Essay

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it” – Charles R. Swindoll

Life is complex, stressful and demanding. We face challenges in our personal lives, families and even at work. What’s more is that these challenges are constantly changing, requiring us to adapt and put on “different masks” to help us get through them. So, this is who I fundamentally am – Someone with many layers and many masks, whose aim is to be better tomorrow than he is today.

I like reading the financial times, watching American sit-coms and The Daily Show with John Stewart. I like playing badminton and golf. I am an avid fan of traveling and am an absolute gastronome. My play list probably contains the top 100 songs that you would find on Spotify. I value integrity, dedication, kindness and hard work. Now, these are all hard, true facts about myself. Yes, there have been a few life-changing transformations thus far, however, my identity unfolds more everyday as my experiences grow. As such, the proclamation as to “who I am” (which I have described below through my inherent layers) should by no means be construed as the be all and end all of what there is to me, but rather be taken as a mere glimpse of my past that has shaped my values, characters, passions and beliefs so far.

The Traveling Adventurer: I’ve bungee jumped from a 233m high platform (falling at almost 200km/hr) at Macau; I’ve sky dived off 12000 feet in the air (putting my body through accelerated free fall for 45seconds) in New Zealand; I’ve kayaked in the scenic waters of Halong Bay in Vietnam (albeit I cannot swim and do have a phobia of drowning); I’ve sat right next to (and petted) a Bengal tiger in Thailand, and I’ve done a 5-day bar-tending course in Australia (and have achieved some proficiency in making cocktails). This is the adventurous side of who I am – a bit of an adrenalin rush seeker, and an explorer. Though the examples above seem to be skewed around adventure sports, the real reason I like...