Right On Time
You don’t always have to be profound.
When the foggy San Francisco sky outside your window starts to brighten, you return from the asphyxiation of your friend’s apartment’s swimming pool. A purple light broke the silence of the night. A feeling crept up on you. Some childhood fantasies will never come true anymore, will they? As you grow older you start to realize. You won’t wake up to a mind-reading superpower or a ten-villa inheritance in the South of France. Only the San Francisco sky.
It’s ok, everything happens for the best, you convince yourself. Every decision you made has led you here. You don’t remember how or why you made them, but you also don’t need to remember. You only need to trust that you made the right choice. Trust that the boat will straighten itself out.
When the dreams end, when the exorbitant privileges run out, when the claims to exceptionalism fade, when life’s no longer smooth sailing. You can hopefully, at least, come back to this conviction.
Grass always seems greener on the other side. It’s easier to think that if you did something different, you might end up ahead — it absolves you of the disappointment that this is all that you are. But you can’t observe the counterfactual: you don’t actually know whether the alternatives would be better, or if it’s a dodged bullet. So throw the rose tint back on the rearview and have faith that this life is already the best. What seem like mistakes are lessons in anticipation. “What might have been” are always bullet showers.
Every decision is a trade-off. As Kierkegaard says, “laugh at the world’s foolishness, and you will regret it; weep over it, and you will regret that too.” Impossible it is to have the cake and eat it too.
Gong Er in The Grandmaster couldn’t accept that. She chose vengeance over Ye Wen — that was the trade-off. Romanticizing the life she’d traded away hollowed her out. But it didn’t have to. 人生若無悔，那該多沒趣, she tells him. A life without regret would be so boring. He answers: 人生如棋，落子无悔. Life is like chess; no regrets once a piece is placed. You make a move, you live with it. Not because the move was right, but because it’s made. She kept reaching for a past that was long gone. You can’t find reconciliation if you dwell on the fait accompli.
Life is too big to claim every experience, to know everyone’s stories, to have avenged and loved. So appreciate the faces passing by — you don’t need to own or be them. “Cherish the moment” may sound trite, but you really should do whatever you want while you still want it. Delay gratification for ten years and the same things might not even gratify anymore. Evaluate outcome over a lifetime, but don’t separate the destination from the journey. Enjoying every passing moment is a part of enjoying the result.
Some people say that in your 20s, you mistake the rest stops for the whole journey. Wine spilled on the cabin floor, hotpot after movies, deep-meaningful-conversations in the living room — moments that feel like everything at the time but are mere pauses on an eternal trip. But you can extend rest stops into a significant part of the journey, if only you are willing to pause more.
If life were a simulation in Google Maps, every decision would come with a tooltip saying “similar ETA.” No matter the route, everyone arrives at the same end — the final, great equalizer. But the journey isn’t about efficiency; it’s the pauses, the detours, the unexpected twists and turns that make it worthwhile. Obsession with getting ahead turns life calculatory, where wins and losses suffocate experience. “Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow,” you recall from your second least favorite play. So stretch out the rest stops. Let them become part of the story. Spend more time on the road. End up somewhere far from what’s expected. Long as you’re happy with how you got here, and how you’re going. You don’t always have to be profound.
30,000 days run fast. You only get to be here once, and people will disagree. So eat what you want to eat, meet who you want to meet. Take in the scenery you enjoy, and do the things you love. Grand narratives can’t fight the abyss, but contentment amassed through minute choices can. Every pleasant memory is a lamp against the darkness should misfortune bring nightfall. Reminder of the faith you’d convinced yourself of on that one scorching afternoon six years ago soaked in a fortuitousness that’s almost too good to be true. The bottomless mimosa lingers at the tip of your tongue.
You hold out your hand as if waving to moments destined to expire, and think, wow, it’s really been six years. All the shine of half a decade fading. And you still believe, as some force draws you out of the core of the Earth. You’re right on time.