Leonard Ng

Don’t Force Things, Flow with Them (Part 1)

by // Leave a Comment

mountain clouds
Image by Sergei Akulich.
A Cautionary Tale

Mencius (a Chinese philosopher) once told the following story:

Once there was a man from Song who, concerned that his seedlings weren’t growing, decided to pull them upward.

Worn out, he returned home and said to his family: “Today I’m exhausted — I’ve been helping the seedlings to grow!”

His son hurried out to have a look, and of course the seedlings had withered.

The Folly of Forced Deadlines

Inexperienced people often set deadlines they can never achieve. They say:

“I’m going to pack on 10kg of muscle this year.”

“I’m going to finish writing a novel in 3 months.”

“I’m going to make half a million dollars by December.”

Is it possible to accomplish all these things? Yes.

Are you likely to complete them, in good order and on schedule, if you’ve never done so before? No.

Why?

Because you can’t set reasonable deadlines until you’ve gained enough experience to know how long, under your own unique circumstances, you will take to achieve your goals.

[Read more…]

Why I Sleep So Much, And Why You Should Too

by // Leave a Comment

sleeping cat
Image by Inge Wallumrod.
A Surprising Revelation

People often react with surprise when I tell them how much I sleep.

They wonder how I find time for everything in my life while still sleeping as much as I do.

And they also know that I can often be found awake at any hour of the day or night.

So how much do I sleep? The “surprising” answer: an average of 7-8 hours a day.

Matching Your Life’s Rhythms

Modern life often requires us to stay up late, whether because of major deadlines or because of major partying.

And forcing yourself to go to bed at the same time every night requires a level of regimentation that few of us are prepared to put up with.

That kind of strictness also fails to take into account the varying energy expenditures of each day. Some days we push ourselves harder, and so we need more rest. Other days we take it easy, and so we need less rest.

Trying to go to bed when you’re not ready to do so will only result in you lying awake for an hour or more, unable to get to sleep. And forcing yourself to stay awake after your mind and body have had enough will compromise the quality of your mental and physical performance.

Neither of these situations is ideal.

Instead, we need to become more aware and respectful of the unique rhythms of our individual lives, and then match our sleep patterns to those rhythms.

[Read more…]

Focus More on What Matters

by // Leave a Comment

Focus
Image by Romain Vignes.
The Ethos of the Extreme

Today’s world expects us to go to extremes in everything we do.

Entrepreneurs wear the 90-hour workweek as a badge of pride.

Parents obsessively pursue every new childrearing fad.

The ideal body image, for both men and women, has become unattainable without strict diets and hours at the gym.

All reality TV competitions now repeat the same mantra: to the victor the spoils. You’re either the best, or you’re one of the rest.

This is not a worldview which supports balanced living.

Unrealistic Expectations

Ours is a world in which intense competition is praised, with all the glory going to the ones at the top. But at the same time the world also tells us: you can have it all.

You can watch all the shows, buy all the things, enjoy all the experiences. You can be a tiger mother, a brilliant careerist, an extraordinary athlete, and a lover who makes the earth move — all while travelling the world, speaking seven languages fluently, playing lead guitar in your spare time, and knowing your Pinot Gris from your Pinot Grigio.

Fear of Missing Out has become the spirit of our age. Faced with such unrealistic expectations, we have only two solutions:

either we spend our guilt-ridden lives endlessly trying — and failing — to measure up, or we take a stand and tell the world to mind its own damn business.

[Read more…]

The World Is Deep

by // Leave a Comment

September desktop
My desktop, at the moment.

It’s been some months now since my last entry, which was all about living with focus; and living with focus is exactly what I have done. Apart from work and a social life, here’s what I’ve been up to: I’ve…

  • travelled across the United States, from Boston to New Orleans;
  • established a regular habit of reflection and meditation;
  • moved into a beautiful new office space in a good part of town;
  • doubled the number of strict pull-ups I can manage;
  • explored old ruins with the Urban Explorers of Singapore;
  • started writing several scenes for a new play;
  • and finished reading almost 17 books of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, in Ancient Greek.

Life has fallen into a clear and steady rhythm, and I’m reminded of Nietzsche’s lines Die Welt ist tief, Und tiefer als der Tag gedacht — “The world is deep, and deeper than the day bethought.” I first encountered those lines in the Fourth Movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, and they’ve stuck with me ever since.

I am much clearer, these days, about who I am and what I stand for. But for now, just a quick note to say I’m still here, still going, still listening to the music of the world.

Living with Focus

by // Leave a Comment

Celadon
Image by me.

They do less and less till they arrive at non-action; they do nothing, and nothing remains undone.
— Tao Te Ching, 48 (my translation).

More and more these days I try to do only one thing at a time.

When I work, I work. When I walk, I walk. When I write, I write. Nothing else.

We live in a world awash in distraction. Phone, email, social media, television, advertising, all clamouring for pieces of our attention and consciousness. So easy to give in to the frazzled static of it all.

I don’t say those things are bad in and of themselves. But too much of them, like too much of anything, definitely is. And we live in a world hypersaturated by media and distraction.

Many people spend their lives pursuing entertainment, pursuing distraction. They measure their lives by what they consume. That is their affair. But that is not the standard I use for my own life.

I measure my life in focus. What have I done with my day? I ask myself before I go to sleep every night. And I write down whatever I accomplished, whatever was memorable. I first started doing this 20 years ago, and though there are some gaps the story of what I have done with my time, day after day, is still remarkably complete.

When I do things these days I try to do them with full focus, or if that’s not possible with at least 90% focus. Did I tutor a student, write an article, transcribe an interview, study a language, meditate, sprint, lift, summarize a book, read a play, work on a poem, train a skill, pay attention to a landscape, have an engaging conversation, make love, dance with a partner, write a journal entry? All those things take focus. They are mindful activities, not mindless ones, and my life is better in the long term for having engaged in them.

I am trying to make focused activity, not distracted activity, the primary use of my time, while still alternating it with periods of rest. And when I succeed I know, because of the way it makes me breathe: my breath is deep and slow.