Honestly when I look back on my childhood, I was a kind of a huge asshole. As a kid I stole, I bullied, I lied, I fought with other kids. I don't really know why I did all the things I did, either. I remember I stole because I was jealous (and then I returned the items later, after regretting it.) But the rest? I have no idea.

And then at some point I changed, but I don't know when. I remember going to church at 13 and learning more about Christ - I attended a Christian primary school but I didn't really understand the religion until I came to this church. Outside church, I also remember my deeds came back to bite me in middle/high school, as everyone split into cliques, while I was alone: unpopular, occasionally bullied, and constantly lonely. I was miserable, but I think it was the combination of this faith and suffering from my teenage years that tempered me into a better person.

Yet for years afterwards, the loneliness continued to overshadow my life, even when I had no reason to feel so. I stopped being bullied but I had developed a very asocial aura and people avoided me. For years I believed I was unpopular because I had no personality, so I was driven to compensate with achievements so I could be recognized and respected. I was a particularly artsy fellow: English, creative art, and music were my top areas and I worked relentlessly at them, often forgoing the success of my other subjects (except math, which I also loved). Then I went on to military service: not only did I become a respected musician but I also spent my free time going to the gym and poring over books on learning how to socialize, even reading stuff like PUA (although I concluded most of their ideas were too illogical for me to make use of). I even began to pour my time into video games like League of Legends as I was just so hungry for any sort of achievement.

And it paid off, didn't it? Somehow, I did find friends in all of these stages - in the final year of high school, in military service. And then in college I achieved my end goal, the answer to my loneliness: a girlfriend.

Yet now I realize this was a poor objective. My lifelong pursuit of companionship netted me a fair few fake friends in high school. The semester my parents forced me to quit music (in the hopes I would study harder on the other core subjects), I lost the 'respect' and 'friendship' of many of them, amplifying my problems. Later in college, it netted me a girlfriend who didn't have the security or emotional maturity to maintain a romantic relationship. Maybe I saw a little of myself in her.

When I dumped my college ex and my depression hit for a second time, it wasn't just because I was heartbroken. It was because I understood, at least inwardly, that I needed to search for a better purpose in life. And honestly, I don't really know still. But in the three years since, I've become significantly more content as I have narrowed my life purpose search down to three main possibilities.

• Improving job conditions. I am not so idealistic to think employees and employers can come together in an idyllic kum-ba-ya and find an arrangement that makes everyone happy. But I do believe there are things companies can do to make work somewhat less of a suffering experience that also doesn't cut into profits (and in fact can bolster them, more often than not). The problem is I don’t know how lucrative of a career this is, especially in Singapore where HR is not perceived as a particularly valuable service by locals and local companies.
• Making people smile with creative design. It's the area I've always been good in, so why not? My claim to greatness is I have always been good at all three areas of creative art: visual, audio, and literary. I've also become interested in making video games as art; I'm not the best gamer but unlike a lot of game designers I am backed by a solid math foundation, enabling me to analyze systems at a deeper level. The problem is I think this is an even less lucrative career than HRM, given how saturated the art/games market is and how much they struggle with copyright and legality.
• Improving sustainable development in Singapore. I'm still looking into this one, as I just thought of it last year, it's a rather new area, and I'm not a science-y guy. But I'm guessing that saving the environment could also be aided by efficient management and finances, not just a question of the science.