Recent Slow Musings
2026. Hello there.
It’s been a while since I logged into this space, and fortunately I am able to do so today.
Life’s been busy. Busy with work, busy with family, busy with the baby, busy with…god knows what. I don’t know what clicked, but somehow one day, I decided to slow things down.
I think it has got a lot to do with my recent “break up” with technology. Specifically my Apple Watch. I love technology, people who know me knows that I am such a huge tech geek. In my old Android days, I used to switch phones every few months or so. Then came Apple, which I got massively sucked into the ecosystem. Of course, that comes with the Apple Watch. The device is cool for what it does. I love it. It became a staple in my life. Notifs all day, checked. Fitness tracking, checked. Sleep tracking, checked. Driving maps, checked. It does so many wonderful stuff despite it sucky battery life.
So in mid 2025 my first Apple watch decided to give up and stopped tracking my sleep and fitness and I got a new replacement watch. That new piece didn’t last long. I gradually felt something was missing, sort of like the main purpose of that digital square on my wrist isn’t for time-telling anymore.
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I sold that Apple Watch away and went back to an old hobby which was watch collecting. It started with a simple Seiko field watch. Then my collection expanded to a few more field watches and evolved to the current nice combination of field watches, divers, chronos, and dress watches.
It’s just something on my wrist these few months that made me feel grounded, satisfied, fulfilled, nostalgic, and appreciative. The rabbit hole of watches is indeed poisonous, but yet fun at the same time. I now have something to look forward to everyday. From finding the next exciting piece to looking at ultra crazy watches that I won’t be able to afford, it’s nice. And my baby boy has somehow caught this poison as well! He now took over that F105W which sits really nicely on his toddler wrist, at this point of writing I’ve also bought a new baby watch for him 😊
Going back to my watch hobby is part of my recent slowdown. I think another major contributing factor is spending real quality time with my family. We agreed to do a family trip to somewhere once a year, especially with our baby who’s a curious and thrill-seeking little fella. Be it a far holiday somewhere or a short nearby one, we should do somwehere and do things. Last year we decided to head to Bintan in Indonesia, which is just a 60-minutes ferry ride from Singapore. It turns out to be the best holiday we’ve had in years even when travelling with a toddler.
Since we had our first family holiday in 2024, which we decided to ditch all expectations of a holiday to follow the flow of our baby. This Bintan trip was similar. Except for the fact that we really took things super duper slow. We stayed in a gorgeous resort with IHG, which is a family-themed hotel with kids playground and water parks. That solved a lot of our itinerary on keeping the boy busy and happy. We started our days with super slow breakfast, kids club play time, nap time, even had time to squeeze in massages for ourselves, followed by dinner and bed time. I found myself really able to intentionally slow down, and enjoy every single moment with the family. It felt good, and I feel alive.
I carried this feeling into 2026. And was fortunate to be able to take some nice extended leave from work. We were able to spend some quality couple time as well before heading back to the office (in my case, the study room). I make it a point to put time away for myself, to recharge and to enjoy every single thing in life. I feel like this is the first time I have actually “grown”, and feel like I should take control of my own time. Being a lot more intentional to things around me, things I do, food I eat. I was able to also stop caring too much adn adopted the “let them be” mindset. I start to accept imperfections around me- I no longer need things to be perfect, to be nice, and always in place. I started to be ok with 70%, and not 100%. I started to be able to control my emotions, my anger especially. Honestly this feels so good.
I still do not know what happened to me. But I feel like some events these few months helped me unlocked a different part of my brain and emotional space. I hope this continues for the next few months, and for years down the road.
Sending everyone a lot of love and a very happy 2026 😊
