Sara Blakely intentionally embarrass self: this reminds me of I may want to do this to my kids occasionally. Both my kids are quite shy now.
an image of Sara Blakely LinkedIn Post
Public Appearance on Internet, and social media in general
Something related to this, partially due to pandemic, we are seeing the booming of live broadcasting on social media, such as TikTok, Douyin or Youtube.
Something interesting, or obervations from Jamie Zhong, she said on DY, people usually come to listen to her songs, while at WeChat, some people come to listen to her talk. I guess it goes both ways, for people who are freelancers, or no longer go to office, there are very little real human to human interactions nowadays, and broadcasting gives a meaningful way for people to interact, or talk.
Also 在M记等一个不会来的人 and I am quoting the album description below (it’s written by Ayen何璟昕, btw）。
I did Toast Master in 1998. I led Math Fact Scholars between 2019 and 2023 (including a break during pandemic), Spode Passport Night (twice), taught at Webster University for a year, St. Louis high schools catalyst program (once). Presented at work including when work as graduate research assistant (since 1998 ).
Fraternity (1998 to 1999): main goal was to learn English
Most recently I drove for Uber (288 trips total in about a year).
(Original) 人生不如意十之八久下一句 (可与人言无二三): it seems to me it’s overly pessimistic? I don’t know.
Also, self-pity 自怜（自恋）is not good (Charlie Munger)
但开心和不开心都是人生常态[萌萌哒R] (Quoting a friend, do you want to know who is that friend 🙂
1. 是的。但是我想我们很多时候还是希望有亲人朋友可以倾述自己心里真实的感受：I understand it’s a luxury a lot of times.
2. 我觉得你说的很对/ spot on (or hit the nail on the head). For me I still work on it: setting realistic or low expectations for other people; hang out with my tribe (friends who can tolerate me 🙂
Arthur Brooks is highly credible on happiness, drawing on his background as a Harvard professor, bestselling author, and columnist for The Atlantic, combining scientific understanding with practical advice to offer a widely-read framework for a more meaningful and joyful life. His work, which defines happiness as enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning, is backed by his position at the Harvard Kennedy School and his extensive writing on the topic. Why He’s Credible
Academic Authority: He teaches a course on “Leadership and Happiness” at Harvard Business School and is a faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Bestselling Author: His book, From Strength to Strength, was a New York Times bestseller, demonstrating broad appeal and resonance.
Influential Communicator: He reaches over a million readers weekly with his column “How to Build a Life” in The Atlantic.
Science-Based Approach: He integrates scientific understanding of happiness, exploring how the brain processes emotions and how to build a meaningful life.
Key Aspects of His Work
Happiness Equation: Brooks posits that happiness is built on three components: enjoyment, meaning, and satisfaction.
Beyond Pleasure: He emphasizes that enjoyment is not the same as pleasure; the relentless pursuit of pleasure can be detrimental to a fulfilling life.
Practical Frameworks: He provides actionable advice, such as managing emotional states, changing perspectives, and finding meaning in struggle.
Meaning in Life: Brooks stresses the importance of finding a clear purpose to avoid distractions and frittering away time.
In Summary Brooks’s credibility stems from his significant academic roles, successful publications, and commitment to presenting happiness as a skill that can be developed through understanding science and applying actionable strategies.
Many years ago, a poor boy went from door to door selling small goods to pay his school fees. One day, he was so hungry and broke that he decided to ask for some food at the next house. But when a kind young woman opened the door, his courage failed. Instead of asking for food, he quietly said, “Could I please have a glass of water?” The woman looked at him and saw the tired, hungry boy. Instead of water, she brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, savoring every sip. When he finished, he asked softly, “How much do I owe you, ma’am?” She smiled and said, “You don’t owe me anything. My mother taught me never to ask for payment for kindness.” The boy thanked her from the bottom of his heart and left that house feeling stronger—not just in body, but in spirit. Years passed. The woman became seriously ill. Local doctors couldn’t help, and she was sent to a big city hospital. A specialist was called in to examine her. When he heard the name of the town she was from, something flickered in his eyes. He went to her room, recognized her instantly, and from that day gave her the best care possible. After weeks of treatment, she was finally cured. When the bill arrived, she feared it would take the rest of her life to pay. But when she opened the envelope, she found this note written across the bill: 🩵 “Paid in full—with one glass of milk.” — Dr. Howard Kelly That day she learned — goodness never goes unrewarded. Kindness travels in circles, and it always finds its way back—sometimes when we need it most.
I left my childhood home and my parents many years ago for the boarding middle school. And I barely recall that I was home for the mid-autumn festival celebration in those middle school (high school) years. Then I left for college. And the college was a bit far away from my hometown.
About 36 years ago, the mid-autumn festival party organized by the HUST 浙江同乡会 left me impression. Because in 1989, it was the first year I was in HUST (Wuhan) and far away from home Ning’bo, and not to mention I really missed home. I believe many HUST friends who are from Zhejiang province missed home too. I recall the hostess (the girl who is toast master) is a Shi’jie from Zhenhai middle school, and her last name is Su. Sorry I forgot her 1st name now. 她说了一句话让我现在还记得：我们来自于吴山青，越水秀 (google search) 的故乡浙江省。
When their daughter(s) finds someone she loves. I think the right word probably is “mixed emotions”. No, I am not implying anything and our older daughter who is 15 and hasn’t dating someone yet – good to me for now :-).
I also have a friend who strictly forbids her daughters dating even in college. She told me about this rule; they are from India btw. My view is less strict: personally, I feel it’s okay to date in college because I did, and it didn’t turn out to be a disaster (I was lucky in many ways I think :-). But date in the high school is probably too early. This is also considering their schoolwork in the HS, which is a lot in my opinion.
A bit over 10 years ago, before our younger daughter was born some of my colleagues did a baby shower, one of my American colleagues commented: you need to watch out all the guys now you are having a daughter 🙂
In July 26 this summer, I happened to be a similar boat like this. I was going to drop off the girl who is from China (she is 16 years old), and attended the summer camp here at WUSTL, to the STL airport. The time was a bit tight for me, because after dropping her off, I need to come home and drive my older daughter to the Community Music School in Webster University at Webster Groves. So, I arrived at the girl’s place early so that I could have some breath room just in case. I told them about my plan. But the girl would not come out at 8 am, and I was a bit upset, because it could take 15 to 20 minutes to drive from WUSTL to the STL, and I also need to go inside the airport to make sure her can check in luggage and get boarding pass and so on. So, I said in the WeChat group chat to hurry up. And after probably 15 or 20 minutes, the girl came out, with a boy and it’s quite obvious the boy is her (likely new) boyfriend. Then I felt pretty bad.
And also, I was thinking what would I feel if I saw my older daughter in this kind of situation? Keep in mind I never saw that girl before, and I had to guess whenever someone comes out from that building. But her dress reminds me of my daughter. Btw, I talked about the teen girls dress trend here, from my observations, scroll to “What to wear for girl nowdays???“.
Anyway, I did have a small opportunity to make up my dumb (and being rude) mistake. The girl’s luggage is over the weight limit by 6 pounds, and I paid the $100 luggage fees right away. I was not late for my older daughter’s thing either: here is some of the percussion that the students at CMS did in the past school year (YT) including the summer. Can you guess which one is my older daughter? Hint: she was in the way back and she didn’t have a lot of time on the screen.
PS: you may like my other post here Dad daughter moments. As you may be able to predict or perceive, not all moments are happy or light moments though – something I didn’t anticipate or intentionally ignoring before we have our kids. Some moments are quite hard or difficult, honestly speaking.
PS2 (10-24-2025): I wrote more re: “Father’s love, or elder generations love towards the kids” here.
I talked about my recent exercise trend here. But I think I need to focus on my sleep a bit more, as in recent years, due to various reasons, I didn’t get the necessary sleep and that is taking a toll on my health.
Fortunately both my last job and my current job are less demanding, and less stressful. But I am getting older too 🙁
Recently I started to listen to music during sleep. That alone may not be the best solution for “not being able to fall into asleep”. But I am fine tune it, as well as adjusting so that I don’t listen to my iPod Nano (I talked about it here and here), or a new MP3 player I bought the whole time.
Also, back to exercise, I think in addition to swim or walking, I am going to focus a bit more on meditation, such as breath on Apple Watch or Yoga via YT (see my YT Yoga playlist).
PS:
I got to see my uncle (my mom’s little big brother, who is 89 years old) this summer. He commented on the sleep problem we have. He said, not exact words, but why we are worrying about things in the night? His point was we probably had too much stress from our day job (which is probably true). Back to the time when he was young, he probably doesn’t have the material things we have now, but he is much happier. Probably one reason he lives to 89 🙂
(Update 10-17-2025) I just came across this at FB “What is Success? Success is being able to go to bed each night with your Mind at Peace.”
PS 2:
To my fellow HS students’ parents especially parents of student athletes: now we have this AI thing – let AI do the work and let our kids and all of us have some more sleep 😴 (not my words, coach and my uncle’s words – they are wiser than me. Okay I added this AI thing for dramatic effect [捂脸]). Btw, tonight is the blue and white night at #LHWHS and if you have time (no impacting on your or your kids sleep schedule): the girls powder puff flag football game is fun to watch. #homecoming #powderPuff
I did one thing similar: something I mostly figured out my own, with some inputs from friend(s). I listened to Cantonese music (slow music, more like lullabies). Do you want to guess which musicians (singers) I listened to most often? Btw, I mostly use my 13-year-old iPod Nano (as shown here). Because it doesn’t have the fancy stuff on my iPhone and won’t pull me into the blackhole of “doom scrolling”.
I think in theory at least, a podcast or a book would do the similar trick. I mostly just listened to one song non-stop (loop) – a side benefit is it saves the battery of iPod Nano.
I think it’s time. Right now I am only drinking the non-alcoholic beer. I may quit that too. I never tried non-alcoholic wine, but may taste it once later on.
I think my main motivation factor is better sleep, as I talked a bit here. But there are other concerns: mainly around driving as I got my Uber duty for my kids. Also eating, which is related to sleep too.
It looks like I tried quitting about 3 years ago. I have since quit whiskey. Btw, I never drunk whiskey before I watch the Netflix show the Ranch.
Note in last 20 years or so, I don’t recall I ever got drunk once. But I do recall once, more than 20 years ago, I did had too much alcohol at my home, probably my house warming party or something, and I ended up calling up other friends and talked too much… 🙂
Note DUI (driving under influence) is a big problem in the USA. And it’s something one should never do. Because I have Uber duty (mentioned above), I think quitting drinking completely also removes one factor when I am on the duty.
Somewhat related to this: I recall a few years ago, when our older daughter was with the St. Louis Children’s Choirs, the artistic director who is a bit older than me, told the parents of the Concert Choir kids, that we write down her cell phone number and give the number to our kids. The reason is she cares deeply about the kids, and she want the kids to know, they can text or call her anytime, even when the kids are drunk or something. I think I am at this stage of my life too, if any of my family members or friends truly needs urgent help, I can be there.
When I was much younger, note I grew up in China and there was no legal drinking age. I remember a few incidents such as this one (in Chinese), I drunk some wine trying to help me fall into asleep – the results was not very good, I think. Before I was 10, I recall two incidents in which I drunk too much alcohol, and I just went to bed and slept. The other notable drinking time was around time I graduated from college.
I will update this post as time goes. Action is louder than words.
(Update 09-25-2025) I came across this tweet (a very short video) about addiction, and I found it’s helpful. There is a longer both English and Chinese versions here. The talk is actually a Ted Talk – Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong | Johann Hari | TED (YT link here).
If I can extrapolate a bit, I think a lot of times we put too many “artificial” (self-made) constraints around us and thus limiting us to achieve our full potential. I was thinking I did this to myself many times in my life, and probably many friends suffered from similar syndrome too.
The best time is now; the second-best time is tomorrow. –anonymous
After 25 years career I finally got an office with windows
Career
Per my age and typical stereotype, I think I am expected to wind down my career in the software field now (my LinkedIn profile here). I understand career is more than a LinkedIn profile or a resume, but here in the USA IT IS one of those things that MATTER, in addition to title, experience and compensation history. Useless or but fun fact: I started my LinkedIn profile in 2008, about 17 years ago.
US companies are mostly snobs, in my not too humble opinions. I mean CEOs or the higher ups, not the average Jane and Joe. Doesn’t matter whatever they say publicly – their mission is making money for the owners, not for employees. This is quite obvious from the recent high-profile layoffs such as Amazon laying off 14,000 back-office people/white collar workers last week.
And I have my favorite quote related to that topic too. When questions by reporters why he took $55 million exit package in 2002, when he was forced out, former CEO of EDS, Electronic Data Systems, Dick Brown famously said: I have an expensive wife. I know I know, I don’t have expensive wife. But I also have two daughters who like to buy things. Or should I ass that they have good taste? 🙂
Sorry a bit off topic 🙂 Last month (Oct 2025) I passed 25 years’ work anniversary in the USA. I started working here on Oct 2nd, 2000. A lot has changed since I started working here. I have seen quite a bit of industry underwent paradigm shift. From the Internet bubble (web 1.0) burst to web 2.0 (remember delicious, Flickr and digg.com?). And now we have web 3.0 and more. My career wise, I changed from working in the CAD software to mostly enterprise web applications, with a bit of consulting and iOS dev in between.
I don’t want to be forced out
I have seen coworkers who are about 50 years old, being laid off, at multiple places. Some of them were caught off guard. I was much younger or a bit younger then. Now I am at that age. And I don’t want to be in their shoes. I have literally seen grownups crying when they got laid off.
Also, right now I felt I can still do some meaningful work. If the time comes that I feel I cannot contribute in a meaningful way, I will just quit.
Re: AI, we all know the AI is causing a lot of disruptions and anxiety among IT/software workers nowadays. But I also believe at least for now, my job is not impacted. And if I can learn those AI tools and they can actually help me doing my job.
How much money is enough
One problem is most of us don’t know the answer to “how much money is enough?”. Or my favorite answer is “a little bit more” (it’s both a joke and also has some truth to it).
But seriously I need to think about this question as the date of retirement is approaching, either I want to face it or not. Some of the things I am thinking about regarding this topic.
1. My retirement is probably going to be different from my parents’ retirement. They have a more traditional retirement. My dad has a pension, and I don’t. And they stopped working completely when they retire. I think I will likely do some work (not too strenuous), for example, I will manage my 401k and IRAs, as well as doing other things I like to do (music, walking outside, does that include swimming??? 🙂 And some social life too (not drinking at the bar, I mean probably I am good enough, I can play music at the bar, again just for fun, not for money 🙂
Do I continue to mow my lawns? If I am health enough and feel like it. If not, I can either outsource it or sell the house and move to a townhouse or condo. Note selling the house will be a joint decision not solely mine.
2. I will probably have some hobbies and some travel. But probably equally important, I need to manage my 401k and IRAs, making sure they have decent return and will last. This is also something my parents don’t do. Sorry I am getting repetitive here – signs of my age and the need to retire 🙂
Still TBD as of 11-03-2025 (JIRA board doesn’t look good in terms of velocity 🙂
I need to calculate how much my 401k and IRAs were earning in last 35 or 10 years or so. If the total earnings (capital gain + dividend) are approaching my take home pay of my day job, that will be a good sign. Obviously, I need to fact into my financial obligations: the big-ticket item will be my kid’s college costs, and it will also be a big unknown because the US higher education industry is very similar to the US healthcare industry in terms of price transparency 🙂 You may read more about the college cost here as I learned last year. Note that’s applicable for the American students only (I assume US citizens and permanent residents, not sure about the children of visa holders), and not for the international students. Consult an expert on this topic, if applicable.
3. When applicable, I am thinking some side hustles including but not limiting to Uber or eBay to make some money and have something to do.
Cannot counting on that for meaningful amount of money though – ideally main income stream should come from investments, as said in this old saying “if you don’t make money when you sleep, you will work until you die.” I for one definitely don’t want to work until I die.
In my opinion it’s stupid for me to persuade people to change their political or religious views, or world view for that matter, especially for people over 50 years old.
Also, recently I found out one of my friends in middle school, doesn’t appear to understand a simple thing (the point I was trying to make) I said in the WeChat group. Honestly, I am not surprised.
Last but not least, my latest rant on FB (here is what I said on FB regarding that article/that situation: People are doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different outcomes. What I am saying is, even for the lottery, 99.999999% of the time, one would not win the million dollar jack pot. || That’s the main reason I am retiring from the politics and lottery business. That’s the only way I keep myself sane. || Honestly whenever I saw someone who appears doesn’t have a million dollars in the bank* is buying lottery tickets in stash of cash (not just a $5 bill), I am saying a prayer for the state of the Missouri (the are the lottery authority) and this person’s math teacher. || * I could be wrong estimating people’s wealth – I should not judge people just by their look.)
