I think I’ve built myself into a pretty good daily routine—starting early in the morning and following it through naturally until the night. So each week has started to feel like a natural evolution of the previous one.

Week 38 was spent in a flow, and in a productive way. It had been a while since I followed through with most of my daily routines and stacked so much reading into my days. Life feels simpler and easier when I stop overthinking and just do things. The overall rhythm feels much more peaceful compared to before.

Sitting here reviewing my last week, a great sense of gratitude swept over me. There are still ups and downs, but the overall rhythm feels much stronger and steadier. And this week, I don’t mind starting with a low note.

A False Goal Is Worse Than No Goal

It’s about work. I’ve been introduced to a new project with Party A, who had previously succeeded on Kickstarter. So they now want to make their grand entrance into Shopify, with a very ambitious goal: to make a huge amount of money within three months, using a newly created website and some of the budget from their Kickstarter project.

After hearing their goal, my first reaction was: It would be quicker to just get a money-printing machine and start printing dollars.

They had no clear idea how the product would reach its target audience, while still having this blind confidence in the product itself. It’s great that they’ve had a successful experience before. But I’ve seen this type of client many times. I don’t mind people dreaming big. There is nothing wrong with having an ambitious goal. But dreaming big and pretending a goal is realistic are two different things.

What bothered me was that several agencies were competing for the project, and every one of them came up with a “perfect” action plan, as if the sales target had already been secured. But no matter how perfect the plan looks, it doesn’t change the reality that the goal itself may be unrealistic.

And honestly, if there were an agency that could reliably turn a brand-new website into enormous sales within three months, they probably wouldn’t have remained an agency for very long. They would have become billionaires themselves.

What I couldn’t understand was this: it seemed crystal clear to me that, for everyone involved, this was close to a mission impossible. Yet nobody wanted to stand out and say it. I’m so tired of this type of energy waste—spending hours generating the perfect AI plan, holding endless meetings, and building an elaborate plan around a goal that simply isn’t realistic.

If it were me, I’d rather take one step at a time, start with a smaller and more achievable goal, and build from there. It might not sound as glamorous, but at least it would be something we could actually execute, measure, and learn from. I could already imagine those three months being wasted in beautiful hallucinations rather than real work. Because going after a false goal can be worse than having no goal at all.

So I chose to quit the project.

Choosing What Matters

That day, when I got back to my neighborhood on a sunny afternoon, the streets were almost empty. It felt completely different from the area where many businesses operate, where I had seen so many tired people moving around with low energy.

I felt so relieved. I wasn’t chasing a hallucinated dream. I wasn’t producing something I didn’t believe in or wasting my time and energy just for the sake of making money. And that was the high note right after the low note.

That’s when I knew I was on the right path—not because everything was perfect, but because I was slowly building something I actually believed in.

I’m good. Life is good. I don’t have to play the same game everyone else is playing just to become rich. I don’t need to chase every opportunity that comes with a big number attached to it. Some opportunities cost more than they pay—not in money, but in time, energy, and the kind of person you become while pursuing them.

I’m rich inwardly, and I believe that by doing the right things and doing them consistently, someday I’ll achieve worldly richness as a byproduct.

I’m not in a rush to compete with anyone. I choose to quit the game because I’d like to create a different one. A slower game. A more honest game. One where I can make the goal smaller, make it real, and take one step at a time.

Maybe that’s what flow means to me now. Not having everything figured out. Not moving as fast as possible. But knowing what is worth my time, what is worth building, and what is worth walking away from. I don’t need a mirage. I’d rather build something I care about.

Until next week~