My lived experience: raw, reflective, human.
When does guidance become dependence? A reflection on astrology, Qi Men Dun Jia, our desire to optimise every decision, and whether constantly searching for the “right” choice slowly erodes our ability to trust ourselves.
What happens when the inspirational person everyone else sees is very different from the person you once knew? A reflection on public personas, private experiences, and why we shouldn’t mistake visibility for character or an inspiring story for the whole truth.
In 2020, I underwent surgery to remove 20% of my right lung after being diagnosed with carcinoma in situ. Looking back, I found myself exploring my experience through Western medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine and BaZi; not to search for one explanation, but to understand what each perspective could genuinely teach me about health, healing and the limits of certainty.
For a long time, I believed wisdom was mostly about knowing when to establish boundaries. My wedding reminded me that wisdom also requires us to recognise when new evidence deserves a new conclusion, while remaining faithful to the values and boundaries that protected us in the first place.
Sometimes the hardest part of creating something isn’t the execution. It’s having the courage to hold onto a vision that nobody else can see yet. My wedding reminded me that people can only evaluate what’s in front of them, while you’re making decisions based on a finished picture that still exists only in your mind.
I thought my wedding would teach me something about marriage. Instead, it taught me something about friendship, community, and how easily we inherit other people’s fears without realising it.
Weddings are often framed as the beginning of a life. At 38, mine feels more like a milestone within a life that is already well underway. This is a reflection on wedding planning, mental bandwidth, and the surprising realisation that what I’m most looking forward to is having my time and attention back.
As my wedding approaches, I find myself feeling something quieter than excitement. After witnessing enough grand weddings and enough marriages that did not last, I’ve come to realise that a wedding is very good at performing permanence. Marriage itself is built elsewhere, in ordinary days, difficult conversations, and the steady choice to keep showing up for each other.
I’ve never written because I enjoy hearing my own opinions. I write because putting words on a page forces me to examine my assumptions, challenge my reasoning, and sometimes change my mind. It’s how I think.
Some connections feel disproportionate to the timeline. You haven’t known the person long, yet the emotional weight feels heavy, familiar, hard to ignore. We often call that fate. But sometimes what feels destined is simply recognition; of patterns, of longing, of unfinished parts of ourselves. This is a reflection on why certain people feel “fated,” and why intensity doesn’t always mean permanence.
