Hello blog,
Lots of updates in life right now.
Almost 2/3s of the way through 2022. Everything has been so fast-paced, and I thought that I could keep up. All I find myself doing is reaching up to the surface, gasping for air, and diving right back down again.
When I was younger, I hated the Singapore life to its core. Societal norms, suffocating ways of making ends meet, etc. I'm not ever conforming to that. So much so, that I adamantly moved to Melbourne and spent $26k of my parents money (till this day, I still wish I hadn't, should've just gone on a working holiday) for a year's worth of Bachelor Degree studies. Life wasn't perfect overseas, obviously, The grass was greener, and then it isn't, but hey, now that I'm back here, it's definitely very green again over there.
Anyways, back to Singapore I go, did a bit of traveling thereafter again, and when it was 'time to settle down', I soon found myself (2018) in my first contracted full time job, Edit & Play. That's when I met Gwen, and our relationship started. Singapore seemed to be good then. I'd say it was a rough start to our relationship (more on that later), but still, everything was novel, I was pretty much in the moment, no stresses about the future.
As I dove deep into coaching and making that my intended career path, I realize there was a lot of potential in it, much more meaning behind it, and the fact that I've been pushing hard for the community events and kinda reaching somewhere with it, I knew that Singapore is basically the place I can stand out from. Hey, people know me here. I'm much more valuable here more than in other countries. And I obviously have a nice house that I don't pay rent for. So here's where my money can grow exponentially.
As I quit The Yard, and entered Move Academy, that's when I start to enjoy the fruits of my labour. My private classes are building up, had help with website and FB marketing and started to see the full potential of making a living out of this thing. Even with Covid, it hit us but not too hard, and honestly, it was during these time of my life where I felt I finally hit the balance with the financials, thus my mind wasn't too worried.
For a good year or so I could tell myself I was really 'happy'. I had money, I had a good relationship, what was lacking was the ability to have time to myself (time, money, relationship - pick 2). But I was able to manage it more or less. I understood that I am in the time of my life where I can't have everything. I was okay not having everything because I had the other two.
That said, as the relationship went on and we're reaching peak adulting season (i.e the 30s), you could really feel pressure building up. 'When you BTO?' 'When proposing?' 'When having baby?'. Sometimes I really question these phases of life. Sometimes you just want to stay in your 'happy phase'. Everything is good and well here........ but not for long. That's the basis of life, right?
The one thing I really hate about Singapore life is the housing situation. You can be 'rich', but when you own a house here, you are in debt till you're dead. Trying to be okay with this has been extremely hard for me to wrap my head around. But I thought, maybe I could do it. I am fitting the mold. There's no backing out now.
It is just 5 months ago Gwen and I got engaged. It was indeed a blast into unknown territory for me. Fiance/fiancee? Fiancy. It does sound like an elevated status. It was bliss, it was a memory not to be forgotten, and I really really enjoyed the night.
We're not done yet, though. Housing. Money.
Back to the topic of money, let's talk about MOVE Academy. From 2018 to early half of 2022, it was a place where I felt comfortable growing in. From setting up shop in Kraken Gym and building a decently sized student-community - to merging into a full fledged academy. More hands on deck - less stress! There was some early rough patches (sounds familiar), but for the journey in the middle, it was pretty much a smooth-sailing ride. Lots of learning, experimenting, knowing that failing is safe here.
Gwen got herself involved in coaching as well ever since dropping off her previous video editing roles. Her first experience with SWAGA was underwhelming to say the least. She never has good luck with her work-life, so I thought since there was a space to include her in MOVE Academy, we rode on it, even though we know that the freelance money here is probably going to be a slow one too.
Again, it was all well and good for the most part of 2021, until a foreshadowing of an absolute crumbling down of the company happened towards the end of the year. Things took a heavy turn from there.
2022 started off rough. In a company of 5 leaders trying to say what they want and see who can out-preach each other, it quickly became such a dread. Company was directionless, people hanging on with no progress, super uncomfortable, and mostly unenjoyable. I had the director come at me wanting me to lower my shares, needing his own emotional needs be babied, and somehow at the brink of it all, rage-quitted the company, AND then came back, and demanded to fire me. It was insane. Just being surrounded by this mess had me feeling down in the dumps, but hey - guess what? No time to rest! What next? Set up your own company? You should've done this long ago!
Of course, I was unwilling to let go 4 years of hard work. But am I ready to shoulder the director's position? Am I ready to take over presidency of PKSG? Of course you are! You have to be.
Tank it all. Handle the pressure. Right back at it. Let's go.
When everything is all set up and going, many difficult questions surfaces - 'What's your goal with the company', 'What's my role and what do you want me for?', and of course - 'How much I am getting paid?'. Psst - old director. I got a glimpse to what you're feeling right now, fair enough, it's definitely not easy. But sorry, you're still 🤮.
Anyways, truthfully, it was not all that bad. Just a lot of processing, and hoping for some sort of understanding from everyone. The trauma from what happened to MOVE Academy still lingers, and I never wish to follow those footsteps.
Now, back to Gwen and freelance money life. Plus point = she got to keep her significantly lucrative private class from MOVE. Negative point = money on our side is still slow. Lots of work piling up, pressure's also building on her to get things going. Marketing = urgent. Holiday season = low attendance. Stress stress stress, with little to no return. After the many years of 'bad bosses' that she had, to now be her 'boss' and also see her freak out and lose herself, knowing that this industry couldn't support her... how can I not blame myself?
Solution-finding... hmmm... aha! Let's go on a trip.
But before that, let me rewind back to the part about me being 'happy'. Remember I said I was okay for not having time to myself? At this present moment, my life isn't mine to live. I see myself satisfying others, be it actively or subconsciously. But ultimately I feel extremely drained not being able to serve myself. Even when I finally do get 'time to my own', my mind wanders off to 'work territory' or I am just too jacked up to do any form of training. Hitting the gym takes up a lot more willpower than usual, despite it being such a helpful tool to destress (but not for long!).
All my personal goals are left in the back-seat for way too long. All the grumpy complaints on my Patreon, on Twitter, to Gwen and the people around me, false promises of posting up this so-called project... they're all just complaints and all it does it reminds me of how far away I am from accomplishing my goals. I want to so badly, and it will be what empowers me to do feel more motivated to give back to others, at least in my head. Sadly, without the constant training to upkeep myself mentally and physically, the longer I will have to put my project on hold, just because of the 'high-achieving / perfectionist' nature of myself, it's just too hard to let go of some of these life-defining goals that I would love to tick off. I am holding on to the belief that I can still do it, but as the days keep ticking by, I start to lose hope, and that's when I get into my depressive states.
As an athlete, that feeling of achievement and that sense of satisfaction you get is second-to-none. Of course, you worked hard, so you deserved it. From my early years of Parkour, that was what bred successes. Yet, as you pursue further and further, everything gets tougher and tougher, and we're now reaching a point where a plateau will eventually happen. And you'll have to be okay with finding something else to replace that 'sense of satisfaction' you get. What a drug. I'm just not ready for that, yet.
Parkour is an incredibly introspective and solo endeavor in my life. And given my introverted nature, I needed a lot of alone time. And ever since I got together with Gwen, I was exposed to this more extroverted side of life. Talking deeper, bonding with students, with people, getting out of my shell. Social gatherings from school life was never a fun experience, but hey, as an adult, these connections are essential for everything. Opening up to let people understand you, people like authenticity... but ultimately a long day of that = more alone time to make up for it.
So this 'alone time' during our relationship is pretty damn rare I would say. Given the nature that we stay over each other places most of the time since the start of the relationship (there was a period where Gwen moved over to my place for 8 months or so). It has been frequently communicated to her that I need it but conversely, Gwen's love language is 'Quality Time' (and a pretty high standard at that, imo). Eventually, I got pretty used to being with her basically 24/7. We do have our little spaces and we do our own thing. We do very easily get sidetracked and then what I would consider 'alone time' is no longer 'alone time', but also it's not good enough to be 'Quality Time'.
Remember earlier when I stated that we had a 'rough start' to our relationship? One of our early memorable fight was over Cha-Tra-Mue, basically Thai Milk Tea that costed $3+ and I drank a bit too much of it, yet I complaint saying that she's spending too much on drinks. And also over asking her to pay me back over waffles which costed $1.50. Basically she wasn't having it with me being calculative with money. If people in the past knows me, I hardly spend anything on myself. I was the penny-pinching traveller, and I make it a point to be thrifty, and work hard to make up for it (Melbourne days, zero allowance from family + deliveroo hustles).
I bring this up because my perception of money changed a lot because of her. I understood what is it like to 'Treat Yo' Self!'. From picking the cheapest cai-fan meals with no kopitiam drinks - to have mid-tier range restaurants, ordering more than 2 dishes, ordering $3 thai milk teas (which also kickstarted my obsession with Teh Tarik). Dining with Gwen was a luxury to me. I loved it. We get to share everything. And with the fact that we're older and we're making bigger bucks than my early scrimp-and-save days, it definitely made the adapting a lot smoother. I learnt to be a bit more flexible with money, and knowing that I'm the one who is making more money in this relationship, naturally I'm the one fork out the bills more, saying okay to this, okay to that. And that's all Gucci
One last point before I go back to the 'trip'. The perfectionist nature of me meant that I'm not one that accept failures easily. Any fuck-ups in a parkour line - I'm retaking the shot. Worst still, making a mistake and getting injured - it's not going to be a good time. I beat myself over it, you guys knew what happened during the previous Malaysia trip. If anything, that would've been the lowest point within the last 4.5 years, but I'm still building up my story to the latest and lowest 'low'.
Covid borders reopen and funny enough, we both recovered from Covid, and after a very subpar staycation in Sentosa in May, I thought we deserve a proper one in July. And so we did. Booked the tickets, made very little plans but all I know was we're going to have a good time.
Being out in Thailand again after so long was a refresher. I loved the trip for sure. But one thing really stood out to me till this day. Our quarrels. We fought at least 3 times, and I was able to handle the first two pretty fine, but somehow, on the third one (happened on the last day), I really lost it.
In my 4.5 years of getting together, coupled with how I am feeling amidst this company change and lack of personal developmental time, it really culminated in one of the heaviest blow I had to take. It just seems that I can't catch a break.
When couples fight in a relationship, I see it as an injury, a mental blow to each other. And there's really only so much injuries each of us can take. Some injuries you can recover really quickly, but if there's are so many in quick successions, each cutting deeper than the ones before, you know it's going downhill.
I hate injuries (as you can tell) and my perception of how I view quarrels are possibly unhealthy - it shows that we're unable to cope with each other, we don't understand each other, we're not supporting each other, despite the fact we're 4+ years into this relationship and engaged too! Wow. Noticing how Gwen is increasingly snappier (and of course she does have reasons to be), I started to feel extremely tired of appeasing her. Here another reminder why I suck. Bam, here's some negativity. As one injury comes after another, all's that in mind is to just let it bleed - why plaster up when another gash will come soon anyways.
Why can't I no longer be quick to apologise, to own up to mistakes, to drop everything and comfort her? Why am I making this relationship harder than it needs to be? Why I am no longer strong enough to 'be the better man', just take the ego gut-punch, and fix it? Why do I not understand her? Why do I keep making mistakes? Poor communications? I don't put effort into this?
I guess there are just a lot of pent-up emotions which I don't even know was pent-up, and sometimes I really just wish to run away, to escape, dropping of responsibilities, because I know so many who just do the same. Living is indeed the hardest thing to do. Especially in fucking Singapore. I honestly salute all sorts of people out there with well functioning partners and families and making a good buck here following through with the system. Props to your mental stability in this pressure-cooker of a country.
Sometimes I think back to the times where I am alone, and all I have to care for is myself. It does get lonely for sure, and I can be pretty damn harsh on myself, but truthfully, I don't remember it being this tough.
Sometimes I also think what if Parkour didn't have Gwen around? Somehow having my passion, work, and relationship all in the mix can make emotions really confusing, it seems like she is doing this to support me, but actually she is just doing her job. But when turned around, I don't show up for her interest and passions, then it seems like I'm such a downer and underwhelming partner who only takes but not give. She indeed gives me a lot. Even when not asked. Of course I'm appreciative, but sometimes I just get put into the loop where I feel I will just disappoint her and can't give her back the same.
Don't get me wrong tho. There are a lot of plus points from Gwen's side that I am very thankful for. How she stood by me even when I couldn't, how her help has grew the company and community to another level, how she opened my eyes to so many things around the world, especially interpersonal connections and communication, basically she helped to keep me in check. I love her and I know that if I lose her, it's going to a bigger regret that I will never be okay with.
I just don't know how to get the energy needed to comeback from this. And there's really not much hopes - the company needs me to stay strong as now I have 10 people's bank account to feed (this is not even accounting for myself yet), there's a national day event coming, not quite looking forward to the set-up/tear-down and post event parts... and then there is AGM, and then another month of payslips. It's scary how everything is so linked to Parkour and the amount of responsibility to upkeep, thankfully I can compartmentalize well enough the training is training and work is work, but heck, to see my passion turned into dread is a textbook case of burning out.
And then there is the next goal of moving out of the house (which is a super important step, yet so scary, so defining, and just filled with tons of inertia (funny because we broke through the HLE step...)). Somehow I'm just hoping for the strength and courage to see it to the very end. But the money woes has been setting in tremendously.
Lastly, knowing that Gwen is so emotional down with her finances, herself, still recovering from past traumas, and generally in a very low mood, definitely puts me in a position where I want to 'save' her. Savior complex or something? I don't know. But whatever it is, the guy in the relationship MUST be the one to satisfy his partner's emotional needs right?
In the past, I've found myself stepping up to the plate and being the one to hear her emotional rants and take the hits, comforted her after - I hope I have done well back then, but also maybe not (well better than now for sure). When I mentioned 'high standards' of Quality Time, it really does feel that way to me. I'm always looking for my personal satisfaction time - i.e training, doing things on my own, etc. and won't hesitate at any chance to do so, and somehow I have always been missing the target with her but not giving the exact sort of 'Quality Time' she prefers. And when that happens, it's a crushing blow to take. I thought I did well. But it's still not 'it'.
Over the years of such, it has conditioned my brain that if I don't do this, it will be disappointing to her, and thus I keep on setting up expectations on myself to make sure I do this / or not do that, in order to not disappoint her. I'm not ready for another fight. But funny enough, this sets me up for exactly that. Sometimes, I just have to disappoint her and that's okay. It is definitely something I recognized of late and it will be big process for me to undo this toxic mindset loop.
Anyways, once I'm better, here are some key points to remember:
- Patience. Strength.
- Learn to communicate better. Clarify more. Nicely.
- Be less harsh on yourself.
- Take negativity less negatively.
- Spend more time apart.
- It is okay for her to be disappointed or to feel down, let her be and she'll be okay
- Show more appreciation.
- Give when you can.
- Listen.
Hopefully I can put it into action.
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This has been a long ass post, granted it is long overdue. I do miss writing down my thoughts. It's a good outlet. I hope to somehow magically find the strength to continue following through. And if anything, maybe actually breathe.
Disclaimer: All these thoughts are subjected to my viewpoints and not hers - the very complex and confusing mind of mine decides what it wants to think.