April 4, 2025

surrender

maybe what I thought of as ‘indulgence’ has really just been about respecting my own pace all along.

You know those movies where the protagonist suddenly discovers some long hidden power, or comes across some sword/magic crystal/[insert fantastical thing here] that they, and only they, can wield? It’s a struggle at first: they can’t summon their powers at will, or things spiral as they fail to keep a handle on their superhuman ability. Then comes the epiphany: the key, it always turns out, is not to resist or fear the power but to embrace it. It’s not about clenching a fist too tight and forcing things to happen; it’s about giving in to the current, moving with its ebbs and flows and, gradually, guiding it where it needs to go. Once these characters master the seeming contradiction of gaining control through surrender, that’s when they make breakthroughs and begin moving towards fulfilling whatever destiny the storytellers have in store for them.

I’m coming to the realisation that this might be a lesson I need to learn.

I’ve known from the moment I cracked my eyes open this morning that it wasn’t going to be a very productive, on-the-ball day. My body feels lethargic, and my head isn’t in it. It’s one of those days where just getting my eyes to focus on what I’m doing takes effort. A little earlier, I narrowly stopped myself from opening the freezer in search of the wet laundry I needed to hang on the drying rack—and as I write this, I’ve just remembered that I’ve only hung up a few items before wandering out of the kitchen and the rest of the clothes are still in the machine.

I should probably go do that. I’ll be back.

Okay, where was I… right, the scatterbrain. And this is with my ADHD meds today, I’ll have you know.

By all counts, today isn’t a good day to be so out of it. The May issue of Mekong Review is supposed to go to layout on Monday, so I’d scheduled this weekend for final edits and all the loose ends that need to get tied up—writing excerpts, finding royalty-free or Creative Commons images, working out the page order and getting a sense of whether everything fits on the page—before I send all the files to the designer. On top of that, it’s also the day for writing We, The Citizens’s weekend wrap, and I have a meeting and event in the evening.

Usually, in situations like this, I force myself to push through. I put my focus on my long to-do list and fixate on how I’ll fall behind if I don’t stay on the track I’ve planned. I tell myself there’s no choice, that today isn’t a day to play hooky, that I just have to get my shit together and make it happen. Sometimes I’ll make it, sometimes not. Either way, I never emerge feeling fulfilled or happy; only anxious and drained.

I decided to something different today. Don’t fight it. Embrace. Flow with the current. My body wasn’t feeling great this morning, so I took my time getting out of bed. I really didn’t feel like working, so I let myself sit on the sofa with my Koko Krunch and read Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow—an awesome novel I’m re-reading, by the way, more on that next time, maybe—for most of the morning. And only when I began to feel okay, this is enough reading for now, I think I’m ready to start doing a bit of work did I begin.

I let myself pick the thing I wanted to start with—a little bit of admin and then We, The Citizens—and wrote it straight in the Ghost CMS rather than using a word processor like I usually do, just because I felt like it. I hopped over to YouTube whenever it popped into my head, which was often; between writing paragraphs and sections of my weekly wrap I watched a Stray Kids unit vlog and an Xdinary Heroes live clip, which I then added to the end of the newsletter, because why not? I gave in to every sensory whim: Listening to music with, then without, then with my headphones. Opening all the windows and turning on the fan, then shutting them again when it started to feel too humid as the clouds gave way to rain. Aircon, no aircon. I don’t remember exactly when, but somewhere in the middle of all this I apparently went and did the laundry (but didn’t put away the folded clothes from the last cycle).

Every time my brain hopped and skipped, restless and unmotivated, I asked myself if, perhaps, I’d be okay with doing this ‘one little thing’—like reply to an email, send an invoice, text an author or just tidy a few folders for the May issue. And I’d do them because, at that point, my brain didn’t have any better ideas anyway. And ‘one little thing’ didn’t seem like so much.

Now, looking back on the day, I actually got quite a lot done for someone with mush for brains.

I have a childhood memory of riding the bus with my grandma. I don’t remember how old I was or what conversation we were having that led her to say this, but I remember the bus turning from Ghim Moh Road into Commonwealth Ave as she explained that there’s no need for her to lavish the people she cares about with praise. “I point out all your mistakes and flaws instead because I care about you,” she said. “It’s because I want the best for you, for you to become better and better.”

This is 1,000% on brand for my grandmother. But, in fairness to her, it’s also a rather common theory of Chinese parenting. Praise might go to your head and make you arrogant; criticism, on the other hand, is supposed to spur diligence and self-improvement. (Emotional security and assurance in childhood? Ain’t nobody got time for that.) I’ve internalised this logic, letting it burrow deep into my bones without even realising it. I have, over time, become both my harshest critic and my own worst enemy. This, along with the other very common Chinese philosophy of “先苦后甜”—meaning that one should work hard and endure the ‘bitter’ stuff first before enjoying the ‘sweet’ things later—led to me always feeling like I had to prioritise work over rest and fun, yet never being satisfied no matter how much I did.

I’ve spent much of my life scolding myself internally: too undisciplined, too lazy, too indulgent, too impulsive, too weak-minded, too irresponsible, too childish, not fast enough, not thorough enough, not selfless enough, not reliable enough, not good enough with time management (that would allow me to do even more). It’s driven me to high achievement—even if I didn’t really allow myself to acknowledge it—but also straight into burnout.

I started going to therapy thinking that I needed to deal with the trauma of the death penalty and authoritarianism and all the case work I’ve done and oppression I’ve endured, only to end up spending most of it talking about overwork and overwhelm and the amount of pressure I’ve heaped on myself. Of course the direct and vicarious trauma sucks and needs to be dealt with, but the more I talked the more it became clear that this hypercritical, no-boundary, workaholic drive has really been the throughline in my life that’s grinding me down.

Because, really: when have I actually been that girl I’ve repeatedly chastised myself for being? When have I actually been a lazy, unreliable slacker? When has it actually been the case that, if left to my own devices without scolding or shame, I’d stop doing things and missing deadlines and leaving people high and dry?

If left to my own devices, I’m much more likely to push myself to sign up for an unrealistic amount of paid and unpaid labour, and—fuelled by an anxiety about being the weakest link among all my friends and colleagues—work myself flat, resentment and self-pity growing all the while. It’s finally dawning on me that I can afford to take a break when I feel like taking it easy, because my nature orientates me towards work anyway. It’ll get done when I’m ready. Even today, at my most distracted, I’ve done all right.

It will be all right. That’s a lesson in and of itself.