I’d never label any of my past romantic relationships as “failed” , because each one of them taught me something different, something valuable, and more importantly, helped me grow as a person.

There are always things for you to takeaway from a broken relationship. It’s up to you to either put all the focus and blame on the other person, or reflect, forgive (both the other person and yourself) and self-love.

In the heartache, the hurt, or the unfortunate lies a perfect opportunity for you to change your future for the better.

Through these deep and intimate experiences with others…

The father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, once told a cute story of him and his daughter Nicki gardening together:

“She was just five. And I should confess that when I garden, I’m goal-directed, time urgent. Nicki was throwing weeds in the air and dancing around. And I yelled at her.

She came back to me and said, ‘Daddy, do you remember before I was five, I whined all the time, I whined every day? Did you notice that since my fifth birthday I haven’t whined at all?’

I said, ‘Yes, Nicki.’

‘Well, Daddy, that was because on my birthday…

Last week, I attended my friend’s birthday party. It was a cozy rooftop gathering with her close friends.

We tied down two silver balloons on the fence that spelled out “25”, against the skyline of Hong Kong and an orange, tranquil sunset. The balloons danced erratically in the wind. As I stared at them, I thought to myself,

“25, What a beautiful age.”

It’s funny, because it’s not like I am thatttt much older. Just one year and half to be exact.

[haha!]

A few years ago, if you asked me, how did I feel towards my future? …

Having questions for our sense of self is an essential part of growth.

There are so many roles and labels for us to put on in the society — background, gender, race, political beliefs, Myers-Briggs personality types, or astrological signs. These things are great discussion topics over dinner tables with friends and family. They can be starting points for you to explore who you are.

But allowing beliefs or experiences to shape our sense of identity greatly limits us to discover and remember who we truly are.

Being aware of our beliefs and experiences, and the fact that they are…

Ok, confession. This is an overdue post I was supposed to write two weeks ago.

The biggest reason why I haven’t been able to spam this one out like the rest of my other posts, is because I am slightly uncertain about what I will express here.

Put my age in more detailed numbers, I am only 9592 days, or 315 months, or 1370 weeks old. And I spent most of those times doing I don’t know what the h*** is going on things.

And my new self always manages to prove my old self quite foolish. …

It’s part of human nature to seek for safety, validation and pleasure.

The highly convenient and fast-paced society we live in operates on a system of rewards and punishments for us to obtain more things or connections.

So we’ve become deeply conditioned. We dislike unpleasantness and quickly pull away from it. And when it’s pleasant, we chase after.

But life is often very unpredictable. Pleasant and unpleasant experiences constantly pop up whether we want them or not, and cause us to live in this state of continuous reactivity.

Most of us are fearful of being average or unhappy, yet it…

[This is a more personal post, and a tiny bit sad!]

I spent the majority of my childhood with my grandparents.

My mother was a single parent who worked her butt off to provide for me and the rest of the family. So my grandparents stepped in to help her take care of me.

A day from my childhood was simple: eat food prepped by grandmother, watch TV while cuddling her, read books quietly by myself for hours, study for school, or just daydream and draw.

No matter what I was doing, my grandparents were always there for me with…

Being wrong or vulnerable is the opposite of our human nature. Resistance is too. The ego is what makes our sense of identity feel protected.

We all have our core beliefs, and they’re often forged out of deeper insecurities.

If you’re suffering, you are believing a fear-based belief that has all these different thoughts coming around it. You are believing in being unlovable.

As Gandi says, our beliefs create our thoughts. Our thoughts create feelings and emotions. And those create actions. Our actions create our character. And our character creates our destiny.

I used to believe that I loved some…