Stoicism

There is a quiet, tectonic shift happening in the world of work, a tremor just beneath the surface that many of us in our fifties are beginning to feel. It isn’t a sudden earthquake, but a slow, grinding pressure.

The ground we’ve stood on for thirty years, the reliable bedrock of experience, loyalty, and deep institutional knowledge is becoming unstable. We are being unceremoniously ushered towards an exit we did not choose, caught in a perfect storm of ageism, automation, and the relentless, short-term logic of the spreadsheet.

In the relentless, humid hum of Singapore, a city-state that rewards frantic motion and punishes pause, I had become a master of the urgent.

At nearly fifty, my life was a carefully constructed edifice of full Google calendars and anxieties. I navigated the currents of a high-stakes career with the weary expertise of a long-distance swimmer, convinced the only way forward was to never stop kicking.