generally disatisfied with the way of life here.  Finally, my relationship is really a bright point in my life.  Angel has been with me despite all my whingeing about Singapore and work.  She’s still so supportive.  Sometimes I worry that she will just break down and tell me to shut up, if she is just pretending to be supportive.  I guess that’s the true test of a good relationship.  Any relationship can survive when both people are happy, but can it also survive during the darkest hours?

I still believe I can make it for a year here.  It’s more a challenge to myself than anything.  At one point I was thinking of living in Bangladesh for a year.  If I can’t live in Singapore, then I think I would really wonder how many places in the world I could live in.  I need to do this for myself.  This company is quickly becoming something that is not mine.  I wish I could steer it more but my business partner is pretty inflexible and naive at this point.  It’s hard to work with people that have never worked in games before… they always think things magically get done.  But even more than that, I didn’t realize how badly my business partner’s personality clashes with mine.  He’s kinda the type of person I don’t want to associate with (maybe I’ll explain more about that later).

By December, my girlfriend will leave her current job.  What will she do?  I wonder… I will support her wherever she goes.  I just don’t know if I will be physically there wherever she goes. :(  So many unanswered questions.  It’s exciting to try and find out the answers.