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Number of children to have: Choices, Consequences, and the Quiet Questions We Don’t Ask

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Yesterday, I met an acquaintance I hadn’t seen in a while — someone many people know for her ongoing appeals for donations to support her sick child. Her story has always been a deeply emotional one. From the very beginning, she was told by doctors that her child might not survive. Yet, she and her partner chose to go ahead with the pregnancy. Against the odds, the child lived — a miracle , many would say. But the journey since then has been far from easy, marked by recurring complications, constant medical care, and of course, mounting financial costs. Over the years, I have often wondered about the decisions she made. She once had a well-paying job, yet chose to leave it for a much lower-paying one. She also left a financially stable marriage for a partner with uncertain income . With her qualifications, I always thought she could have returned to a more stable career instead of relying on public donations . But life is rarely that simple. There are always stories behind choices tha...
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The Truth Behind “Staying the Same”

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People often ask me, sometimes with genuine curiosity and sometimes with disbelief, how I’ve managed to maintain my body the way it was years ago. I hear things like, “You must have good genes ,” or “You’re just naturally like that.” The truth? That would be a lie. There is nothing effortless about it. My body, like anyone else’s, is capable of gaining weight, losing firmness, and showing signs of ageing. My face, my skin, my shape — none of it is immune to time. What you see today is not luck or magic. It is the result of years of discipline , sacrifice, and showing up even when I don’t feel like it. Most mornings, I wake up at 5am — not because I’m naturally energetic, but because I force myself to. I rarely get a full eight hours of sleep. The air is cold, my body feels heavy, and my mind constantly whispers, “Just stay in bed.” And sometimes, I think about how others are still asleep, wrapped in warm blankets, lost in comfortable dreams… while I’m outside, pushing my body to run. ...
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Location: Malaysia
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Letting Go While Holding On: A Parent’s Reflection on My Daughter’s First Year in Independent Secondary School

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As the world steps into a new year, my daughter steps into a new chapter of her life—starting Form 1 at an independent secondary school. New uniform designs, new teachers, new friends, and a completely new environment now shape her daily routine. For her, it is a fresh beginning. For me, it is a quiet lesson in learning how to let go. Choosing an Independent Secondary School We have had our eyes on this school for several years. The decision was not made lightly. Like many parents, we considered one fundamental question: how do we best protect and prepare our child’s future? This is not to say that government schools are bad. In fact, their low—or even zero—school fees have played an essential role in ensuring that generations of children can read, write, and count. That alone is a remarkable achievement. However, the independent school our daughter attends aims for more than the basics. Its focus extends to discipline, social development, employability, and academic excell...
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Unsubscribing Netflix: Choosing Growth Over Comfort

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I recently made a decision that felt surprisingly heavy: I unsubscribed from Netflix. On the surface, it sounds trivial. It’s just a streaming service. But in reality, it marked the removal of the one habit that quietly filled my empty pockets of time—time that I kept promising myself I would use for self‑improvement. Practising music. Learning a foreign language. Reading books I had bought with genuine excitement, only to let them gather dust. Making this choice was tough. Almost immediately, life felt emptier than before. When distractions are stripped away, silence can feel uncomfortable. Minimalism teaches us that we do not need much, but it rarely talks about the emotional adjustment that comes with subtraction. Over time, I have embraced a minimalist lifestyle. I shop less because I no longer seek joy in buying things I don’t truly need. I work out without expensive gym memberships; most days, my only cost is fuel for a ten‑minute round trip to a nearby stadium for a ...
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The Job I Resented—Until It Paid for My Freedom

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There was a stretch of time when I genuinely resented my job. Not the casual, end-of-day kind of frustration, but the deep exhaustion that settles into your bones when you’ve worked more than 30 days straight without a real break. No pause. No reset. Just work bleeding into the next day, over and over again. At its core, the job was draining because of how much was expected of me. My boss wanted everything under the sun—bigger ideas, better execution, and results that outperformed competitors at every turn. Ambition in itself isn’t the problem. The problem was that while the standards kept climbing, the support didn’t. Instead, responsibilities meant for three people were quietly dumped onto me alone, as if that were normal, or sustainable. Then came last year’s so-called “promotion.” On paper, it looked like progress. In reality, it added a new layer of stress I hadn’t asked for. I was suddenly responsible for managing at least ten part-timers, many of whom behaved less li...
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After Survival: How a Hurt but Successful Child Might Meet His Father Again

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Now that you are grown, what do you do with the parent who hurt you—and also sacrificed for you? For many adult children, success does not bring closure. It brings distance, clarity, and an uncomfortable power shift . The father who once controlled the household now ages. The child who once endured now earns, decides, and lives independently. And somewhere between obligation and resentment, a relationship continues—uneasy, unresolved. So how should a hurt but successful child react to his father now? First: by letting go of the need to rewrite the past There is a temptation to wait for acknowledgment—an apology that fully understands the harm, a confession that makes sense of the pain. But many parents, especially those shaped by poverty, violence, or rigid cultural expectations, are unable to articulate remorse in the language their children need. The adult child does not need his father to fully understand in order to heal. Closure does not require agreement. It requires acceptance t...
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Growing Up “Fine”: When Survival Is Mistaken for Success

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Perhaps the more honest answer is this: two things can be true at once. A parent can try and still fail. A child can succeed and still hurt. Gratitude does not require silence, and understanding does not erase accountability.                                                From the outside, it looked like a good home. A parent in a respectable government job. A schoolteacher—someone entrusted to shape young minds, teach discipline, patience, and good values. Stable income. Moral authority. In the eyes of relatives, neighbors, and society, this child was lucky. He was expected to grow up well, to be guided properly, to become someone stable and successful. And in many ways, he did. He finished tertiary education . He found a good job. His salary was above average. On paper, this is a success story—the kind often used to prove that hardship builds character. But memory is...
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Location: Indonesia
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