On My 22nd Birthday

Published: July 4, 2025

Today is the Independence Day of the United States and tomorrow is my 22nd birthday. It’s currently 9:41pm and I am just sitting in my room waiting for the 12am mark before I go to bed. I figured I might as well write some sort of “wow look how far I’ve come”-style blog before my last academic year in NUS as an undergraduate begins, though I don’t exactly have an overview of what I will write so let’s see :)

I have planned out what to do for tomorrow and it’s very simple. I want to go to a mall, have lunch, go to a karaoke, have dinner, then have a cake. It’s the second time I sort of date myself on my birthday (though I will stop saying that as it does sound a bit weird), the first time being in last year on my 21st birthday. I am in fact very excited about the plan. Having friends to celebrate with is good, but (a) I think that they have no obligations to do so and (b) I actually feel equally good about celebrating alone. The intention of this blog is never to portray myself as someone who is lacking friends – now that I think about it, it is rather the opposite: to try and convince people how being alone can be an elegant lifestyle. Just to be clear: no, I do not hate my friends. Rather, I feel like it’s good to strike a balance between hanging out with friends and also spending time with yourself.

The way technology has evolved, and as my generation (born in the 2000s) live a busier and busier life, we dedicate less and less time to listen to our inner voice. People who have a job wake up with a tight schedule and go to work. Among the people who don’t have a job, and hence are in their vacation, the introverts occupy themselves with video games, while the extroverts try to ensure that they step out of the house and hang out with friends at least once every two days. When we are bored, we check our phone and watch brainrot. There are far too many things in life grabbing our attention all the time, and psychologically we have become really creative to prevent ourselves from getting bored. I remember reading online that the only daily activity left that allows for opportunity to listen to our inner voice is literally showering, though with recent developments in waterproof technologies that might no longer be the case. Put simply, we are slowly forgetting how to be bored.

Note

I am a fan of Dr. K from HealthyGamerGG – you may find that what I said resonates pretty well with what he talks about in his videos.

My life sort of had a turning point when I was 20. Between the year 2023 and 2024, the way the events in my life had unfolded during that time, had fortunately given me the opportunity to deeply reflect on my life. I mentioned in some of my course reviews that I was facing an uenxpectedly high workload. I became TA for the first time (for two courses!) while trying to juggle CS2109S, CS3230 and CS2106. Then it got out of control as I put less and less emphasise on studying and more on socialising with friends. Things did not get better in the second semester. Every sleepless night had had me on the edge of bursting into tears, and I had to talk to a counsellor. As everything started to fall apart, I started to wonder what went wrong. For the first time, I started to listen to my brutally honest inner voices, questioning the priorities of my life: “What have I been doing with the heavy amounts of study loans I took to pursue my studies in Singapore?”

And so I began taking care of myself.

It was around this time I started this blog. I hope that through writing (like this one), I get to understand myself better, just as how taking notes makes you learn more effectively. I will not intend to give advice, for everyone’s life is different. The point is to have a space on the Internet for which I can write whatever I want to write (although I ended up writing course reviews most of the time which is kinda funny).

Why did I care about socialising so much? I feel like the way I grew up makes me tend to seek attention from people around me. People who know me know that I like cracking jokes all the time. I used to think that that makes me funny and brings me friends, and having many friends is impressive – sort of the mindset of a typical primary school bully. As stupid as it sounds, it isn’t until it has been put into words, and not many people out there are willing to criticise themselves like that. It is then I realised that I don’t really need/deserve that much of socialising. All the time my intention has been a mix of wanting to impress people and wanting to genuinely connect with people, and it is important to distinguish when one outweighs another.

In my year 3, I went on to put 100% of my effort into my studies and teaching, and proceeded to be more disciplined than I could ever imagine. I fixed a rough weekly schedule for myself, somehow managed to enforce it to a great extent, and that included having a healthy sleeping schedule. I find myself being alone most of the time, and when I hang out with friends, I no longer try so hard to lead a conversation and became more of a listener. I no longer feel bad if I have to leave early, for that is me priotising my personal matters. I no longer feel bad when I appear as being introverted, for that is truly who I am and there is nothing wrong with it. I started to enjoy being alone, for I get to focus and immerse myself into the world of mathematics and theoretical computer science, all while having a nice BGM in my earpods, a cup of Starbucks on the table, and a nice view of UTown Green in front of my eyes. This is me being me, impressing myself more than I can ever impress others.

Yet of course I am not perfect. For example, I am still terrible at socialising – I literally just avoided doing it. But then, I find the trade-off super worth it if it means better mental wellness for myself. I guess that is what it means when I hear people say that part of growing up is to be able to accept your weaknesses as they are. It is just not my priority to fix it right now. I have far more meaningful things to do: to continue to enjoy my research work, and be an inspiration for students and friends alike.

And now it’s about time for my 22nd birthday. Happy birthday to myself and I hope I enjoy my day tomorrow :D