life is good... so why do i feel this way?

What's up? So today is my birthday. I just turned 26. It feels honestly a little bit weird to say that I am now closer to 30 than I am to 20, and yet that is the reality of it. It's also going to be— and I don't want to really think about this, but I know also at some point I will be I'll I'll start to say like hey hey guys feels a little bit weird to be closer to 100 than I am closer to zero. But hey, I'm not going to talk too much about that. Anyways, every single birthday I always fall into this contemplative mood, and I don't know if this is a sign of getting older, but definitely have realized me doing this a lot in well not a lot. It's not like I have a lot of birthdays, but over the last two three years I've definitely been in a very contemplative mood during my birthdays, and usually I would actually. You know, on my birthdays, I would actually, you know, do a bit of journaling and write down just what I'm thinking, how I feel about the trajectory of my life. Do I feel like I'm growing as a person? Am I happy with the way things are? Just taking a look because I think it's so important. And this probably comes from my, what I do as a trader, where it's so important to reflect and to actually take an objective, clear understanding to see where you're at so that you can come face to face with your problems. And face to face with your shortcomings, you gotta admit them truthfully because otherwise you wouldn't be able to, you know, you wouldn't know what problems you have. That's the first thing. But then secondly, you would never be able to kind of improve your life from that point onwards. But also in life, I think it's just so important to make sure like, hey, whatever path or direction that you're going, it's the one that you actually are intentionally, you know, kind of heading towards. Just hitting the mosquito. I don't think I managed to hit it. But yeah, just to make sure that wherever you're going in life is, you know, you're intentional with it and you're going in the path that you actually wanna go, not the path that you just happen to be going on autopilot, because that's rarely gonna give you a good outcome in life, right? That's why I do it. And in the last couple of years, I have, you know, just recorded, you know, like a short little video to my phone, just kind of like selfie mode. I'll just place it there and I'll just talk about like, hey, you know, how do I feel? How do I feel where my life is going? Obviously I write it down as well. It's always nice to have these records for future me to kind of take a look at, just to see like, hey, what was 24-year-old Xuan thinking about? What was 25-year-old Xuan thinking about? And how did he feel his life was going? It's been really nice to just have this record. So I figured for this year, if I'm going to do it anyways, I may as well, you know, do it with a proper camera and Don't know if this will ever go onto YouTube. It almost feels weird to be in front of the camera, even though I make a video daily on YouTube and post it to— for thousands of people to see. But it's still weird in a way where on my daily YouTube videos, or even the videos that I make in regards to trading, it's the way I think about it. It's like it's work and I'm coming on here and, you know, I'm just kind of doing my profession. But right now it It is honestly a little bit nerve-wracking because A, I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna be editing this video. So in a way I have to like, okay, don't say anything stupid. But B, it's like talking about how I feel, what I think, and this is a lot more personal, so it feels a lot more vulnerable. So I don't know if I'll post this, but if I do, then probably means that the message that I'm about to share, I probably felt like it was valuable enough to put this out for people to potentially Learned from this. But yeah, I just finished up doing my journaling and just contemplated on how the last 12 months has been going, contemplated on the growth, just the overall trajectory of my life over the last 12 months and even throughout the last few years to a certain extent. And I can tell you one thing is that Over the last 2 to 3 years, actually, probably since I was 22, the feeling that I've always got has been that I could do a lot more with my life, but I'm choosing to be comfortable, right? I'm sacrificing long-term growth to be comfortable in the short term. And just to explain what I mean by this, obviously, it's not gonna take a lot to see that life is pretty decent. Smoking a fine cigar that I've kept for the last 12 months. It's a nice cigar. It's nothing special, but it's the most special one of all that I've brought here to Korea. The reality of traveling is that I can't exactly bring everything that I have. So amongst my stack, you know, this felt like the most fitting for a special occasion. Wine I'm drinking right now, I just opened it. It's a 2016 Bordeaux. I'm going to try to— I'm not even going to try to butcher the pronunciation of this name, but it's Château Cantemêlé, for anyone that is interested. This 2016 bottle is fantastic, by the way. I've had quite a few Bordeauxs, or rather, I've been getting back into wine pretty seriously over the last month or so, mainly because I'm in Korea. And you'll be surprised at how great of a selection of wine that you can actually find in Korea, as well as the pricing. It's not actually that bad. Surprisingly, but if you're ever a fan of like a wine that is very fruit forward, wine that is bright, vibrant, and yet has a decent bit of structure to go properly with food or meats, this I think is a very good example of it. Definitely not a crazy expensive wine despite. And despite the name and everything, this is a wine that is known as, you know, a really good value, like a really good value wine where it's not cheap per se, but for its price, it definitely outperforms other wines of similar kind of price points. I don't want to get too deep into the wine. I've been obviously traveling full-time for the last 3 years, and currently I've been in Korea for close to 6 months at this point. Which I never would have thought I would be in Korea, of all places, for six months. And yet this is the first place actually where I have spent a proper six-month period basically living in the city. I can also get into a lot about why Korea and Seoul in general is great, but I don't think this is what future me or potentially you if you're watching this, if I happen to post this, I don't think this is what you would be here for. But essentially. Life is good. I'm able to, like, I have a decent quality of life. I'm able to afford some luxuries every now and then, not every day, of course. Don't think I would want to do it every day either, because at that point then what would be special about it, right? I'm obviously healthy, not in the best shape, but I'm in a— but I'm healthy. I have a loving relationship where I'm I've had it since high school, been together for 8 years. My family's taken care of. I'm able to support them. I'm able to send money back, make sure that they never have to worry about money, nor are they even working at this point. I'm happy about that. I don't have a lot of friends, but the ones that I do have, at least I can confidently say that they are good friends and— Fingers crossed we'll be friends for life. Business, it's okay. Like, I'm not going to try to sugarcoat this, but where the business is at and where the overall YouTube channel and the overall trading business could have— could be a lot bigger, but it's not because of my complacency, which I will get into later. In terms of my trading, It's okay. Like it ain't great, but it's okay. I make a living out of it. I know I could be a lot more consistent. I could be a lot better. I could have a lot more capital behind me. But I am like in terms of all of these things, right? I'm almost like let's just you know let's talk about business and trading for a moment. It's almost like I'm actively making a decision to sabotage myself. That leads me on to the reason why I wanted to like the main point that I wrote in. This year's journal, as well as the reason why I wanted to, you know, just turn on the camera and talk about this for a bit, which is the idea of— I look back at the last few years and honestly feel a little bit of regret that I took so much time to slow down and smell the roses and kind of enjoy life per se, when this was a period of time where I should have maintained my momentum and kept pushing myself out of my comfort zone. After all, I'm young. It's not like, like I have all the time in the world to enjoy And I know that could sound a little bit irresponsible as well because nobody's guaranteed tomorrow and you should just live life in a way that makes you happy in the present moment. And yeah, I have definitely done that in a way where, you know, enjoyed life over the last few years, been full-time traveling, been, you know, enjoying life, seeing, you know, new parts of the world. And yet I cannot help but feel a bit of like a tinge of regret. Actually, it's not just a tinge. I can't help but feeling regret. At how the last few years have gone, because I genuinely look back at the last few years and I just feel like I could have done so much more. And money aside and, you know, external things aside, it's more of an internal feeling that if I talk back, if I were to speak back to Xuan from like 16, so like let's say 10 years ago, right? And the time this one was bottled. What would he feel? Would he be proud of progress that I've made, the growth that I've managed to achieve as a person in this time? I don't think the answer would have been yes. Of course, it's been a pleasant last few years where, you know, I've definitely enjoyed life. But in terms of like achieving my potential to find out if I'm able to actually push myself more, In terms of that, definitely don't think I lived up to it. And, you know, I was finding that I was asking myself this question earlier. So, you know, if I given the choice, then I could kind of go back and do it all over again. You know, what would I choose without knowing how things would have went? Now knowing, actually, I do know how things are gonna go. because I lived it. And it almost sounds, you know, ungrateful in a way, but don't get me wrong, I am really grateful for what I have and what I've got and what I've managed to, you know, achieve. But yet I just know deep down in my heart that I could have done way more. That's what kind of gnaws at me because I'm at 26 right now and I'm looking back at the years of like 22 to 26 and thinking, yeah, you know, I really let I really took the foot off the gas pedal there, you know, I got really complacent, started to slow down. As a result, everything else in my life started to slow down as well. Business, for example, the YouTube channel has had close to zero growth over the last 5 years in a row. And as a result, the business hasn't had a lot of growth over the last 5 years in a row. Like, it's stable, don't get me wrong, like, it's stable, makes a decent income. Kind of on par with how much I make in my trading. But even my trading could have been a lot more consistent. And yet the only reason why it's not is that I am actively choosing not to put in and commit a serious amount of discipline into the craft. Same with business. For a lot of reasons, I found myself like, you know, I actually don't like recording videos or like, I don't like scripting. I don't like this. I don't like that. But the truth is, I'm I'm just choosing comfort over pushing myself. And you might argue, like, you know, I was arguing with myself as well. Of course, it's natural for humans to want to pick the path of least resistance. After all, we're humans, right? Like, why choose strife and pain when we could have comfort, especially if you have the option of comfort as well? And yet, that is the dangerous part. That's the trap. Because when you choose comfort, you are actively sabotaging future you. It's what I failed to realize for a really long time. Comfort's nice. Having nice things, it's nice. But it can't be the main thing. It can't be the only thing. It's gotta be like a deeper reason that keeps you going, that keeps you wanting to push for— to push the limits of your comfort zone, basically. And I'm also not gonna sit here and tell myself that I have this figured out, that I know exactly the big change that I wanna make in the world, that I wanna revolutionize the trading industry, that I want to figure out a way to beat death or whatever, even though that is something that I have thought about. But I'm not gonna say like that is the reason that drives me. And in the last couple of months, I believe I might have found that reason. And it's essentially just what I've been kind of getting at throughout this entire video, which is just pursuing the highest potential of myself, pursuing the highest version of myself. The feeling that I have right now in terms of like that tinge of regret that I feel, hey, I didn't really do enough. It's not because I didn't make more. It's not because I didn't achieve more. It's more so because I know that I was always capable of it. I never actualized that. I never actually gave myself a shot to see If what I think is, you know, actually what could come true. It's kind of like how, you know, recently I went to a pro run in basketball, my first ever pro run in basketball actually. Like we were playing 5v5 and I was playing with some proper guys. Now I always thought I was a pretty decent basketball player after all, like whenever I go play pickup half court, like just in those outdoor courts or like the pickup courts, like I was always fine. Like I could always stand my ground and For the most part, I'm even the kind of go-to option, right? But then I got humbled real quick when I stepped onto that 5v5 court when I was playing with actual, like, proper guys. A few of them were even pro players. I just— I was cooked, right? I was getting cooked. I couldn't keep up at all. My stamina was— I thought my stamina was okay, but when put in front of these guys, you're crazy, right? That's when it hit me. I might only think that I'm good. But how will I ever know if I never push myself out of my comfort zone to go into these higher levels of competition just to see if, hey, what I think is what I'm really capable of? And that's this decision that I, that I made a couple of months ago because I had the same thought where, you know, the business has been stagnating for a really long time, my trading has been stagnating for a really long time, and I just knew that I was just way too comfortable. And the reason why I'm bringing this event up from the last couple of months is because that was the time where a very close friend of mine actually, who also happens to be my business partner here at AOC, or like the company that I'm running. We had a hard conversation because he could clearly see that maybe this wasn't important enough for me and I wasn't taking this seriously. And this was someone that, you know, before business partner, I am more than happy to call my close friend. He means a lot to me. And the entire relationship was basically in jeopardy because I was way too complacent, where he felt like he was trying to push this business to grow. And yet I was just trying to be comfortable. And that was a huge wake-up call for me. Because one of the questions he was asking me was, what do I want? Like, where do I want to go? Because if the goals are not aligned, then, you know, we could also just start doing different things. At the time, I also realized it already, because I was looking at myself, or like I was already reflecting. Prior to having that conversation, that was, that was like the catalyst, right? That was the wake-up call for me that, okay, if it's time, like if I always needed a push to start getting out of my comfort zone and to just take things seriously, or like just start living life seriously, that was the wake-up call. And so I did. Now, it wasn't like peer pressure or whatever. It's not even him placing certain expectations on me. And then now I'm just kind of meeting those expectations. Like I always knew this is what I should be doing. Just for one reason or another, like, the size of my excuses were always here, right? Or like, my priority on like comfort was always here. And the reason to push myself out of the comfort zone was always smaller, right? And so given the option, obviously, you know, the bigger force is gonna triumph the big force. It would be like Shaq posting up Nate Robinson, you know, it wouldn't be a fair fight. But what if I could get Nate Robinson at 2 feet? And about 200 pounds. And that's what I did. I just decided right then and there that I do not want to be— like, I just decided right then and there that I do not want to be at 30 and having to make the same video talking to myself. Why didn't I pursue my potential? The scariest thing about— or like 35 or 40 and just asking myself still the same question. It's better late than never, right? And this is the scary part. Whenever I do think about it, I look back at my younger years where I did not manage to pursue my potential. It's like, damn, I'm not gonna ever get those years back. Those are my young prime years. Like, for example, I've always wanted to pursue pro basketball, but I've always just said it. It's always been just a want. I never really actually took the step to push myself out of that comfort zone, actually pursue that and make that a reality. And I look back at my younger years, I'm like, damn, you know, if I was still 22, how much easier would it be for me to actually start pursuing this? Because I'm young, right? And in athletics, being a reasonable age is pretty important. I don't want to be going into a league with a bunch of 40-year-olds, like, like a senior league, you know? But I do think I'll still be able to, like, at 26, if I don't— I'm the youngest that I'm ever going to be. And if I don't pursue this now, it's never going to happen. And I really don't want to look back at 40, be like, hey, why didn't you? I want to look at my son in the eyes next time when I have a son. It's like, so Dad, you know, were you ever a pro? Or like, oh Dad, you're good at basketball. Were you ever like a professional player? I want to look him in the eyes and be like, no, because I was a fucking pussy. Excuse me for the language, but that is that is an accurate representation of how I feel. And you know, I guess what this video could be summed up as, which is just it's just really scary to think about. Like this is the young. Like for for me and you and anyone watching this, we are at this very second right now. We are the youngest that we're ever going to be, and. When it comes to anything in life, it's better late than never. And when given the opportunity, at least at this current point in life, this 26-year-old version of Shren, I look back at my life and I know I would have way less regrets if I was pursuing pushing myself out of my comfort zone and just seeing what I'm really capable of, to see where I can take the business, to see where I can take the trading, to see where I can take the experiences that I've lived. There's like, truthfully, even with travel, I've kind of gotten complacent. Back in the day, I would go out of my way to go see the sights, to see like, to travel and to actually immerse myself in different experiences. And now, like 3 years later, even fucking travel has gone complacent in a way where I am choosing only to spend time for at least a month or 2 in certain places. I'm choosing to not really spend more than half an hour a day on commuting so that I don't I never waste too much time going too far. But like, you know, what am I even wasting that on? I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna, I don't know what, smoke a cigar, drink some wine, doomscroll. Whereas before, you know, I would take the flight, go to these random places. And that's like, even in travel, those are experiences that help you to grow rather than just stay comfortable. No, I wouldn't actually have realized this if I didn't sit in front of this camera and talk about this. But I'm glad I did. It's just in every facet of the sense, so many people are just way too comfortable, including myself. Like, I just didn't realize that. It didn't hit me before that life is short. I'm only gonna get like the time window to do certain things. Once you pass that time window, you can never do it again. Or actually, that probably just applies to basketball. Um, I think at the end of the day, Larry's just one message that I made this video for just to let myself know. It's that life is short. You can always take some time to enjoy. There's nothing wrong with stopping to smell roses. Don't do it too much. Should never become like the main thing. Hedonism and enjoying the finer things in life should never become the main thing. The main thing should always to continue to. If you have a bigger reason in life or like some grand purpose in life, that would be absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately, I don't have that. But I do know one thing. Right now, even if I continue, even if I just choose to grow as a person, to push myself out of my comfort zone, it would be because I am running away from the potential pain of regret that I'm already feeling, but I don't wanna feel this pain again. Even that for now is good enough of a reason because I think as long as you find anything that is bigger than the size of the fucking excuses that you have, that is enough to push you forward. Who knows how long this is gonna last? Do you know one thing? I'm trying to think in terms of big picture right now, and I don't ever want to hit 40 and look back at— and just look back at the trajectory of my life and just be like, you could have done so much more. That's a crazy feeling to have. And I know, like, by most accounts I am still young, but it doesn't— it sure as hell doesn't feel that way. I used to, you know, I used to introduce myself to people and, you know, people call me a kid. And I actually kind of like that. Yeah. But not anymore. Like, I'm 26. I'm an adult. I pay taxes. Even pretty soon, I may not even get the chance to travel freely as I do right now because I'll probably be thinking about having children. That's a whole other commitment. I'll probably have to settle down somewhere instead of traveling full-time, like being in a different city every couple of months. I guess that's what I probably mean by like, you know, there's a finite time window for every phase of your life and go make the most out of it. And you're always going to look back at this period of time and just be like, whoa, right? I really didn't make the most out of it. I do regret that. I think at the end of the day, this is just a reminder. I'm making this video as a reminder to myself and also potentially to you if I decide to post this. And I'm pretty sure I'm gonna post this because I feel like this message is pretty valuable. Live life to the fullest, or to be less vague than that, pursue the highest version of yourself. See what you're capable of. You know, if even if nothing pans out, even if there is no tangible improvement, at the very least you can look yourself in the eye 5 years down the line, or even just 1 year down the line on your next birthday, and you can look yourself in the eye Be like, hey, you did good. At least you weren't a pussy. I know I don't actually think about this in terms of like, oh yeah, I'm a pussy or whatever. But I think I just wanna look at myself in, in a year's time, just be able to feel proud of the effort that I'm putting in and the growth that I'm achieving as a person. So that's what I'll pursue. 'Cause life is short and you only have one life. I think that was the message that I wanted to share. Cheers to another year. But honestly, good that I got this off my chest, 'cause now it's time to put in some action. Can't be all talk. This might actually be a fun video series where I check back in every year, see if I managed to hold up the promises that I made to myself the year before. Might actually keep me accountable. Cheers.