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Jason Tan

@jasondgreat

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Travel • Personal Growth • Cafe
Learning to live fully while figuring out what’s next.
Come figure it out with me.
💌: [email protected]

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I’ve rebuilt my life more than once. It never felt brave while I was doing it. Some beginnings were my choice. Others were all I had left.

At 42, I’m proud of how far I’ve come. And still figuring out where to go next.

If you’re there too, you’re not alone. I’m rooting for you.

This is my story, what’s yours?
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Turning 42 - Episode 5: How much clarity do you need before you finally let yourself start?

I’m learning that some answers just don’t come from thinking harder. They come from moving, doing, and seeing what happens.

Sometimes clarity doesn’t come before action.
Sometimes action creates the clarity.

What are you still trying to figure out before you let yourself begin?
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Usually, I’d run for cover.
This time, I let it rain.

On my skin.
Through my hair.
For a moment, I felt like a kid again.

No answers to find.
Nothing to get better at.
Just rain, and me standing in it.

Maybe this is what I meant in Episode 3.
Some things can just be.
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1️⃣ I still don’t completely know what I want to do with the rest of my life. For a long time, I thought I needed a clear destination. Now, I have a clearer idea of how I want life to feel. More freedom. More meaning. More time for the people and things that matter. But the exact path? I’m still figuring that out.

2️⃣ I still care too much about what people think of me. I’ve built a career I’m proud of. I’ve become more confident than the younger version of me ever imagined. But I still catch myself over-preparing. Over-explaining. Wondering how I’m being perceived. I’m getting better at catching it. But I’m not free from it yet.

3️⃣ I know I should slow down. I’m just not always very good at actually doing it. I meditate. I journal. I tell myself to be present. And then give me one exciting idea… and suddenly I’m researching, creating, or trying to figure something out at midnight.

4️⃣ I’m becoming less interested in looking successful… and more interested in whether I’m actually living. The past year has reminded me how quickly life can change. I’ve lost people. I’ve watched people I love fight for more time. And somehow, some of the things I used to worry so much about… just don’t feel as important anymore.

I don’t think turning 42 means I’ve figured life out. Maybe it means I’m finally more comfortable admitting that I haven’t. I’m still ambitious. Still learning. Still overthinking sometimes. Still trying things without knowing where they’ll lead. But I’m getting clearer about one thing.

I don’t want to spend the next part of my life only becoming someone. I want to actually experience being him. I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet. But that’s what Turning 42 is about.

So if you’re figuring out your next chapter too … follow @jasondgreat. Maybe we can figure some of it out together.
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I keep complaining that I give too much.

But the uncomfortable truth is…

sometimes nobody asked me to.

I stepped in.
I took ownership.
I made it mine.

And then I got frustrated that I was carrying so much.

I’m starting to see how often I make other people’s needs urgent…

while the things that matter to me keep waiting.

So this is what I’m trying to practise now:

Just because something needs carrying, doesn’t mean it’s mine to carry.

Because every time I pick up something that isn’t mine,

something that is mine gets left waiting.
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Have you ever been so busy improving your life that you forgot to actually live it?

Work had to lead somewhere.
Learning had to make me better.
Rest had to make me more productive.
Even difficult moments had to become a lesson.

I was constantly asking myself, What did I get out of this?

And somewhere along the way, I forgot how to simply experience life without grading it.

Lately, I’m learning that not everything needs to be useful.
Not every moment needs to become growth.
Not every experience needs to earn its place.

Sometimes, life is allowed to just be lived.

I’m still learning how to do that.
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What if you could call the version of yourself who was scared he’d never figure life out?

At 26, I was stuck in a job I hated, unsure what I wanted, and terrified I’d wake up years later having done nothing about it.

At 42, I’m still figuring things out.

This reel made me realise something I’ve been missing.

When you’re always looking ahead, it’s easy to forget how many things your younger self once wished for… are already your life today.

The career.
The confidence.
The people.
The lessons.
The version of you that made it through things you once thought would break you.

I’m still becoming.

But I don’t want what’s next to make me forget how far I’ve come.

Maybe we all need to look back once in a while.
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Turning 42 — Ep. 02: The void I kept trying to fill

In Episode 1, I said I’m turning 42 and somehow still figuring out what I actually want from life.

I think I’m beginning to understand why I’ve felt a little lost.

For most of my life, moving forward was quite simple.

There was always something more to become.
Something to achieve.
Something to prove.

And as long as there was a gap between who I was and who I thought I needed to be, I knew which direction to run.

Fill the gap.

But what happens when I no longer want to live like there’s something missing in me?

That’s what I’m reframing now.

I don’t need to become less ambitious.

I need to stop making my ambition responsible for making me feel enough.

I can be proud of who I am today and still be curious about who I could become.

I can appreciate the life I have and still want to change parts of it.

I can feel enough and still grow.

The next chapter doesn’t have to be about filling a void.

It can be about choosing where I want to go from a place of already being enough.

If you need more context on why I’m questioning all of this at 42, watch Episode 1 of Turning 42.
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Turning 42 — Ep. 01: I thought I’d have it figured out by now.

This was harder to post than I expected.

I’ve had a lot in my head for years, but putting it out there like this feels very different from keeping it to myself.

I don’t know exactly where this series will go. I just know I want to start being more open about what I’m learning, questioning and trying to change as I enter this next part of my life.

And hopefully, find people somewhere along the way who are figuring out some of the same things too.

If any of this feels familiar, I’d genuinely love to hear from you.
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Most of us wake up and live some version of the same day.

Same routines.
Same patterns.
Same things we keep telling ourselves we’ll change… one day.

I’ve done that too.

But I’m turning 42, and I don’t want to keep waiting for “one day.”

I don’t know exactly what the next chapter will look like.

But I know I want to live it differently.

So I’m starting with the patterns I can see — and actually doing something about them.

This is me changing mine.

If there’s something you’ve been telling yourself you’ll change “one day”… what is it?
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| #jasondgreattaiping #notexactlybnw #asianmen #mindfulmoment #slowliving

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A reminder for anyone who feels like they’re not moving fast enough: you’re probably doing better than you think.

Behind every breakthrough are days that look exactly like this — sitting behind a screen, figuring things out, starting again, getting stuck, learning, refining, and showing up when there’s nothing exciting to show for it.

Lately, I’ve been learning not to turn growth into another race.

To work hard, yes.
But also to recognise how far I’ve already come.
To stop measuring every day by how much I achieved.
And to trust that small, consistent effort compounds even when the outcome isn’t visible yet.

Sometimes we’re so focused on what’s next that we forget to acknowledge the person who has been quietly doing the work all along.

So if you needed this today:

Keep going but don’t forget to be proud of yourself along the way. 🤍
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I haven’t been posting much lately.

I’ve been trying to find myself again.

For a long time, I thought ambition meant doing more — learning more, achieving more, saying yes to opportunities, always making progress.

But somewhere along the way, more became noise.

I realised I don’t want everything.

I want to be more intentional about what deserves my time, energy and ambition.

To go deeper instead of wider.
To build without constantly proving.
To achieve without forgetting to live.

I’m not becoming less ambitious.

My ambition is simply growing up.

And perhaps that’s what this next chapter and what I share here will be about.

📍Taiping Lake Garden
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