Category: Life

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:

1. dialectic behavior therapy helping me become aware and confront some difficult negative emotions and how to construct a life worth living
2. 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