Your Asian mom

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 ...

I have constantly been setting aside some money for personal leisure things such as diving computer, good camera, cosmetic dental procedures and travelling somewhere else. Despite my diligence in doing so, which I have been refraining myself from buying other good stuff like posh car or apple products, but most of the time, my savings would be kind of robbed off by my family members.  For example, it took me about a year to slowly saving for a good diving computer, when I was about to achieve the goal, my mother had asked me to sponsor my youngest brother's driving license which was at the similar cost of my desired diving computer.  My retired father has developed a hobby/post-retirement activity that require him to spend fortune.  After retirement, he had suffered minor depression for the sudden "out-of-job" syndrome.  He used to get up as early as 4am to work and came back home around 11pm, the cycle went on until he reached the retirement age. When that moment ca...