A friend asked me recently: “How do I become more grateful in my life?” By instinct, we know that gratitude is a good thing. Yet, there’s a weird guilt around what we should be grateful for. If you’re not grateful for your family, friends, God or the “big” things in life, then you’re selfish. You’re …
On Saturday, July 28th, 2018, in an alternate dimension similar to Earth, Oz Chen died when a truck rear-ended him on the 101 freeway. Fortunately before the accident, he already told his family and friends that should he ever die unexpectedly, that he regrets nothing. A Ford F-150 almost rear-ended me at 80 miles per …
Leave a message for your loved ones, in case you die early Read More »
The moment my sisters had kids, they said goodbye to a normal sleep schedule. My sisters are not morning people. But they wake up at any hour of the day to tend to their newborns. Hanging around parents made me realize that the capability of waking early – and doing it – is more important …
How I wake up early without being a morning person Read More »
I was cringing inside. This was taking too long to just order a piece of toast. My friend loves to go off menu: We’ll start with the tostada con tomate …but is it possible to just do half of this, and get the other half with salmon? Can you bring extra sea salt, and oh, …
Every suburban kid has their watershed moment of humility. Mine was in the commune of Hinche, a year after the Haiti earthquake. I was on a medical aid trip1. A dentist I was assisting told me something that blew my mind: “If we don’t remove the abscess, the tooth can get infected and the patient …
Nothing makes a person project their values more than being a parent. My single mother worked full time jobs while starting businesses on the side. Instead of encouraging my sisters and I to follow her path, she wanted us to get advanced degrees and pursue stable, high status careers 1. Both my sisters became doctors …
Every time I return from traveling, I fall into a mild depression. The worst case happened when I was 18, after returning from a glorious month in Taiwan (hello Loveboat ’07!) It’s a mix of insomnia, coming down from constant stimulation and a heavy dose of escapism. #Takemeback After a decade of traveling, I picked …
I was a bit startled by his reaction. We were surrounded by street peddlers on the streets of Cusco. Overpriced tours and kitschy trinkets. A normal occurrence for any touristy site. But he blew up. His face turned red and he screamed at the solicitors to go away. I held this memory with me as …
Some of you might know that I once did an experiment reading as many pickup books as I can, in order to curate and summarize the best dating advice for men (read: myself). My brain got fried. The pickup artist (“PUA”) books repeated some unhealthy patterns: Senseless routines and scripts on what to say to …
5 Books for Men Recovering from the Pickup World Read More »
It was the ultimate irony – I learned how to meditate to decrease stress. But I stressed out about not meditating enough. A friend pointed this out to me when I complained about breaking my meditation streak on Headspace. So I asked myself, where did the stress come from? Even deeper irony: it came from …
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