21 Things I Could Have Done Better (& Maybe You Too)
Unlike the many facets of life, the past is crystal clear. It’s over. All has been finalised. Nothing can be undone.
If I had focused more on this, things would have turned out so much better.
Yet, thinking this proves to be a meaningless task. Shouganai, the Japanese would say—It is what it is, and it will forever be. So why are we brooding over what has happened, what came to as a result, what we have zero control of?
Psychiatrist and concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl speaks remarkably of a mind trapped in this void. What determines a prisoner’s longevity is, he writes in his classical masterpiece, Man’s Search For Meaning, in the way he imagines his future—though dark and bleak and likely to end, he musters all his energy into the hope that one day, if fate allows, he will be liberated and reunited with his family. A higher chance of survival seemingly belongs to the prisoner who accepts that when he is unable to change a situation, he is challenged to change himself, his attitude, his response towards what had happened.
For this very reason, the only way forward is to learn and grow. In fact, as parents, this is the only way. All that we do right now isn’t for ourselves. It’s for our families. Our loved ones. Our kids. They're relying on us.
This post isn’t about my regrets, but as I reflect upon my existence, is what I wished I had accomplished sooner or engaged with better—things that are as important to me as it would be to you.
1) The more I think about it, the more I wished I had started Gosh! Kids earlier. This whole entrepreneurship ride has been challenging and stressful, yet fulfilling. It demands me to think out-of-the-box. To be meticulous. To not let the slightest setback or blunder question my original purpose. This game of running your own business is more mental than physical, so it would have made more sense to start earlier—younger, basically—with more energy, with more vibrancy. Truth be told, Mathieu and I hesitated more than we should because we were constantly telling ourselves we weren’t ready. Then again, when are we ever ready for anything, really? That thing you've been holding up for a long time? Now's the time.
2) I think most married couples would understand this. Mathieu and I should have moved out the moment we got married. Now that we got our own place, I wonder how different life would have been for us emotionally-speaking if we had not lived in someone else's home. I reckon our emotions would have been better regulated. Sure, it saved us a lot of money, but the trade-offs were immeasurable, and thus beneficial overall.
3) Knowing when to cut out the bad stuff is so essential for mental health and a meaningful life. I mean, really! I’m guilty of letting bad things run over me all the time, and I’m not just referring to bad food or physically harmful activities. Stop grinding through anything bad: Toxic relationships. Abusive employers. Suspicious business partners. Self-indulgent friends. Boring books. Boring films. Boring TV shows. Bad writing. Bad teaching. Learning not to tolerate things that are far behind the line of excellence is something we all could stop cutting slack on. Do not settle for less.
4) My family is thick on the creative side. My dad used to be a ballet dancer (not kidding). My mom was a makeup artist. My brother is a well-known graphic designer and content creator. Still, it wouldn’t have been any harm—in fact, I think it would have helped me tremendously—to be more involved in sports or music.
5) Not until we started our own venture did Mathieu and I experienced the true power of a great copy. Not just any copy. The kind that is so symphonic and seamless that it makes the audience want to read on. It’s one thing to be a good public speaker—it could very well be masked as charisma—but those who can meticulously craft a prose with a gentle mix of emotion, personal voice and detail, to me, portray a supreme level of clarity of the mind. Just think about your favourite authors, favourite books. Why did they sell millions? Why did it make you go, “omg yes!” Still, it was better late than never for us to hone our writing skills, personally- and professionally-speaking. You should too.
6) With writing, comes reading: Building a daily reading practice from a younger age. Again, better late than never.
7) Never once have I gotten angry and hurled hurtful words at someone I loved, did it ever feel good after.
8) Checking in on the people closest to me was something I never held myself back from doing. Quite accurate was my intuition about someone not feeling a hundred-percent did it end up in a meaningful conversation about encouragement and friendship. It pays to double-down on this.
9) We had to pause Gosh! Kids when Mathieu and I relocated to Fukuoka City, Japan, for a one-year sabbatical. It wasn’t about shelving our growing business and moving abroad with a six-month old during the pandemic that was difficult. It was the lack of thought for a smooth transition back home that came back to haunt us. We returned to Singapore with a mess waiting for us. Looking back, it would’ve helped greatly if we had planned out the details for the halting and commencement of our domestic matters.
10) Lots of famous last words. One of it: I told myself I’ll never, ever, marry a man with the last name Tan. Lesson? Never say never.
11) My dad is a financially-savvy person, yet this part of the genetic line never made it to my DNA. Diving deep into money-managing practices is a critical component for anyone wanting to become an entrepreneur or parent.
12) Considering English and Mandarin to be the most widely-spoken languages of the world, it would be reasonable to think that being fluent in both would get you through most communication barriers…till I lived in a city that could speak neither. The idea of picking up a third-language (or fourth, or fifth, if I may), especially from a young age, never seemed so important to me until now, which is why we enrolled our son into the Japanese-language class in his pre-school.
13) It’s crazy to be saying this but, I should have listened more to my parents’ (nagging) advice.
14) Many of you would probably agree with me that we could do with more solitude—that is, being alone with one’s thoughts (and one’s thoughts only). No music. No books. No Netflix. Certainly no smartphones. Just you and whatever is on your mind. To be disconnected from the world and arrive at a place where you get to be by oneself has, unfortunately, become a luxury. I’ve been wanting to get my hands on Jonathan Hadits’ The Anxious Generation: How The Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. As much as it talks about children becoming prisoners in the internet-age, there’s tons for us grown-ups to reconsider when we speak of our relationship with technology. Few things are clear: it has robbed me of my solitude, it has transported my mind into an abyss of comparison, and, as the book suggests, our mental health is at the mercy of these tools. Make reclaiming your solitude a goal for 2024!
15) Gosh! Kids is a creative arts programme centered around photography, art and overseas creative camps. Journeying with children through these moments never failed to remind me of it's utmost importance in our lives, regardless if you identify as a creative or not.
16) And not just the arts, but nature too. City people like me can never get enough of nature. Our brains can never get enough of nature.
17) Confronting people who were doing things I knew were hurting other people, but letting it slip by. Being aware about something wrong yet choosing NOT to act on it is, in my view, just as bad as committing the wrong act itself. Still, there were occasions when I chose to overlook things, only for them to end disastrously. Could I have helped someone out of rut if I had the courage to speak up? Definitely.
18) We could all agree on this (especially as parents), but I should have travelled more when I was younger. There’s just so much out there we’re missing, and if I had the chance to do it all again, I would get out there as much as I can, as far as I can. I'm so glad we got to live in Japan as a family. Now, we’re conducting overseas creative programmes for kids because Mathieu and I had experienced the wonderful things that come out from immersing oneself in foreign environments and cultures.
19) Holding fast to the present moment. It’s easy to get caught up with what’s next. What shall I eat tomorrow. When will I get that job promotion. Which school should I enrol my kids in. And for the crying baby that wakes up in the middle of the night and the rebellious teenager that talks back at you, these moments in-front of us can be especially hard to savour. When will this ever end? I've guilty of this on a hundred-fold. But indeed, every moment that has presented itself is a gift. “Always hold fast to the present,” the poet Goethe once said, “Every situation, indeed every moment, is of infinite value, for it is the representative of a whole eternity.” These moments will come and go like the wind. A lot of things we think matter, don't, and we put all our eggs into what's going to happen tomorrow. But the right here, the right now? That's all that matters. The future will never end. The present will.
20) Children’s author Amy Krouse Rosenthal once gave really good advise which I think about every now and then: Pay attention to what you pay attention to. If I had known that being exposed to a certain way-of-life or ideology at a young age would have so much influence in my life thereafter, I would have been extra, extra careful (and picky) to whom or what I choose to invest my time and resources in.
21) I should have given less permission to other people's approval of what I do. Whether it was the right decision to not go to college and dive straight into the workforce, or whether giving birth to my first child at age 31 was later-than-usual, and that we should not delay any longer for the second, these things used to cloud my mind all the time. It gets tricky when you truly want to please the people you love. But hey, no one will rationalise why you had to do certain things. Don't even expect them to. You did it because you searched yourself and concluded that it was the only way to move forward. That it's the right thing for you.
