When I told my friends about my recent struggles, it seemed like they tried hard not to smile at my first world problem- I’m so good at everything that I can’t make up my mind about what I want to do. My problem is that I’m looking for happines. Mum said I think too much. I laughed, but I think she could be right. Freedom, safety, control, happiness, feeling good enough, feeling at peace - all the wild gooses we keep chasing.

Here’s one thing I learned recently—it’s harder than it seems to acknowledge our own talents. I’ve always believed that humbleness is a great virtue: Being full of oneself is ignorant and gets you hated by everybody; there’s always something we can improve in life. When I was a child, I learned that Confucius said, “Whenever I walk with 2 other people, there must be a teacher of mine”. I aimed higher and tried to learn from everyone I met.

In the old days, if someone asked why the ocean was blue, they may get a satisfactory answer, “God made it so”. Now we are usually satisfied with a longer explanation like this, “The light of a particular frequency range hits our eye, and then the brain somehow makes you feel the sensation blue”. But how? Where is the missing link between the brain and sensations that happen in the space of experience?

I still feel too busy every now and then, but I’ve come across some ways to solve it. Here are my reminders. I feel busy, when I think I don’t have time. But do we actually own time? Trying to exert ownership over something that can’t be owned is a lost battle. But it’s so easy to think, “These 8 hours of my time are for work, and those 8 hours are for sleep.

4 months ago, I couldn’t run for 5 minutes and hated the idea of running. Now I can go for a 5k run and enjoy it. What happened here? I discovered how to run. It turns out a lot of us try to run too fast. We end up burning out before our bodies warm up. The key to enjoy running is to be kind to yourself and use an easy effort.

I recently got skin infections from Muay Thai training, which took me a couple weeks to recover from. After a few doctor visits, I still don’t know what exactly it was or if it was a mix of things. Eventually with the mix of antibiotic and antifungal treatments, I’m recovered and back into action. Here’s a post on how to deal with and reduce the risk of skin infections in contact sports.

Recently, I’ve been trying to figure out how to get leaner and stronger for my upcoming Muay Thai (kickboxing) fight. I made an effort to do some research. The backstory Some people think I’ve got the genes to be naturally skinny and fit, but I actually try pretty hard too. Since teenage years, I’ve always been trying and failing to eat less. It’s hard to ignore the pop culture influences, even when you think it’s silly.

A Mapo Tofu inspired dish with mince, tofu and beetroot. #SportsRecoveryThis is very far away from the Chinese dish Mapo Tofu, but I got inspired and invented this the other day. So good and so easy, so I thought I’d record and share the recipe 😀 Based on this Japaense Mapo Tofu recipe. What’s Kiwi about this? Beetroot! and not spicy at all.. (this is mostly my preferences) 😛 This dish is great for sports recovery because of the beetroot.

Self is a reference to the imaginary experiencer of the thoughts and sensations that we experience. Other people, as we know them, are representations that we built in our minds. We construct characters based on our memories of other people. Memories are interpretations of what we noticed. These characters have personalities. They have our thoughts and feelings attached to them. In the same way, we construct a character for ourselves.

I’ve been wondering about what love is. It seems people have very different understandings of it. I currently think of love as a pleasurable emotion that can be felt for children, parents, friends, pets and romantic partners. I heard a buddhist monks saying that giving love means wishing others to be happy. That might be it. But here are my thoughts on what it is and isn’t 🙂 Love isn’t making sure someone is happy There’s no way to really make sure someone else is happy.