2022 marks my twentieth year as a working adult and all of which have been spent in some of the world’s largest Tech and Media companies. For the past decade, I worked harder and ran faster; build, test, iterate, measure, sprint, tweak, pivot, manage, launch, rinse and repeat over and over and over. I loved the pace – I didn’t mind the 18-hour work days that came with it, or the 6am calls, lunch meetings, emails over the weekend and regular business trips. It was all part of the doing my life’s work.
In 2020, all that changed. Through a combination of lockdown, WFH and general despair, the pandemic slowed everything down for me. My wife and I learnt to cook every single meal at home. We took long morning walks and practised yoga in the living room everyday. We spent more time with our aging dog and we slept in just a little bit more everyday because it takes us 3 minutes to transition from bedroom to study room.
I spent less money on clothes and eating out and without commuting to the office, my ambient stress levels dropped. I was actually happier.
I thrived during the pandemic.
As we accelerate towards the “new normal”, I refuse to go back to how things were. I want to slow down, redefine my relationship with work and rediscover the joy of gentler, kinder life. It’s a journey that will take years and years, and there will be bumps along the way but I can’t imagine a better way to live the rest of my life.
keongzai 