March in three paragraphs
I’m heading to the airport in 7 hours and I haven’t pack my luggage, set up my new phone, charge my items and a whole bunch of boring things. Good thing is I have finished what I’ve set out to do before I flew, which was finishing up projects to send designs for sampling, by the time I’m back, they should have arrived too.
These days, my illustrating process includes 4 stages, rough sketch, rough colour, actual outline, actual colours. In March, I have context switched between 11 projects… okay doing the buy 3 get 1 free IG post was considered one, so let’s say 10 different pieces of artwork. The thing about self-employed is I could be operating a lot in silo - tunnelled vision by my own life. Do people actually go to such extremes? What is considered normal and what is considered borderline insanity? Would comparing with another illustrator be an accurate benchmark as well? Given the differing business models and art style (therefore different time to complete an artwork).
Out of these 10 designs, I finished 5 designs from scratch, 2 had reached the actual outline stage, produced 1 in the form of art journal for the volunteer art workshop, 1 is actually just converting an artwork I’ve completed earlier into stickers, and the rest are work in progress. Anyway, I just wanted to clear my thoughts before I go for a holiday. Which is why I chose to take a pause to pen them down when I could have squeezed in just a little bit more work today.
Obsession with work
Tbh, I feel GREAT at the amount of things I have productively produced in March. I love working, I’m obsessed. The previous post which was ages ago, where I’m in a complete different state of mind, detailed how my drive was fuelled by an insatiable hunger to overcome my sense of inadequacy. But a lot has been processed and successfully morphed into something healthier.
I’m someone quite freeform like water without much structure, I’m also highly emotional who relies a lot on intuition than logic (and I don’t mean it in a bad way). A Chinese phrase that could perfectly encapsulate this would be “我行我素”. Oddly enough, I’ve always seen emotionality in a bad light since young. (Now I’m trying to turn emotions into my strength and the soul behind my work) Perhaps that’s why I think subconsciously I’ve reached for structure - in career choice (accountancy), and the way I chide myself for just the way I am supposed to be. Almost like I’m always shoving down a wooden crate on this happy and free blob. I could never keep to a routine, be consistent - always struggling to strike a balance.
Routines & Discipline
Almost feel PTSD with the idea of “routines”. Reason being I feel lousy about myself for not being able to keep to it and that discipline has always meant excellence in our society. (I digress again - high performance we see doesn’t necessarily stems from a healthy discipline, it could come from proving your worth due to shame, or it could be an obsession due to lack too.) Anyhow, miraculously, I did manage to keep to a routine recently which has been helping me tremendously.
There’s a gym below my house, I just need to take 2 lifts and walk about 20 steps. I’ve been paying a monthly gym membership of $170. Initially it’s for my PT sessions, but after that has ended, I’ve only went 3 times or less a month. Naturally, I thought of cancelling the membership - my mindset was “I’m just too busy and too tired, I’m useless, I can’t even go to the gym downstairs - let me just beat myself up, be fat, be unhealthy, and rot at home”. I told my PT about this after my sessions with him finished and I did see the pain in his expressions. I really like him by the way, and he told me “oh no, aiyo, don’t quit, you did so well when we were training together!”. It shocked me as I never thought I did well since the premise of well is regularity and discipline and I only went to gym when I have PT sessions. I started to recall and acknowledge what he said, because during my holiday to Penang, I went to my hotel’s gym. But after being down with 2 weeks of food poisoning (+ trip to A&E for drip), it completely unravelled the work I’ve done. I got demoralised and saw it as my incapability to be disciplined.
Fuelled by my PT’s one sentence, I gave myself one more chance. Being told what to do is a very “hard-hearted”kind of feeling, I hate being told what to do, so when I tell myself I have to go to the gym, I would resist. Somehow when the narrative changed to a softer one, I manage to keep to it. I told myself, along the lines of: even my PT believes in me, let’s try to be healthy, perhaps gyming could help my frame of mind and physical aches too. I have a lot of body aches, an occupational hazard definitely, from being in the same posture for drawing long hours.
Cheating my way into routine
Since productivity has been so ingrained in me, it helped when I chose to go to gym at 9pm or even 9.30pm when they close at 10pm. It’s my hard-stop timing for work, because if I don’t get my ass off my chair, I’m gonna miss it. When I did manage to gym during that period, I feel like a win. In an ideal world of course, I could stop work at 7pm, light some candles, read some books and give myself ample time to gym. Reality is however far from that.
More importantly, I’ve chained this routine with a series of reward. I would then go to the supermarket right beside (saying I love supermarkets is an understatement) to get a nice drink for myself, usually just 0 calories soda water. I would then concoct this soda water, isotonic drink and magnesium glycinate (I have bad cramps and some anxiety) to sip in my favourite glass straw. Here comes the most important part, then I would put it on my desk as I start playing the nostalgic version of Maple Story. It’s actually Maple Legends which is a mirror version that has never progressed to what Maple Story is today - still stuck in that nostalgia stage where I loved - because that’s my enjoyment in primary to secondary school. It’s actually quite a brain-dead game and I love it for that. I just need to switch off (that’s not doomscrolling).
Intentional enjoyment
I’m not a gamer, I look at my BF play his playstation sometimes and I think those days games are so well-done, so immersive, and just so admirable. I wish I could benefit from that but those take a lot of energy - which I’m clearly lacking. But by playing Maple for 1hr+, I would feel recharged, head to bed feeling x10 happier, fulfilled and accomplished than if I would working till 12am or watch NetFlix / social media. This routine takes about 3-4 hours, it’s a reset and the most productive thing I could do the whole day. It keeps me going for the next day. This helps me but I feel a little conscious for mentioning my choice of game, do people judge the games you play with?
Judgement
I might have resented my mother for not providing enough since I was young. This resentment has reduced significantly over the years, but it has completely dissipate after a recent realisation. Since young, I would look closely at the floors to find 10 cents or 20 cents, 5 or 1 cent also can, because I love spinning gachapons and buying snacks from mama shop so much, but I don’t have enough allowance.
Primary school
In primary 1 my allowance was 50 cents a day. One bowl of noodles was 50 cents. There was this one time where I was trying out the cool shaker mechanical pencil from my classmates, and perhaps having shaken it too much, the cap (that covers the tiny eraser at the top) fell off, it remained unfound till today (lol) in our hall for morning assembly. They were kind of a bully, or maybe I was so soft-spoken and blur, they escorted me to the bookshop during recess, demanded me to buy a FULL PENCIL back for them. The shaker was probably $2.20, and the mechanical pencil (no shaker) was $1.50. Unbelievable. I remember I did buy the $1.50 mechanical pencil for them as my wallet didn’t have more money, since I felt obliged as I did lose their cap after all. They were not happy obviously, despite me already breaking my wallet and back for them. No food that recess.
Then there was this time we spent $10+ on a present for another friend since we got invited to a birthday party, which was obviously a lot but the birthday girl didn’t even acknowledge or talk about the present. It just poof! Went into thin air. The next birthday gift was for the mechanical pencil friend, I wrapped an existing thick fairytale book I had, of course she would exclaim that’s not new and yada yada yada. For school shoes and school bags, we go to the shops at markets. I envied my school mates who could have those hardy bags where theres a big image that’s reflective - it could look different depending on where you stand. 90s kids would know what I’m talking about.
Secondary school
My mother was the sole breadwinner, with a $1,200 take home salary, $640 goes to house mortgage, few hundreds go to my grandparents as allowance, another few hundred goes to me and my sister for allowance when were older, other goes to bills and other necessities. For herself, she only spent what’s necessary, yet she managed to have savings for rainy days, and YET, when donating via phone while watching charity raising funds on TV was a thing, among the $10, $20, $50 donation options, she would opt for the highest $50 donation.
During secondary school, I wanted to pursue piano lessons again, I had Yamaha lessons with my mother around 4 years old (that was before we were poor), and later on in sporadic manner I crashed into my cousins lessons a few times, and she treated me $5 coffee bean (she goes “shh don’t tell her mother”). I had a piano keyboard and have always took interest in music. My mother did manage to send me for 1-to-1 piano lessons as a teenager and I understand it’s a lot of money for us, so I try to take as little lessons as possible for the greatest outcomes. In 1-2 years, I skipped grades and had only 2 exams to save money from lessons and exam fees. One for grade 2 and the other for grade 5. I scored very high distinctions for both. But I stopped the lessons when the teacher started shaming me (understandably) for being slow at school fees, being the only one paying at the end of the month while the rest pay at the start, and sometimes even paying late.
What you play, what you wear, how you behave with money
I played with a $6.90 Tetris toy while cousins and school mates play with gameboys. Among the many Pokemon cards I had, none was real, and of course people would point that out. Even for beyblade - mine was fake and so strong, so it wasn’t fair when I won. All these petty little things are huge for kids. This mindset of scrimping, choosing the cheaper options or alternatives followed me into adulthood. I was still using sliding non smart phone in poly when my friends all had smartphones. I also had back and forth with my GM on how to save some $90 for a say $15k office renovation.
Do people judge you for what you have? Of course! Definitely, surely. At least, many people do, in the subtlest ways. Those judgements could be unintentional or even primal. Unfortunately, our worldview could be negatively shaped when we’re not aware of those effects (which most young people won’t be, including myself).
Back to the resentment
Anyway, recently, out of nowhere I saw this grown man carrying a back pack while crossing the road. At first I was admiring the bag, thinking wow good choice, good craftsmanship, nice silhouette etc etc. Suddenly, in a split second I was brought back to the scene of those shops in the markets selling school shoes and school bags. Not too long ago, I was just chatting with my mother on her ailments due to decades-old of anxiety which has manifest into a very bad state now. With that knowledge and the flashback, I felt so so so bad for not being understanding enough of what she had to go through. At that moment, I felt the solemn weight of guilt. Now I have earning power, but I cannot reverse what my mother has went through by giving her money. I have asked to bring her overseas many times, but she doesn’t want to. Now I’m going overseas to enjoy by myself. I don’t have a point to make in my word vomit today, I think I just needed to unload these.
Planning my year
Yesterday in the wee hours, I went into the rabbit hole of planning my year ahead. It’s already packed to the brim. The lilac ones in Q3 are empty slots, the blanks from Oct to Dec are just spaces I haven’t plan as I was exhausted at 3am.
With this visual staring so blankly back at me, I went to bed with a deep realisation. Do I really want my life to be just about work? About configuring how to fit more things in? That’s the contradiction right, I love working so much, I have so much drive to excel. Do I really want my whole life to pass me by (or even just 2026) because I buried my head at work and couldn’t see anything else? (Even though I love my work)
I decided I do not want to. Even if I found out how to do so with good routines.
Our Humanity
World news has always been tragic and negative, which is why I try not to be in the know. I chose apathy over some areas because I can’t care for everything; so that I could care for the things I have capabilities to take action for. If I’m eloquent and outspoken, I would talk about domestic violence; if I could express my thoughts clearly through speech, I would walk people through their feelings; if I have the power to affect the decisions on crow shooting or reclamation plans at Changi beach or persuade people to not eat sharks and stingrays, I would. But I can’t.
Learnt helplessness
During a conversation with my GM few years back, I was wondering how did she manage to give and help through NGOs when we know the world is in such a sh*tty place or that the problem is far too deeply rooted for us to change anything. And I learnt that it’s all about learnt helplessness - that we feel so helpless and overwhelmed before we even begin.
Something spooky
The 1st day of my volunteer workshop sharing about illustration, I actually forgot to set alarm. I usually wake up in the late mornings so I was supposed to oversleep and be late for the workshop. But somehow I dreamt of this taxi driver who is bringing me to a place, so I subconsciously realised I need to wake up. In the end, I’m not late. But how spookily, this taxi driver that I’ve dreamt of looks similar to one of the person I’ve met during the workshop. (!!!) On the 2nd day after the workshop, I was invited to go to Changi beach to look at some animals, probably only my 2nd time there in my life. When I randomly looked out during my grab ride, I saw this same person’s name on the road sign - that person who looked similar to my dream. (!!!! x10)
Universal signal
I take it as that the universe is signalling to me that volunteering and doing good with what I can give is the right direction. Indeed, I was genuinely wholeheartedly feeling sublime that day, and also a few days after - still relinquishing from the effects of alignment.
Our humanity - giving
I wonder why do we give, is it to feel good about ourselves? Or is it to feel like we are useful in society? Or is it to fix a part of yourself that you want to heal? And if we are doing this out of the above reasons, are we truly pure in altruism? Are we even selfish to do that?
In all cases, I think they are all different manifestations of compassion. If it’s to heal your inner child, to give others what you couldn’t have when you were young, that compassion towards self does not count as selfishness towards the person you’re giving to. It’s the same as the mindset of you don’t need to be a high income earner to donate; you don’t have to be spiritually pure or perfect to want to give. Judgement has never helped in any way.
Ending
As I’m about to go prepare for my trip after spending the last 3 hours typing this, I realised by expressing these thoughts that felt like all over the place at first are coming together now. I can adopt ways to be strong and healthy to meet the demands of my expectations and work commitments. But if there is no space of nothingness, there’s no space for contemplation and connection. Connecting with the beauty in the world around us, connecting to our deeper self to find what’s important to us, and connecting what we truly want with what we do.
When I zoom out to see why I’m working so hard on, I am reminded that I can obsessed with things I love, but I don’t want to fall into a state where I feel is too late to reverse regrets or negative effects after decades. I’m like water and don’t like to be controlled because I want a sense of agency - for freewill and expression. In form, I have achieved that by having my own business. But in substance, I can only achieve that if I make the effort to reach deep, in-between work sprints, to constantly make sure my heart and mind are still in alignment.
And as if right on cue, my spotify plays the chorus of “I’m only human” by Christina Perri.
Listen, listen to the universal.