Embrace

Six months ago, I packed eight suitcases, rented out my house, paused my nonprofit, and left my corporate job. I even turned down a director-level offer at a high-performing company. It came with a 20 percent salary increase, flexible working arrangements, and was close to home. On paper, it looked like the perfect next step in my marketing career.

Instead, I accepted a scholarship and brought my small family with me on a one-way flight almost 9,000 kilometres away from Singapore. We traded 30-degree heat for the cool, crisp air of an early autumn. New Zealand, here I come.

It would take another long blog post to explain why I made such a bold decision. That’s why I never made an “official” announcement. I simply let a few close friends know. Even now, six months into this new life as a PhD candidate, I sometimes find myself lost in thought, wondering why I’m here and what I’m doing. More importantly, I ask myself what tomorrow might bring.

I haven’t always had the confidence to explain everything, even to myself. Or as an acquaintance once said, it’s just too ma fan to manage other people’s emotions about your own choices. But now, I’ve learned one word that keeps coming back to me—embrace. I’ve decided to live by it.

Earlier today, during a drive to the beach, we turned a corner along a small hill, and suddenly the sea appeared. The burst of blue, green, and white caught me off guard. The waves seemed to rise like buildings, each one swallowed by the next in a never-ending rhythm. From inside the car, I could barely hear the sound, but I knew it must have been loud; probably thunderous if I stood near enough. The sheer force of it felt overwhelming.

In that moment, I felt very small and very light. As if nothing else mattered except nature. The ocean stood before me, vast and untamed. It didn’t care what surrounded it. It just moved forward, roaring when it needed to, then falling silent as if nothing had happened. It made me think:

Sometimes we get too caught up in our own little emotional worlds, worrying about how others see us or what they might say. But if our hearts were as wide as the ocean, maybe we wouldn’t mind so much. Even when one wave hits a cliff, the rest of the sea keeps going. The waves continue to rise and fall, pulled back again by gravity, yet never stopping.

That moment by the sea reminded me that we don’t need to justify everything or have our lives perfectly planned out. We just need to keep going, to follow our flow without overthinking how we got here or what comes next.

We simply need to embrace.

Instead of letting emotions throw us around, we can accept them when they arrive, and release them when they leave. There’s always another wave waiting.

And if we are the sea, there’s no need to compare ourselves to the sky, the mountain, or the land. Every path is different—for every creature, big or small. So is ours.