Crafting your own journey

Each men has unique journey, and all stories are equally amazing! Here are some WHYs I started this publication as a way to keep noted with my journey at 30s

Time is limitted

I was starting my awareness about our “Inevitable death” from The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson, right after we’ve lost a closely family member from a sudden accident.

It was not the first time I know about losing a family member, but it was the first time I truly know about how death separates us apart, especially how sorrow it would be if you genuinely care about someone.

Then time passes by, I learn about Stoicism & via Ryan Holiday, I learn about “Memento mori” — (Latin for ‘remember that you [have to] die), just to again, be awaken by this common fact:

No matter what who you’re, rich or poor, good or bad, strong or weak… we all have to die one day, inevitably

From here, I’ve started to read more about our mortality from various resources.

The fact was very simple: Equally, We all has 24 hours per day or more than 365 days per year, we all start with 1440 minutes everyday, no matter who you are.

The more insights I’ve got from our mortality, the more appreciations I have for being awake everyday, for the time I have being around with my kids, my family, my friends…

With this awaken, From a guy who’s quite YOLO, living & working without any suitaning goals, I’ve decided to change how I’d use my time, how to leverage my mortality to focus on what are most meaningful

Focus on what matter

As our time is limited, one day — we gonna be too weak to do anything or even lay on bed all day. It’s gonna the period that we recall about what we’ve been through in our life, who we’ve met, what challenges we’ve fought… And I believe the most regret gonna be that we did not spend enough time to what we really care about

But finding what truly matter is not an easy task, instead it’s like journey. It’s not just putting things on list & your life is setup. It’s about making a north-star, then continuously experiment your own way on that journey. Years by years, you may slowly getting closer to the target, or you may even discover new journey which might be better fit you than the originaly one.

Getting started with the first part — defining a north-star —it’s about continuously being self-awareness & self-reflection, via scanning your everyday acitivities & reflecting experiences:

Self-awareness: To me, this is about discoverying yourself, about being aware of who you are & what you truly need (vs. what you want). From that, you understand you better, to be able to make a better decision for yourself. You may just try to ask you these questions:

• What motivate you to be a part of?
• What activities that you want to do in everyday?
• Why are you doing this for everyday?
• Why don’t you do this in different way?

Self-reflection: To me, this is about looking backwards to “current” you and “past” you, the time here could be days, years or even hours since when you’ve made the decisions / done activities to now. Like looking into the mirror, assessing how those things affect to you & what would be differences.

• What experiences still fulfilling you?
• Do you regret after making that decision?
• How do you think about you compared to last 5 years?
• Did you run last meeting right? How things would better?

Starting with those two, you could then have a list of items & activities. Try to categories those into some higher-level purpose. Recently, I’ve learned “Big four” concept from Eric Barker’s “Barking Up the Wrong Tree”. This exactly matches with my opinion of living a fulfillment life:

(1) HAPPINESS = ENJOYING

(2) ACHIEVEMENT = WINNING

(3) SIGNIFICANCE = COUNTING (TO OTHERS)

(4) LEGACY = EXTENDING

(1) HAPPINESS is when I could spend quality time with my family, my kids, my friends & my personal space, and I really mean “quality”.
With (2) ACHIEVEMENT, Being excellence software development & Agile coaching are objectives that not only fulfilled me, but also clear the focus I needed for advancing my professional career. For (3) SIGNIFICANCE, being financial freedom is the goal I needed to have more confident on protect my family & experiment other options. And to achieve (4) LEGACY, making Upatra success is how I could concretise my knowledge & experiences into a working product, it’s the learning journey that I gonna need to fulfill my life.

“Plans are nothing, planning is everything” — but eventually, you need a plan

Just being aware of what’re truly matter is just starting point. Making them as top priorities over everything else is the first challenge on the journey of achieving them, for that, you need a plan. The meaning of plan here would be simple by making a time table on workdays & weekend

By making this time table, you have an opportunity on reflecting how your days were going with proportion of what matter most.

Then now adjust the time table with balance of what matter most & others. You will try to negotiate with your self on each activities, it’s challenge as you want to work more on what matter most, but also can’t skip those other things

So try to be precise as much as possible, like everyday you’re giving $1440 (~ 1440 minutes, 96 blocks of 15 minutes) — how you spend each “dollar” is how you walk on the journey of living your life, it’s your choice.

But don’t force yourself too hard, remember this is about experiment — you’re enjoying your life NOW, so this just a way to make it more fulfilled. It’s okay to not follow the time table 100% accurate everyday, the important is your self-awareness with proportion of time you’re spending on what matter most. You will realise you’re slowly move from spending time on less important things to the most mattered to you. Being aware then continuous improvement.

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So by being awared that our time is limited, we could be more serious focusing on what matter most, then the journey of living a fulfilled life would start. But it doesn’t start with a long-term strategy or being too hard with yourself, it start with what how our parent taught us since we’re kids: A time table. I wish you could join this journey with me