A Reflection on Leadership, Life, and Uphill Journeys

“Going uphill feels eternal. Going downhill feels like a blink. Yet, who we become is forged on the climb.”

A Night of Unexpected Lessons

It was April 29, 2025 — a soft Tuesday night.

I was with all three of my children, walking Loki, our dog.

Routine. Familiar. Comforting.

Until tonight.

Tonight, Loki bolted.

The security guard pointed us toward unfamiliar paths, helping us search. Trust, which I thought we had built through daily walks, cracked.

Temptation won. Loki chose freedom over faithfulness.

As my children scattered, calling his name into the night, disappointment stirred.

I realized: trust, like leadership, is never “achieved.” It’s always a work in progress.

Swimming Upstream: Gravity at Work

Later, swimming laps in the quiet pool, the motion of my arms mirrored the internal wrestle.

Life obeys the law of gravity.

Going uphill is slow, painful, eternal.

Going downhill? Effortless, fleeting.

Swimming, every minute felt stretched thin, each breath a battle.

But resting afterward? Five minutes vanished like smoke.

It struck me how much life mirrors this:

• Scrolling your phone for “five minutes” becomes an hour.
• Snoozing your alarm “just once” steals your whole morning.
• Indulgence feels easy. Effort feels endless.

Gravity is always pulling us down. But purpose invites us upward.

Time Is Equal, Yet It Feels Different

Scientifically, every second ticks the same.

Emotionally, time warps.

Discipline — like swimming, studying, exercising — stretches time painfully long.

Ease — like lounging, gaming, scrolling — compresses time unnaturally short.

This distortion feeds the illusion that “hard things take too long” while “easy things cost nothing.”

But the truth?

Small surrenders to comfort accumulate into lost seasons.

Snoozing the Alarm: A Secret Time Machine

I once joked with a friend:

“If you want a time machine, just snooze your alarm.”

Slide the snooze button, and suddenly half an hour vanishes.

Ease always promises “just a little longer” — and robs us silently.

The same happens with leadership procrastination, parenting, personal health — one snooze at a time.

Small choices shape destiny more quietly than we realize.

Leadership Through Brokenness: The Johor Flood Story

Earlier this year, one of our teammate lost his home in the Johor floods.

I reached out, offering help, and imagined:

What if he continued hosting friends, but never allowed them inside his broken house?

At first, they would come — confused.

Eventually, they would stop — shut out by pride, not cruelty.

Leadership is the same.

Real leaders don’t hide their brokenness.

They invite others into their imperfect realities.

Vulnerability is not weakness — it is the birthplace of real trust.

Failure Isn’t Weakness: Edison, Einstein, and the Long Road to Light

Society often treats failure as shameful.

But Edison failed a thousand times before creating the light bulb.

Each failure wasn’t a defeat.

It was data — crossing off what didn’t work, inching closer to what would.

Einstein captured it perfectly:

“Failure is success in progress.”

If Edison had equated failure with weakness, the world might still be lit by fire.

True leaders embrace failure — not as proof they are broken, but as proof they are building.

Parenting, Principles, and Timing: The Duolingo Dilemma

Raising children forces daily leadership decisions.

One principle I hold: no screen time after 9 PM.

But Duolingo — an educational app for learning Chinese — seemed an exception worth making.

Yet at 10 PM, even “educational” screens disrupted rest.

The right principle (“learning is good”) collided with another (“sleep is sacred”).

Similarly, practicing piano is wonderful — unless it disrupts a household trying to sleep.

Leadership requires more than enforcing rules.

It demands reading seasons.

The right action at the wrong time becomes wrong.

Sabbath Lessons: When Principles Outweigh People

The Pharisees once condemned Jesus for healing on the Sabbath and for allowing His disciples to pluck and eat grain, which they considered unlawful work on that day.

They clung to principle — but missed the heart.

Jesus wasn’t abolishing the Sabbath.

He was restoring its soul.

In leadership and life, principles must serve people, not enslave them.

Otherwise, we risk killing what we most hope to preserve.

The Myth of Sacrifice: A New Definition of Joy

Today, I overheard friends talking:

“Travel now before the baby arrives — you’ll lose your freedom!”

As if parenthood were loss — a sacrifice of joy.

But watching my pregnant wife — her quiet strength, her glowing perseverance — I saw something deeper.

She wasn’t losing life.

She was creating it.

And me, staying home from a cycling trip?

Not a loss.

A realignment.

True joy doesn’t cling to old freedoms.

It embraces new purposes.

Sacrifice isn’t losing yourself.

It’s finding a bigger version of yourself — one that stretches to hold more love, more meaning.

Uphill Is the Only Way

Swimming tonight reminded me:

• Uphill effort stretches time but forges character.
• Downhill ease compresses time but erodes substance.

Scrolling, lounging, hiding — these are easy.

But they leave no legacy.

Building trust after it’s broken.

Choosing discipline when indulgence calls.

Loving when comfort whispers “stay selfish.”

These are uphill.

And they are everything.

Conclusion: Gravity Is Real. So Is Grace.

Gravity pulls everything down.

Comfort. Ego. Laziness. Indulgence.

But grace pulls upward:

• Toward trust rebuilt after betrayal.
• Toward failure seen as discovery.
• Toward leadership born of brokenness.
• Toward family built on choice, not obligation.

Going downhill is fast.

Going uphill feels slow.

But our worth is not measured by how fast we move — only by the direction we choose.

So tonight, even when tired, even when gravity feels heavy, I choose — again — the uphill road.

Because gravity may pull me down.

But grace calls me higher.

Good night.