juliana ong

Christians believe purgatory exists because of God’s divine mercy, but even here on earth, perhaps the waiting period is more merciful than we realize, and in waiting, we are being protected from what we want. Waiting is not wasted time.

“So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.”

I learned the phrase 三观不一致 - three values are incompatible, namely 人生观 (What are you looking for in life? What is meaningful to you?)，世界观 (How do you fundamentally view the world? How do you operate within it?), and 价值观 (How do you define justice? What’s your relationship with money?) It’s not a matter of lack of love, or different hobbies, or... See more

In China, things often do circle back to the ancestral obsession with saving face. Everyone from the bottom up to the top leaders save face if there’s no written record to refer back to.

W informs me that Chinese people love to 吹牛 - the psychological need to project wealth (or ability).

“You can search and search all your life, but sometimes you need to realise you’ve arrived.”

But joy does not just belong to the young, and if we’re lucky, joy finds us across life’s various stages as we age and change. And even under the most trying of circumstances — when facing a grave diagnosis or living with a debilitating chronic condition — life is not simply illnesses, ailments, and misery.

My new age friends call that state of being pronoia , the opposite of paranoia. Instead of believing everyone is out to get you, you believe everyone is out to help you. Strangers are working behind your back to keep you going, prop you up, and get you on your path. The story of your life becomes one huge elaborate conspiracy to lift you up. But to... See more