Author: Rebecca Toh

“In life we don’t have to strive to be hardworking. We just have to strive to care. Because it is only when we care about something that we are driven and motivated to put in the work needed to make it amazing… If you don’t care, you will feel very pressured and stressed, like you have to work hard but you don’t even know why, you just feel like you have to… George Bernard Shaw said, “I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live.” It is not about being hardworking, but that the true joy in life is when we are being thoroughly used for a purpose we believe in and care about.”
– Xandria Ooi

Develop what’s inside first, because what’s inside is reflected outside.

I don’t know myself well enough. And I have hidden thoughts that I don’t always articulate or bring to the surface.

For example, I only recently realised I have this thought that I should be special.

But why should I be?

I know, because if I am special (if I am especially talented or especially brave, for example) then I can justify my self-worth. Because I somehow believe that my self-worth is tied up with being more successful or being more talented than other people. But of course, this is a terribly weak and flawed idea, because there will always be other people who are smarter and more talented and more successful than me.

The thing is, I’m really not more special than other people. And that’s perfectly fine and natural. No human being is more special than another human being. And no human being needs to be special in order to be loved.

This is part of my ongoing effort to rewrite the flawed scripts – such as this one – in my head.

1. Be less preoccupied with figuring out what REALLY matters and spend more time just doing whatever it is you like.
2. It’s entirely okay to make your art in private.
3. Reminder: The current moment is an intensely interesting place to be.
4. To reduce conflict in our lives, we need to fully accept the truth that other people are not meant to think the same way as we do, since we all have fundamentally different thinking systems, informed by our past experiences, upbringing, education, the things we read, etc.
5. Soul > technique.
6. Money-making is not and doesn’t have to be evil.
7. We don’t need more well-written essays in the world. But we do need more blog posts, more journal entries, more people sharing about what’s going on in their lives, what’s making them happy or sad…
8. Action precedes inspiration / motivation.
9. Try doing something while genuinely NOT caring about the outcome. Can you do it?
10. To be contented is to realise that you already have everything you need to be happy, and everything else is just a bonus.

Make both art and money with equal joy and panache.

“I have a deep-seated distrust and even contempt for people who are driven by ambition to conquer the world … those who cannot control themselves and produce vast amounts of crap that no one cares about. I find it unattractive. I like the Zen artists: they’d do some work, and then they’d stop for a while.”
– Saul Leiter