Nov 5 (edited) • 💪 WINS
When You Stop Forcing the Next Chapter, It Writes Itself
Ever felt like the universe was against you - even when you were trying your best to go all-in on your goals? That was me 2 years ago — until the Universe punk’d me in the funniest way possible.
After Chinese New Year 2023, my wife and I decided it was time to start a new life.
We had just left a toxic family environment, and we could both feel it - the next chapter was calling.
During the pandemic, we’d spent years studying Japanese - imperfectly but passionately.
Because I thought of myself as a modern day Samurai, I told her: Let’s move to a Japanese community right here in Malaysia.
A fresh start. A new identity. A place that matched who we were becoming.
But the universe had other plans.
We searched high and low for a good place in the Japanese community.
To the Chinese, feng shui is everything - and we wanted a home that felt aligned energetically.
We kept saying, “Our home is an extension of our consciousness.” Practicing our affirmations as though we could manifest our next home from thin air.
So we drove four hours back and forth, again and again — packing, scouting, unpacking.
Every house we viewed felt wrong.
The vibes didn’t align. Nothing clicked.
Alignment can look like rejection — until hindsight kicks in.
The agents were running out of listings, and we were running out of hope.
And then one agent said seven words that changed everything.
Finally, one agent - out of pity, maybe - said,
“Why don’t you try the nearby Korean community?”
We hesitated.
We don’t speak Korean. It wasn’t our first choice.
Why couldn’t the universe just give us what we wanted?
Still, we gave it a try.
And again… no vibe.
We were about to drive back, defeated — when we learned that a distant relative lived there.
She offered to help and connected us with someone she knew from the developer.
That led to a quick introduction — and suddenly, we were standing inside a messy, cat-infested house with the landlord and his outgoing tenant still there.
For some reason, I turned to my wife and said,
“This is it. Fuck it. Let’s do it.”
Even though another tenant was ahead of us, I looked the landlord in the eye, shook his hand hard, and said,
“Give it to me.”
The next day, he did. He must have sensed my conviction.
March 20th, 2023 — we moved into our new home.
Not in a Japanese community, but in a Korean one.
We didn’t understand it then, but it was the right chapter disguised as the wrong one.
We kept studying Japanese anyway.
With peace in our new home, we decided to tackle the dreaded Japanese Language Proficiency Test.
It was fucking hard.
Language fatigue is real when you’re older — it felt like shouting into a void.
More drills, more vocabulary, more frustration.
We were losing motivation and almost quit as we were weeks away from the exam.
I was getting PTSD just hearing these words in Japanese audio exercises, "What did the girl say to the boy?"
But what happened next made drill worth it.
One day, I saw a lady standing outside our elevator. Normally, I wouldn’t talk to strangers — but something nudged me.
I asked where she was from, first in Chinese. No response. Things were looking awkward.
So I switched to English.
She looked startled and said, “I’m from Japan.”
My mind thought at that moment, What the fuck? A Japanese person lived opposite us this whole time?!
I squeaked out a "Konnichiwa."
We eventually became friends. Her English was poor, so she had to put up with my broken Japanese — because speaking is much harder than textbooks.
Only later did we discover she was a Japanese language school teacher — and she had moved in two weeks after we did.
The universe has a sense of humor. It really does.
Half a year after moving, we not only had a new friend — we found our biggest motivation to learn Japanese.
REFLECTION:
Just because I was learning Japanese, I thought the goal was to live in a Japanese community.
My frame was forcing the universe to give me what I thought was best for my goals at that time.
But the real lesson was to become the kind of person who attracts Japan — even in a Korean neighborhood.
We loved the place so much that we even bought a bigger unit in this area.
So when you stop forcing the next chapter,
life finishes your sentences for you.
Everything really does come together —
just not in the way your mind would’ve planned it.
Where in your life have you been trying to force the next chapter instead of letting it write itself?
P.S. My wife and I passed our Japanese exam - I officially earned my stripes as a modern-day samurai. 👺
P.P.S. The three of us have now found ourselves in an even crazier adventure: learning Korean in this wild Korean community. Stay tuned... 🇰🇷
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When You Stop Forcing the Next Chapter, It Writes Itself
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