Category: Thought Bubble

Being perceived as soft, is often immediately linked to weakness. Much like every other outdated phrase of masculinity masquerading as a fragile ego, the idea of being labelled as soft is usually interpreted as being a pushover, lacking resilience or unable to hold power in any given situation.

The link between softness and strength is rarely made.

To retain a warm disposition after experiencing hardship is not an insurmountable amount of work. It’s much easier to avoid hardships by cutting off access to yourself entirely, staying safe and sheltered within an iron clad defence.

What you label as safety is really a sealed, sanitised world running alongside reality. It shields you from discomfort, but also from growth, keeping you suspended in a stagnant version of safety you’ve convinced yourself is real.

These are often the same type of people who dodge difficult conversations by deflecting, or who use the silent treatment as a reflexive response to conflict.

As a reformed silent-treatment expert, fuelled by a hyper-independent nature, I had managed to convince myself that no matter the outcome, I could comfortably go it alone.

An offhanded comment at a dinner party made me question my hard wired beliefs. I distinctly remember saying, “I love my people, they’re the best – but they’re ‘nice to have’, I think I’d be fine by myself”.

A friends swift rebuttal instantly challenged my view, highlighting the importance of community and reinforcing that life is only good because you have people to share it with. It compelled me to pull apart my perspective, instead of just rattling it off as the drafted talking point in my mind.

I had completely neglected to acknowledge that parts of my personality, the way I view the world and the reason that I’m able to try my hand at whatever crash hot idea of the day I have at the time is largely shaped by the people around me. More so, the significant contribution they make in the unmeasurable time, energy and support they dedicateto me.

As a self-identified solo operator, I relinquished myself of the perceived burden of having to deal with things I didn’t want to. I signed off on my own permission slip, absolving myself of any responsibilities I didn’t see the value or merit in dealing with.

Determined to discard it rather than process it, because working through any strong yet confusing feelings would mean retracing my steps to the core reason I found it uncomfortable, and at that stage I wasn’t willing to do that.

It feels similar to wanting to renovate your house for improvements, digging down a little, then hitting a water pipe, and instead of working through solutions to manage the setback or address the weak spot, you choose to throw the dirt back on top, pat it down, and return to regular programming.

You settle into what feels familiar and free of immediate inconvenience, rather than doing the work and benefitting from an improved home that better suits your needs.

But like the fictitious water pipe, pushing down unprocessed emotions will eventually compound, just like the sediment you tossed over the problem to make it go away.

Deciding to be part of something that extends beyond yourself means putting yourself out there, which exposes you to more experiences, both good and bad. Even if it’s the latter, the more trials you endure, the more you benefit by building resilience, increasing your tolerance to adversity and learning what to avoid in the future.

Softness doesn’t automatically grant entry, but it allows you to be accessible. A hard exterior often fails to decipher the difference between the positive and the negative, limiting your chance to experience anything of real value.

Venturing into the world with an open mind, even after it has taught you to harden, is an act of real strength.

Growing up, food didn’t bring me an immense amount of joy. I was a painfully fussy eater, only picking through my limited pre-approved list of meals. As an adult, I’ve outgrown the fussy eater phase, but I’ve held on to the ‘painful’ part and managed to thread it through most areas of my life.

Seafood is still largely a no-go zone. My disdain for scales and shells developed a longstanding Christmas tradition of a three-course lunch: the main meal, followed by platters of seafood only after I’d left the table, and then wrapped up with dessert, which I was unlikely to return for. My painful nature in full flight.

Any protein that wasn’t chicken breast or processed lunch meats was off the cards for me. A Sunday roast, steak at a BBQ, or anything besides honey chicken at a Chinese restaurant would be happily traded for a piece of Vegemite toast.

I viewed my unwavering love for toast as a gift to my parents, knowing they could take peace in the fact that I am entirely satisfied with a couple of slices of toast for dinner. It turns out that this was not a shared view, and me rejecting their well-balanced, home-cooked meals for some toasted Tip Top bread raised their blood pressure as if they were the ones living off processed carbohydrates and sodium.

A unanimously agreed on positive was that I was a cheap date to take to restaurants. Growing up in Bankstown, my parents carted my sister and me to their circuit of Vietnamese restaurants for Pho.

I had the same order and routine for about 10 years, chicken pho with a second bowl. On arrival, I’d scoop all of the noodles into a separate bowl, pick out all of the chicken and place it on my dad’s garnish plate, saving the original bowl of broth to sip on later.

When we moved to Campbelltown, the tradition lived on and we started scouting new spots to try. One of my favourites was just around the corner from my primary school. Every so often, my dad would pick me up in the afternoon after finishing a 12-hour night shift. As a thank you, I treated him to an unsolicited extra serving of protein slapped on a meal he paid for.

Fast forward a couple of decades and the routine remains the same. Dining at a new spot in  Newtown, we glance at the menu as if we weren’t about to order the exact same meal, make desperate eye contact to show we’re ready to order, and then I settle in for my pre-meal entertainment of Dad mixing half a bottle of hoisin and sriracha while we wait.

As soon as the bowls arrive, my scene starts. Sliding my bowl closer to his to minimise the drip factor, I start picking out most of the meat to add to his soup. As soon as I look up, I catch him rolling his eyes and muttering, “here we go.”

My brain kicks into overdrive, fuelled by every ounce of self-awareness. My mind starts flipping through a mental slideshow of all the times I’d divided up my meals to avoid the bits I didn’t like, and how he’d always taken whatever I passed his way without hesitation.

I’d convinced myself that this was a prime window of opportunity to capitalise on the double protein. His view? Largely indifferent, sometimes inconvenienced, firm in the belief this approach was the lesser of two evils.

Is this what true love looks like to me? Absolutely. Being able to fling meat across to someone else’s bowl without question is the purest expression of love.

It may seem contradictory, considering I’ve just painted myself as the dinner date from hell, but cooking for someone is one of the most sincere ways I know to show care and appreciation.

I get this from my parents, although we don’t always interpret things the same way. When I hear “Chop Suey,” I think of a System of a Down song, not Sapasui, the Samoan version of Chop Suey, which is their instinctive thought.

To me, the meal is secondary. It’s the subtle acts of service that gently weave their way into everyday life. I can feel my ancestors rolling their eyes as I say this, as my simplification overlooks the importance of culture and the fact that food, at its core, is a basic necessity for survival.

With that disclaimer out of the way, I’m climbing back onto the hill that I’ll die on, that thoughtful gestures provide an enduring sense of fulfilment, long after the plates are cleared.

It’s the “I know you’re working late, dinner is in the fridge,” making a conscious effort to remember dietary requirements, remembering someone’s tea to milk ratio. It’s the people in your life who top up your glass of wine after a hard day, then swap it out for a bottle of water hours later because you are one standard drink away from not being able to make eye contact with anyone the next day.

Care is about filling the gaps in places you didn’t realise even existed.

If your introduction to Tik Tok was through the lyrics of Kesha, you’re probably experiencing the phase of life where everyone suddenly starts speaking with plurals.The usual suspects, ‘we’re pregnant’, ‘we’re engaged’, ‘we’re excited to announce…’ etc.

This era also adds an additional layer of vetting on social media to decipher whether the plastic device with two lines is a positive pregnancy test, or COVID-19 result. 

I was at dinner with a girlfriend last week and time started to catch up and confuse us. I was certain she was 31, I even would have assumed 30, but her 30th birthday is forever etched in my memory. She is the only person I’ve ever known to rally a team to run a half marathon for her milestone birthday. Unsure of her own age, she pulled out a calculator and confirmed she was 33 this year.

During the conversations of her wedding plans for December, we started to reminisce on what life was like just a few years earlier. Romanticising the memories of spontaneity, being able to party until 2am and still get up for 6am run club and have accepted the fate of renting forever. 

The themes of your life change quickly once you start to hit this phase. The odds of winning the lotto and being able to select a date in the same month to catch up with your group of friends are scarily similar.

You watch girlfriends meticulously calculate the number of drinks they’ve had at lunch, not because they’ve got a few hours in the office afterwards – but they need to assess what time they can breastfeed again. You start to question caffeine after midday, know a surprising amount about the importance of gut health, and have a nighttime routine.

Things start to have to make sense. Planning extends beyond what your agenda is from Friday night to Sunday afternoon, decisions start to hold more weight and you begin to oscillate between ‘YOLO’ and ‘does this align to my five year plan?’

You also start to question if the acronyms you use are still relevant and start to reckon with the fact that maybe it isn’t appropriate to verbally respond with ‘lol’  during face to face conversations instead of laughing. 

The charm naivety fades as the expectation of competence grows.

So, consolidate your debt and superannuation accounts to avoid paying excessive interest and fees (while you’re at it check if you have income protection). Set up a payment plan for any fines and if they’re from tolls, open an E-Tag account to claim cash back. Regularly review your subscription services, and try to practice mindfulness as you navigate the inevitable waves of existential dread.

My parents never minced their words when it came to our education. They were adamant any cost associated with improving our life trajectory was worth the investment. Dad repeated this often, moving beyond mere sincerity, he was defiant.

At fourteen, I didn’t understand the value in this, or need to continually harp on about it. At most, I saw it as an opportunity to drum up ideas of how to be an ‘educational spin’ on the irrelevant items I wanted. I was a cunning teenager, but given the fact I managed to swindle a total of zero things under the guise of strengthening learning pathways, reaffirms that skills for my career in communications and marketing developed later on. 

I think most kids and teenagers see school and extracurriculars as just things you have to do. A checklist you work through because that’s what’s expected, with no real sense of choice. I never really saw my school years as the ‘foundations’ of my future, especially when the final years of high school barely reflect the life skills you actually need once you leave. Things like taxes, how to enrol to vote, financial wellbeing, how to apply for a rental, none of it’s covered.

Granted, this experience isn’t universal. Some students have a 10-year plan mapped out from the moment they step through the school gates on orientation day in Year 7. These are usually the same people who, years later, politely stop themselves from rolling their eyes at me as I sit in a GP’s office rattling off a self-diagnosis from WebMD. I’m eternally grateful for their patience.

Still, especially in the public school system, I don’t think we set young people up for success in their day-to-day lives. But hey, at least they can analyse and annotate a Robert Frost poem when they graduate.

After almost 10 years in the property development industry, holding various roles, I started to wonder what was next, genuinely concerned I was about to pigeonhole myself into the sector. More than that, I was afraid I’d end up doing something “just because.” Just because it’s what I knew. Just because it paid well. Just because it was familiar. Just because my career and identity had become so closely intertwined.

Then I read a few chapters of Who Gets to Be Smart by Bri Lee and something clicked. I knew I wanted to work on education reform, especially within the public school system. I started thinking about how I could pivot from my role at the time into this space. My first thought was to shadow the government affairs manager and enrol in a Bachelor of Social and Economic Policy at ANU in 2022.

As life would have it, there was a company-wide restructure that saw 500 roles made redundant, mine included. I was lucky enough to be redeployed into a marketing manager position, and when the responsibilities piled up and talks began about hiring a marketing executive to support me, I knew it was time to go.

I resigned. No job lined up. No five-year plan. Just a very clear sense that working in education was where I needed to be. And anything outside of that felt like a waste of everyone’s time, mine included.

It was the first time I made a decision not based on a play by play plan, but on what I intuitively knew was right. The thought and consideration were still there, I’d just decided to choose the moment rather than wait for it.

I think we carry a lot of self-imposed limitations, but there are also plenty handed to us through policy gaps and systemic failures.

When I think about what strengthens a society, it always comes back to education. Most people aren’t asking for everything to be handed to them—they just want the tools to get where they need to be. Skills for self-improvement aren’t innate; they’re learned. Through education, we begin to understand how to challenge the systems that shape our lives, whether it’s internal processes or broader government structures. Relevant, accessible education gives people the power to take control.

And when people feel in control of their lives? Well, how do you feel? If you’re employed, housed, and relatively stable in a time when interest rates rise faster than your wages, chances are you feel like you have some level of control.

You might not feel totally fulfilled. The idea of filling up your car might still make you wince. But being able to manage the basics of life gives you a kind of freedom. I know, it’s wild to associate paying rent and income tax with freedom. But bear with me.

When we can’t meet our base level needs, or when multiple issues start piling up, they compound. Quickly. And that’s how apathy, frustration, and a loss of control start to set in.

Financial wellbeing. Understanding how to invest. Knowing where your super’s going. Comparing energy providers. Knowing what carbon offsetting is and how to find out if your provider does it. These are just some of the building blocks adults need to feel like they’re on steady ground.

So what about young people?

Equitable access to early education. The research is clear: kids who attend quality preschool programs are more likely to start school with the social, cognitive, and emotional skills they need to keep learning.

And everything in between?

Well, curriculum reform, for starters. Incorporate the evolution of technology. Reassess what maths we actually teach in secondary school. Maybe data literacy and understanding statistics matter more now than trigonometry.

Early education. Relevant curriculum. Lifelong learning. Are my top three that come to mind.