I sometimes doubt decisions I make. I sometimes question what I’m doing. I sometimes lack conviction.
But there’s one decision I made 1.5 years ago that I know, deep down in my bones, is the right decision for me: reorganizing my life to maximize time spent with my (6 year old) daughter.
What sparked this thought?
The following video that showed up on my Instagram feed:
In the above video, a daughter surprises her father by visiting him in person, after the two of them not seeing one another for 5 years. By the way, even the idea of not seeing Elliott for 5 years makes me want to shed a tear.
Back to the video. The daughter hid squatting in a cardboard box. The dad reluctantly approaches the box, wondering if someone is in there, and adopts a boxer position, ready to “punch the shit” out of whoever may be hiding in there. But as soon as he recognizes that the person is his daughter, he immediately throws his arms around her, grasps on to her so tightly, and the first words that he cries out are: “My baby girl ….” he continues to grip on to her tightly. “I fucking love you so much.”
Pure rawness.
Beautiful.
Relatable.
It goes to show that having a daughter can soften a man.
With my eyes still slightly shut, I slowly rose to consciousness this morning when suddenly, through the not so sound proof windows connecting my bedroom to the front garden, I heard the muffled sound of the dumpster truck slowing makes it way down the street. Based on decibal level of the metal claw wrapping its teeth around its current victim, I suspected that the truck was next door. Oh shit, I realized, I forget to wheel my own fully packed trash bins to the curb.
I had …. maybe 15 seconds to the trash bin wheeled out to the front!
Half naked, wearing only boxers, I leapt out of bed while still half-asleep sprinted towards the front door. I frantically twisted the knob, hopped over the two front door steps, gripped the handle of the trash bin, and began wheeling the trash bin behind me, anxiously wondering if I would make it out on time.
Just as I reached the the street, the garbage man — a young lad who looked as though he was maybe 20 years old — said “Thanks mate”. I handed over the trash bin and he proceeded to position it such that the garbage trunk could connect its claw around the body of the bin.
Now, this whole situation — of forgetting to roll out the bins on Wednesday evening, instead of Thursday morning — has happened not twice, but three times now, over the past 2-3 months. I’m not entirely sure what specifically changed in my life such that would’ve caused me to forget this weekly chore. Regardless,I’d really like to avoid these jump out of bed frantically instances. So, here’s one of the ways I am going to try and reduce the probability of that happening: adding an event to my calendar.
Setting up an event in my calendar
Just now, I added a recurring meeting on my calendar to remind me to pull the bins out at about 06:30pm every Wednesday. I maintain a calendar and have developed a habit, a practice, of checking it every day in order to see what’s on the horizon. If some event is coming up and not in my calendar, history has shown me that, chances are, I’m going to forget about it.
Configuring reminders
Now, not only did I add this recurring event in my calendar, I’ve setup my Fastmail settings such that now, by default, every time I add a new event to my calendar, the following reminders are automatically added, my phone (and laptop) showing an alert:
1 day before the event
1 hour before the event
15 minutes before the event
I find that these alarms are spread out sufficiently and give me little nudges, ways to warm up my mental cache for what lies ahead.
Summary
Will this weekly recurring event calendar help me avoid having to sprawl out of bed in the future and race to street while wearing boxers? I sure hope so. But we shall see.
While walking the pups this morning, I had a sudden urge to listen to a podcast and I pulled out my iPhone (13), launched Apple Podcast, and navigated to one of my favorite podcasts: A slight change of plans. After not listening to any of her podcast episodes for nearly a year, I scrolled down to an episode titled “Rethinking Ambition”
After listening to the first few seconds, I momentarily considered skipping and swiping to another interesting, useful episode; I had the thought of “what could I possibly learn from an affluent, white, privileged woman talking about about ambition.” Damn, I was so wrong.
I set my judgemental thought aside and proceeded to listen to the remainder of the 30 minutes (or so) episode (I admit, I’m a bit embarrassed for my judgemental thought however, as learned in dialectical behavior therapy, a thought is just that: a thought) and here are a few favorite moments
Favorite moments
Sliding her resume back towards the interviewer when he (somewhat) condescendingly asked “What school is this?”
She was interviewing for an entry level position as an assistant for a media (I think magazine) company. Apparently, even for entry level positions, applicants tend to have graduated from pedigree schools (e.g. Harvard, Yale), and the college that Jennifer attended did not fall into that category. And I love her tenacity, her no shits taken response “Just because you haven’t heard of the school doesn’t mean it isn’t a good school.”
Turns out, her no non-sense reply lead to her actually landing the job since that attitude, apparently, is part of what it takes to put out fires as an assistant. She valued her 10+ years working as a waitress and applied what she learned in customer service; this makes me wonder what sort of stories my own mom, who worked at a diner during her teenage years, would be able to share with me as well.
Toeing the line
Jennifer said she was of “toeing the [company] line” and that’s an idiom I’m not particularly familiar with it. Though I’ve heard the phrase before times in the past, I wasn’t completely sure what it meant and as it turns out, it’s one way to say that you follow rules and orders and behave obediently.
New words I learned
repudiate – to refuse to accept or reject
Quotes
“Ambition is a force and you can harness that force for good or you can harness that force in a way that takes you away from yourself and things you care about. We think success has to be big when it’s so often, the most satisfying success is quiet and small…I’ve designed my life in such a way that nothing is neglected: my relationships, I’m not neglected, work is not neglected. Everything is in balance.”
The above quote resonates with me because upon reflection, much of my ambitious endeavors in the past — for example, climbing up the corporate ladder at Amazon to become a senior engineer — contained a shadow, a slightly misunderstood (from my perspective) drive and ultimately, disconnected me not only from others around me, but disconnected me from myself and spiritual development.
“I’m going through the challenges of life. I am riding them like a wave, much more naturally because I’m not gripping, nothing requires that hold on me.”
The above quote reminds me of Oliver Burkeman and how he talks about (radically) accepting what lies ahead — that we are all finite human beings with a limited time on this earth — and with acceptance, we free ourselves from holding the brace position.
“Is to have a spaciousness, I think that is success. And when work is all consuming and doesn’t have boundaries, and when you are chasing something inside of work that you’re honestly never going to find, you lose all of this other beauty, which is what a successful life really is.”
Again, resonates with me in the context of work because for about 15 years of my life, I relentless searched for spiritual development within my work and I believe I was looking for the right thing, just in the wrong place.
Summary
Overall, solid episode 4.5/5.0 rating and would recommend listening to. Definitely left me in a pensive mood and had me reflect on how grateful I am for my current situation in life: working a 9-5 job with flexible hours that allows me to single parent my daughter and pursue creative opportunities (e.g. dance).
The book “Four thousands weeks” by Oliver Burkeman profoundly impacted me when I blasted through reading it this past year and I’m currently considering picking up the book and reviewing my hand written annotations marked on each pages, notes I took: summaries, quotes, questions, etc.
But before reaching to grab the book, the following thought emerged: if the average life spans 4,000 weeks and I was born in 1988, how many weeks left do I have left on this earth?
Well, according to the date calculator website, 4000 weeks from May 16th 1988 (my birth date) lands on January 13th, 2152.
Given that today is September 13th, 2025, that leaves me about 16,932 days left. Or, put differently:
2417 weeks and 4 days
46 years, 4 months
556 months
That’s … somewhat confronting.
But from my current perspective, the above time frame, oddly enough, feels like a substantial amount of time left. I mean, sort of is.
All the meanwhile, I recognize how precious and tender life is, how an instant, your world can turn upside down. So, I ask myself: how do I want to spend my remaining days?
Or, perhaps if I take one piece of advice, a suggestion, from the Four Thousand Weeks appendix, I might want to “Decide in advance what to fail at.”
Deciding in advance what to fail at, to me, makes me radically realize and accept that, as a finite human being, I have limits. I can’t “have it all”. And instead of sighing with disappointment, I breathe out tension, some tension in my body washing away. Right now, I’m resisting and fighting the urge to enumerate a long list of things I want to do however, for the purpose of this exercise, let’s list some of my pre-planned failures:
A stand up comedian
A magician
A father to additional children
A psychologist or psychiatrist treating patients with mental health
A principle software engineer for a major tech company
A famous book author
A world class break dancer
A digital organization dad
A touring DJ
A politician
A medical professional who works for “doctors without border”
A professor or teacher of children
A world class dog trainer
A touring dancer
An entrepreneur running a 7 figure business
Living quietly in isolation on a farm raising a bunch of animals
The above list seems silly. However, at some point in my life, I wanted to do the above. And if I’m being honest, a part of me resists the idea of human limits and part of me is drawn towards working towards ALL of the above at the same time.
But as I type these words out, trying to tackle more the a dozen ambitious goals in a single life time, seems ridiculous.
And so while I no longer know exactly what I want to do with the remainder of my life, I do have a few ideas on how I’d like to spend the next few years:
Raising Elliott as a single dad – this has become my #1 priority in life. Had you asked me if I ever envisioned living as a single dad in a foreign country, I would’ve thought you were crazy. But here I am.
Dive deep into mastering myself within the craft of dance and contribute the street style dance scene
Work part time as a tech lead and sharpen skill set – prepare for the storm of artificial intelligence (AI) take over
Connect and limber my body and calm my nervous system down
Elliott is still asleep in the bedroom and I’m afforded the quiet morning to read, reflect, write. In a couple hours (hopefully), she’ll slowly rise and then shortly after I’ll drop her back off at her mom’s house. So, here are some morning musings.
On trying Onion Rings
I offered Elliott an onion ring to try out and she smiled and said “Sure, I’ll try one.” She proceeded to reach into the freshly opened bag, grabbed one onion ring, and ever so slightly stuck out the tip of her tongue and tasted it and immediately said “I don’t even need to eat it because I HATE IT already.” I couldn’t help but burst out in laughter. Her honesty— kids in general — is so raw, so beautiful. I’m not offended in the slightest bit and understand (especially within British culture) how that response from her would’ve been labeled or interpreted as rude but to me, absolutely hilarious.
Video recap of Monday
Been practicing taking footage on my DSLR and practicing improving my editing skills (thanks again Wei for suggesting I start off with experimenting with shadow, temperature and highlights).
On being kind to oneself, others and communicating boundaries
Elliott knocked over the container of beads, about a hundred of them flying all of the kitchen floor. The spill happened just before we were heading to bed and I had let out a big sigh of frustration. And then proceeded to say “These things happen Elliott. Could happen to anyone.” The way I speak to her is no different than the way I’ve learn to talk to myself: with kindness and self-compassion. In addition to being kind with her — with words — I showed functional validation and dropped to the floor to help pick up the sea of beads. Initially, she said “How about you pick up the beads and I’ll continue playing.” In response I said, “Elliott, I’m here to help you however it is also part of your responsibility to clean up after yourself as well.” She initially resisted, and proceeding to assemble a new pattern when I then placed a boundary: “Elliott, please come down here and help me pick up the beads. Otherwise, after I pick them up, I will throw them away.” In general, I try to start with positive encouragement and more often than not, she (more so lately) is more than willing to help however in some scenarios, I find it appropriate to clearly (to the best of my ability) communicate consequences: not empty threats. Often I’m reminded of Dr. Becky’s definition of boundaries, which is (paraphrasing here): in order for a boundary to take effect, the OTHER person does not need to DO ANYTHING. In that way, boundaries differ to requests. With a boundary, for it be enforced, I take action.
Drinking Sparkling Mango while taking a bath
Elliott typically does not like sparkling drinks but after she tried out this mango flavored sparkling drink from M&S, she loved it, so much so that while giving her a bath last night, she asked if I could pour her a cup of the drink and if she could drink while bathing. Why not?
Almost exactly a year ago, I moved to London as a 36-year old single dad in the midst of a rather contentious and divorce (they all are) mired with unanticipated betrayal that left me questioning myself and questioning how I failed to see the signs that were actually always there (hindsight is 20/20 they say).
But I digress.
Last year, not having forged any (what I consider) meaningful relationships or friendships in London, I had celebrated my birthday more or less alone (to be fair, I took a private 1:1 dance lesson with Ani that day and she surprised me with a little cupcake: very kind of her). But yesterday, a year later, I hosted 20+ friends (and some acquaintances that may transition into friendships) over at my flat. Hosting my own birthday party, from an outside perspective, might not hold much significant but to me, marks the beginning of another huge transition in my life.
Yesterday’s gathering came to fruition as a result of:
dialectic behavior therapy helping me become aware and confront some difficult negative emotions and how to construct a life worth living
Oliver Burkeman’s chapter from Meditation for Mortals sharing his perspective on hosting people and employing “scruffy hospitality”
The day leading up to my actual birthday and on the day of my birthday, I had the thought of frantically cleaning up the house so it appeared (or rather, gave the illusion) that I was completely orderly. This urge to line things up in perfect order has historically overpowered me. Unaware of this perfectionist tendency most of my life and only in the last year recognizing how deep that shame avoidant behavior runs. These days, I’m more accepting, more kind to myself and if/when people judge me, I repeat to myself: it’s okay, let’s them.
My birthday unfolded beautifully and yesterday I moved through the day in what Oliver Burkeman calls an “unclenched way”. I recognized how the moments were fleeting and understood it as “not a threat to what’s unfolding, but as the source of its value.”
“You won’t feel like you know what you’re doing. But nobody ever does; that’s just how it is for finite humans, attempting new things. The main difference between those who accomplish great things anyway and those who don’t is that the former don’t mind not knowing.”
On scruffy hospitality
“Scruffy hospitality means you’re not waiting for everything in your house to be in order before you host and serve friends in your home. Scruffy hospitality means you hunger more for good conversation and serving a simple meal of what you have, not what you don’t have. Scruffy hospitality means you’re more interested in quality conversation than in impression your home or lawn makes.” (pg. 133, Meditation for Mortals).
“… wasn’t there something odd about putting so much effort into hiding the daily reality of their lives from the people they called their friends, or with whom they wanted to become friends?” (pg. 133, Meditation for Mortals)
“To put on an impressive show for visitors is to erect a facade … the idea that such a facade is mandatory, if visitors are to be admitted to your life, must arise from the assumption that there’s something incomplete or inadequate about your life the rest of the time. Since your visitors’s home is presumably likewise usually a mess, it might even imply there’s something wrong with their lives, too. No wonder calling off the whole performance forges a deeper bond.” (pg. 134, Meditation for Mortals)
Some Kodak moments in my head:
Almost anytime Ani caught a cute moment of Elliott, she turn her head back towards her boyfriend Yuki. It’s beautiful to witness and to me, seems like someone is ready to bear children
Number of friends playing and engaging with Elliott – The way they engaged with her so authentically filled my heart up. Some folks are into kids. Some are not. There’s no right no wrong here.
“Of course it’s overwhelming when lots of people are over and whenever you need to take time to retreat back to your room for some alone time, that’s normal and okay and also would love to have you out there with all of us” – At the beginning of the party, Elliott retreated back to her own room and I am all too familiar with the feeling of overwhelm growing up. Without bad intentions, it would be far too easy as a parent to invalidate and dismiss her feelings. From my perspective, there’s no need to force her to “be social” out of being “respectful”. At the same time, I wanted to encourage to take part and participate and apply “act opposite”. In the end, throughout the day, she hung out in the backyard with all of us the majority of the party, participated in the activities (e.g. limbo, jump roping) and would periodically retreat back to her room for minutes at a time when she felt she needed space.
Elliott “People should take off their shoes so it doesn’t get muddy in the house.” At first, I had the thought of permitting people to wear their shoes since that’s implicit in Western house holds. But I myself do not wear shoes in the house and Elliott and I practice putting our shoes on the rack so I informed folks to leave their shoes by the front door, no problem here.
Witnessing Yuki transition from sitting on his bottom to a squat position by tilting his pelvic and without using his hands – only other person at the party who could do it in this manner was Thi-Anh and Elliott
Multiple people saying “food was amazing” – I feel fortunate that I was able to get catered food from my friend’s Vietnamese restaurant in London. Though I appreciate some people thinking that I cooked the food, cooking is neither a skill that I’m currently good at nor is a something I’m inherently motivated by. But I do believe in the magic of good food, the way it somehow plays a role in forming community
Serendipity of jump roping, pistol squats (i.e. single legged squats) – only at a party filled with athletic individuals (e.g. dancers)
Little gifts from Steve (cupcake, recicprocating what I got him for his birthday) and a traveler’s mug from NZ
Nora helping clean up by grabbing the empty bottles and placing them outside in the front recycling bin
Ani attempting to greet and let other guests at the front door in but she couldn’t figure out to operate the door and said “Sorry Matt, useless here.” Gave me a proper chuckle
Heidi offering to make me a drink – small and specific gesture that I really appreciated it. Yesterday, I was bouncing back and forth between consistently heating up food in the oven, stirring delicious vegan curry, cooking rice, checking on Elliott, popping out in the backyard and chatting with people
Heidi drawing a painting of Elliott in her beautiful dress
It’s been one year since you left us and moved on to doggy heaven. I miss you so much. I feel a bit guilty about forgetting the day of your passing and what sparked the memory was me scrolling through my YouTube video archive and noticed the title of the video: July 29, 2023 – Mystique’s departure.
Last year, I received a text message from Myles (our brother), him letting me know that that you, our family dog, (about 16 years old) was suffering and that the family had decided it was finally time to put you down. Immediately I felt a wave of grief wash over me. I was both ready and not ready for this day.
They had booked a vet to come to the house so that you could leave us with some grace and dignity, not in some vet’s office that seems … just so clinical. Because of how much I love you (and I know how much you love me), I couldn’t bear the thought of you leaving this world without me being there physically for you in those last moments. So I had asked mom if she could postpone the vet appointment by 1 day, allowing me to hop on the next plane from Seattle and get down to Los Angeles. And so she was willing and I’m so grateful I was able to spend those last moments with you.
I value the act of repairing relationships after experiencing conflict, especially with my daughter. Repair as a concept was something I learned after stumbling on Dr. Becky Kennedy’s TED Talk titled “The most important parenting strategy.” The premise is simple: as parents we are imperfect (on the daily I practice unlearning perfectionism). And as imperfect parents, we are bound to mess, to fumble, to falter. And for this reason, when we do fall short with our loved ones, we can practice repairing any damage (small or large).
I cannot recall the last time I lost my cool with Elliott.
In her presence, I often keep my DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) skills at the fore front of my mind, frequently applying wise mind and the GIVE (Gentle, Be interested, Validate, Easy) skill: attuning to her and validating her feelings (this is especially important to me as someone who grew up and still struggles with chronic invalidation).
Regardless of being equipped with these skills, I fell a short yesterday.
Okay, you are NOT going to get bubble gum anymore
Those are the words that slipped off my tongue after we missed our bus that was no more than 10 feet away from us; the bus driver and I were even making eye contact with one another, him not pulling away from the curb for as long as he could without delaying the other riders.
Elliott had refused to hop on the bus and stood by the side of the road because she was upset and requested that we purchase bubble RIGHT then and there. When the bus had pulled away, I drew in a deep breath and sat myself down at the bus bench, not before telling Elliott we were no longer going to get bubble gum.
Her response: Fine. I don’t want it anyways.
That was a clue for me that I had faltered. She loves bubble gum. I know she wants it and she’s just also frustrated. How many times in our lives have we said “Fine” to our loved ones? More than I’d like to admit.
In the moment, I experienced feelings of guilt and disappointment.
Before spiraling down in self-shame, in the midst of it, I reminded myself: I am a good dad having a hard time. At the same time, Elliott is a good kid having a hard time.
In retrospect, when analyzing the chain of events, I recognize that the two of us were both struggling with the vulnerability factors: it was about 80 degrees outside, sun beaming down on us. Nobody is at their best when baking in the sun and sweaty and rushing.
Anyways, after about 30 seconds of deep breathing, I brought my attention to my own body and during that brief moment of silence between us, I had flash backs from my own childhood, a flood of memories of my own dad refusing to talk to me after him and I had an altercation: the complete opposite of repairing a conflict. Wanting to chip away at passing down inter generational trauma, I practiced repair:
Elliott, I know you really wanted the bubble gum and it must be so hard to wait for it until after lunch. And we agreed to get it after lunch, not before. And we just missed our bus so daddy was a bit frustrated. We will still get bubble gum after lunch and next time the bus arrive, can you help cooperate with dad and step on to it when we it’s here?
Not the perfect sentences I’ve strung together for repair. That’s okay. I’m getting better.
In the end, she unexpectedly threw her arms around me, held my dad and then the two of us waited at the bus stop for the next bus.
In London, I religiously attend (House) Dance classes every Tuesday and Thursday evening. That’s my ritual
Unfortunately, this will be the second week that I’m not attending class due to Bunionette (i.e. Tailor’s Bunion) flaring up, me unable to bear my full weight on the left side of my foot
Though I’m not 100% sure, I suspect that the Tailor Bunion has less to do with overuse (that was my initial guess) and more to do with the barefoot (on hardwood) 2 hour movement / mobility workshop that coincided with the dance workshop
In addition to foot pain, Sunday evening I started feeling “off” in my body. Sweaty despite cool weather. When I had returned back to my flat, I had the urge to rush to the toilet and suddenly I had two back to back aggressive diarrhea, an absolute purge of whatever was in my body
I tried to analyze what I had eaten throughout the day and nothing out of the usual. But the one outlier was that (because I ran out of food gloves) I was handling the dog’s (raw) chicken with my bare hand (something I never do) and I suspect that (despite washing my hands) I probably flicked some raw chicken in my mouth
So yesterday, I practiced self-compassion because due to the stomach pain, had woken up several times throughout the night, curled up in the fetal position. So I was barely able to work (put in about 2 hours) and ended up heading to the chemist (i.e. pharmacy) and picked up Paracetamol and took it twice, 2 pills each time (4 hours apart)
Thankful that I didn’t have Elliott the evening I was sick otherwise I would not have been able to give her much parental attention that I’d like
In many areas of my life, I am mindfully resisting perfection. Same applies to this blog post. Instead of another post sitting in DRAFT status, I’m going to publish a post with a few bullet points:
Elliott woke me up a couple times throughout the night so when I woke up at 5:00 am this morning, I felt like a train hit me: I’m totally exhausted
She helped me make her own breakfast today – I pulled up a chair so that she could stand above the stove and I helped her pour in the eggs into the pan. Yes — cooking breakfast takes more time but I enjoy teaching her and she loves feeling involved. Also, one top of the egg omelet, we spread seaweed all over
We took “Racey” (her new toy remote control car I purchased her) to the park
Juggled three balls in the kitchen – while she was eating breakfast, I juggled and at one point, juggled two balls in one hand and she was like “wow dad!”
We watched parts of Toy Story – I skipped over parts I felt that would be too scary for a 4.5 year old
I let her watch about 45 minutes of Disney+ while I napped next to her – I was struggling, hanging on by a thread. So she sat next to me while I napped for about 30 minutes to recover from her numerous wake ups (see above)
