Time for another little brain-dump and life audit. Hehehehe.
A little update since May.
On Health.
My acid reflux, something I’d been brushing off, got completely out of hand. So I went down to the polyclinic to ask for a scope, got turned away because "you're still young, relax lah." But my body doesn’t check my IC before acting up yknow. Luckily, managed to get a Premium Care healthcare advisory service that combed through my insurance policies and fast-tracked me straight to a specialist.
And that’s when things escalated real quick.
The specialist was genuinely worried the prolonged acid backflow might’ve silently wrecked other internal organs. Next thing I knew, I was booked for the full health check buffet: MRI, CT scan, Ultrasound, X-ray, plus the signature Gastroscope and Colonoscopy combo.
Turns out that I am a confirmed GERD patient, a damaged hiatus hernia, and a stomach lining irritated enough that they had to verify the acid splashes hadn't triggered polyps along the intestinal tract. Apparently, because if left unchecked, might develop into cancer. Omds not in my early thirties! On top of that, prolonged autonomic stress had basically fried my neurological feedback loops to the point of complete caffeine tolerance. Twelve cups of coffee a day, and I wasn't even feeling a buzz, I have always thought that it was just that I am immune, so I drank coffee like water, for its flavour. But turns out, it was all along chemical dependency running on pure nervous system overdrive.
Anyways, surgery day arrived.
8:00 AM taking of bloods and pre-op preps like all the tubes and all. 9:30 AM ultrasound. 10:30 AM wheels into the scope room. Fast game. Honestly, mad respect to the nursing staff and specialists. Every single step, they didn’t just administer; they educated. They explained the andragogy of what they were doing, like the mechanics behind the mouth spray to numb the gag reflex, showing me the flexible endoscope before I went under, answering all my kaypoh questions without a hint of impatience. Then came the IV cannula. Three vials pushed into the bloodstream. I remember thinking, okay, let’s see how long this takes........and whoooosh. Lights out within sixty seconds.
Woke up in recovery, completely intact. And no, for the record, the plumbing down there in my ass didn't feel any looser despite how intimidatingly thick that tube looked beforehand.
Two months post-op now, and the somatic reality has completely shifted. I’ve gone from twelve cups of coffee down to two. Max one mildly spicy meal a day. Acidic food slashed. Meal times are no longer negotiable placeholders between meetings and guiding tours, now they are vital operational checkpoints. If I skip, I must have snacks packed or something, or a quick bread or something. Ngl, the initial caffeine withdrawal hits hard........ at least for the first two full weeks of wading through pure cognitive brain fog and sluggish motivation. Now I'm slowly replacing it with Tea and Tisanes.
Just the other day, I referred that same medical navigation service to a close friend who recently discovered he’s battling diabetes, obesity, and metabolic markers. And it struck me with this sudden, heavy sociological clarity, dayum we are in our 30s. The cohort is shifting. People around me are clocking chronic issues, friends who look completely fit on the outside are suddenly collapsing or getting flagged at routine screenings. In life-course theory, this is the classic transition point, where the biological cushion of youth fades, and adult mortality stops being an abstract concept and starts being an appointment on your calendar. TLDR, Adulting Next Stage. Along with that, many of my younger friends are also getting married and having kids.
Which brings me to dimension number two......... the Professional Work.
A full decade in Singapore tourism. Ten years. And the hard truth I have to confront is that comfort is a seductive trap. The exact style of heritage and niche experiential tours I fell in love with running simply won’t return to the pre covid numbers. Regional infrastructure across Southeast Asia is advancing at crazy ass speed, the local guiding space is hyper saturated, and now digital creators are compressing the traditional channels of being known.
Don't get me wrong, I’m not quitting the sector, tourism is in my blood, and the license is far too versatile to abandon. But I won't survive these structural shifts by standing still. It’s time for a deliberate side hustle and enterprise evolution. So, I dove headfirst into BNI Singapore, joining their 120-member chapter, apparantly I learnt afterwards that this is the biggest chapter in Singapore, and even the region.
It’s an overwhelming room of sheer entrepreneurial density. At first glance, an inbound local operator might seem misaligned with a predominantly domestic business network. But as Pierre Bourdieu laid out in his theory of capitals, it's the accumulation of Economical, Cultural, Social and Symbolic resources, built over time through a support network. By embedding myself in a dense network of diverse fields, I'm going beyond just trading immediate referrals, I am accumulating social capital, mutual habitus, and institutional trust.
Being around over a hundred founders across multiple industries who hold portfolios, venture capital access, and parallel businesses completely re-anchors my baseline. I feel that I am not alone in the entreprenuer journey. The energy is purely about possibility, like eliminating operational barriers or about timing, rather than dwelling on why something won't work. My days started to be filled with meetings with bosses 1-on-1, play weekly badminton, and deconstruct ideas and draft concept plans.
Out of those conversations came a decision, why keep Serious Ventures LLP strictly locked into service-based corporate team-bonding and community sessions? A few chapter members started bouncing ideas about game development, and the gears shifted. Why not evolve into board game publishing and retail? Almost my entire working life has been about service. Transitioning into physical intellectual property, retail products, roadshows, and pitching products to everyday passersby sounds refreshingly pivot. It’s a whole new muscle to train, and for the first time in a while, the backing and structural support actually feel tangible. It's been awhile that this fire of me starts burning again!
Finally, the third dimension. The quietest one. The Void.
Looking around my personal circle lately, a lot of the younger folks I’ve mentored and journeyed with over the past few years have genuinely grown up. They’ve found their social footing in the world, carved out their life trajectories, and plunged into their own relationships. I look at them and feel immense, genuine pride. And right alongside that pride comes the familiar, quiet void. It happens every few seasons. I invest, I open up doors, I share whatever resources and life lessons I have, and then they naturally outgrow the orbit. In my early twenties, I burnt plenty of daylight on things that yielded little lasting substance, ofcourse, im not regreting them, but it left me with an intense desire to act as an accelerator for the next gen, so they wouldn’t have to wander through the same blind spots, the same misty road, the daunting crossroads. To give them the exposure and resourves, I had to scramble for in the past, it's my Life Purpose. Watching them succeed means getting to live a little vicariously through their momentum. Recently, two of these catch-ups happened to land on Tuesdays. Walkign through my own childhood places, from Opera Estate, to Kaiyu's attic, to Bedok Inter, listening to them unpack their lives gave me this sudden, uncanny flash of "Tuesdays with Morrie" moment. A very surreal, grounded warmth. Someone asked me recently if I ever feel like an institutional chaperone. The answer is yes. Completely. And I’m more than okay with that. Think of it like tending a living portfolio. I am glad and honoured to be the one to provide the avenue, the connections, the motivational push. And when they outgrow me to chase bigger horizons, I had to let them go. The built-in risk of being a chaperone is that as their life-course trajectories shift, I might eventually fade into a footnote or be forgotten entirely. That’s just the tax of passing the torch. Perhaps that is why I kept looking, slighly selfishly, for new gens to fulfill my life purpose. Sorry to my parents, and grandmother, that I can't be that rich successful son that can provide for the entire family. In that aspect, I failed completely. I'm probbaly the happiest I can be, doing what I love, sustainable enough, but these would require the pre-requisite to have support, and that my parents are independent for now. Once I have to take on the caretaking task, I feel I will crumble real hard.
Well for all it's worth, if, decades from now when I’m on my deathbed, a handful of them still remember to pop by and tolerate my long-winded yapping, that’s good enough for me. Whether they end up walking beside me or sprinting far ahead of me doesn't matter; I just never want to see them stuck behind. For now, one person at a time, the work quietly leaves its mark. Onto the next season.
Flying Without Wings - Westlife
One thing that makes it all complete
You'll find it in the strangest places
Places you never knew it could be
Some find it in the face of their children
Some find it in their lover's eyes
Who can deny the joy it brings
When you've found that special thing
You're flying without wings
Some find it sharing every morning
Some in their solitary nights
You'll find it in the words of others
A simple line can make you laugh or cry
The kind you cherish all your life
And when you know how much that means
You've found that special thing
You're flying without wings
And you'll be where it ends
I'm flying without wings
And that's the joy you bring
I'm flying without wings
