About Me

 

I took the ordinary path like most people of my generation: went to school, did well enough to make it to the National University of Singapore, got a great starter job and joined the kick-ass glamorous corporate world, or so I thought.

And for 27 years, I was on the hamster wheel – day in, day out, rung by rung – rising through the ranks to Regional Director at a US multinational. And sure, while I made a decent living, I wasn’t happy with how my life was panning out: the company I was working for, toxicity of the work environment, where I was heading (more of the same grind?) while being terribly aware that there must be more to life than simply existing to get paid to work so that I can accumulate more debt/luxuries which forced me to work more to pay off those debt. What’s the whole point? A vicious cycle. The scary thing was that everyone around me pretty much bought into the same scheme.

 

Then 2 incidents drove home the pointlessness of it all and jolted me into changing my course.

 

An expatriate colleague was diagnosed with breast cancer. Couple of days before her mastectomy, I took her out for dinner to calm her nerves and to give her moral support. At the end of dinner, she said this: “If I get through this, I want to change my life. I will quit and join a marine research expedition. It doesn’t pay much but it’s what I care about.” She is an avid diver…and now she works most days in turquoise (at times murky) waters, with sand between her toes.

 

1 of my best friend’s husband suffered a stroke while tending to his boat where they live in Texas. The only reason he’s alive was because his dog ran out to get help, but help did not arrive soon enough to stave off massive damage to his brain. As a result he lost 70% of his mobility, speech and some of his memory. He was two and a half months from turning 50, had a great (though stressful) job in oil trading, they had bought a lovely beach house in Hatteras, North Carolina intending it to be their retirement home. A lifetime of dream and planning went up in smoke. Just like that.

 

Both incidents affected me a lot and got me thinking – why should I put off living the life I want when it can be so fragile? What if I don’t make it to the pot of gold after slaving for so long and hard? What if I’m no longer healthy or well enough to do the things on my bucket list? Why shouldn’t one live the life that one desires right now?