Why Would I Write

  • Or anything else to lean on

    Or anything else to lean on

    Yesterday, I asked myself: why do I even bring my bag to the office? I started thinking about it. Then it hit me – going to work was like going to school. It was part of my “uniform”. I’ve worn a backpack almost every day in my life ever since I was five. I’m turning forty this year. That’s crazy.

    Why is it crazy? Well, there are many days when I don’t even touch my backpack after arriving at the office. I put it down next to my seat and ignore it for the next 8 hours of the day. It just sits there all day collecting dust and bacteria from all the feet shuffling by.

    I’m carrying my bag for nothing. It contains my personal laptop, its accessories, my gym tag, lock, water bottle, keys, and wallet. It makes sense to bring it out during my work-from-home days, but on my office days? I have no reason to.

    My office laptop stays in the office, so it’s not like I need the bag to lug it home. Then why do I still bring my backpack to the office? I used to think it was a great idea to have my laptop with me at all times. That way, whenever inspiration struck, no matter where I was, I’d be able to pull out my laptop and start writing. Hah! Ever the optimist.

    That used to be the case, but no longer in recent months. Despite having my laptop with me at all times, I haven’t felt the bug to write. As evident by the date of my last blog post. It’s tough deciding what I’d like the world readers to know about me.

    I obviously can’t bear everything about myself, firstly – it would be boring. Secondly, there are parts of my life I don’t want out there for everyone to read. Not that they would be interesting – trust me, I’ve milked stories about my life enough. Heck, this blog is 90% about my life.

    I’ve shared more about myself than anybody needs to know. Hopefully, it’s been entertaining.

    I write for funsies. I’d like to believe it keeps my writing abilities intact. As though I don’t already write enough at work. But if I can’t tell my own stories, how can I do the same for other people? You gotta practice what you make a living off.

    It gives me comfort knowing that the best writers I know write for fun. There must be a reason, right? Regardless, it’s fun to write for fun.

    However, I have been suffering from writer’s block recently. Is it all in my head? Am I making excuses for myself? Maybe. The lack of recent blog posts is proof that I haven’t been able to complete a piece of writing for fun (I’ve got tons of shitty drafts though).

    My songwriting has also been on hold because of this. I told myself I would take a break from live shows to focus on writing new songs because I didn’t want to keep playing the same songs forever. I haven’t played a live show in months.

    I took time to write new music and I have three new demos now, but none of them have vocal melodies, let alone lyrics. Where I’m also stuck.

    You know how much easier it is to write song lyrics when you’re feeling heartbroken and upset? Suddenly, everything you say sounds like poetry. It’s not what I’m going through now. I know it’s an excuse. I should be able to write lyrics even when I’m not unhappy.

    It’s tough and a step out of my comfort zone. But that’s just what life is. Sometimes you need to step out of your comfort zone – if you want to make progress in life or make it interesting. You do things you don’t do every day. Like learning to write non-depressing lyrics.

    Maybe I need to stop bringing my backpack to the office. My back might thank me for it. Perhaps not having access to my laptop at all times will inspire me to write more. It can’t hurt to try. And doing the same thing and expecting different results is insanity. Something needs to change.

    I need to make moves, not excuses.

  • At Ease with Being at Ease

    At Ease with Being at Ease

    I realized I was procrastinating a lot in life. It wasn’t just work—even when it came to doing things for myself, like waking up earlier to get things done on the weekend, I’d put it off, which would then delay my later plans even further. It was a snowball effect.

    I put off finishing my work as though I was practicing edging like there was no tomorrow—waiting until the eve of a deadline to submit it. Even though it wasn’t technically a problem, I felt guilty. I wasn’t being paid to goof off; I was paid to work during working hours. To deliver impact.

    Instead of working at 100% efficiency like my hardworking colleagues during office hours, I spent my nights catching up on work to compensate. I felt that I needed to because I wasted time during the day, so it was my penance to continue working after hours.

    Never mind the fact that I tell myself I’m more productive at night. Maybe that’s just an excuse—after all, productivity shouldn’t depend on the time of day.

    You know how when you’re doing something unproductive, your mind sometimes wanders, and you think, Why am I doing this when I could be doing something productive instead? That’s been me for the longest time.

    I don’t stop whatever I’m doing, mind you—I just think about what I should be doing instead. It’s not great, to be honest. This all started earlier this year when I thought to myself, Hmm, how do I get rid of my procrastination habit? Ironically, I was procrastinating when that thought occurred to me.

    I kept falling into the same cycle. I was gaining nothing by procrastinating, yet I kept doing it, despite knowing it was a problem. But I couldn’t just stop. It’s one of the most difficult things to overcome, especially when it’s a habit you’ve spent most of your adult life reinforcing.

    So I decided to speak to my therapist about it. Not the edging part—that analogy only popped into my head tonight—but the part about feeling bad about procrastinating. I wanted to stop.

    Besides giving me actionable goals, she dug deeper to find the root cause. She shared an image of a triangle and explained:


    Feelings, thoughts, and behavior are all linked. If you understand what triggers your emotions or thoughts while procrastinating, you can identify the underlying cause.

    She also told me that nobody can stay focused for eight hours a day. It’s simply not human. Everyone needs breaks.

    Regardless, we’ve spent the past few weeks trying to uncover the core issue.

    I’ve tried recording my thoughts and feelings, but so far, I’ve got nothing. Maybe it’s suppressed trauma. Maybe it’s something else. The problem is, I don’t feel much of anything when I procrastinate. I don’t even think about it. I just do it.

    In the meantime, she gave me some actionable goals—similar to what my previous therapist suggested:

    • Try the Pomodoro technique.
    • Break big tasks into smaller ones to make them more manageable.
    • Reward yourself. Give yourself something to look forward to.
    • Time your breaks. Be mindful of how long they last.

    This time, I took the timing advice seriously, and it’s helped the most. I started tracking my daily activities.

    When you start paying attention to how you spend your time, it brings clarity and focus. You can measure how much time is truly wasted and how much is spent working hard. And surprisingly, it’s been working. I’m not a machine (yet), but I’ve been more productive than before.

    I even did something unthinkable. For the first time in eighteen years, I filed my taxes the same week I received my tax form. A small task, but to me, a massive accomplishment.

    Imagine if I could be 100% productive when I’m supposed to be. How powerful would that make me???

    In the end, it’s just like managing your finances. They say the easiest way to save money is to track your spending so you can see how much you waste or save. The same applies to time. And to your caloric intake. And your fat or muscle gains. Track everything that matters to you.

    It’s never too late to start paying attention.

    So, tonight, for the first time in a long time, I’m sitting at a cafe, typing out this little essay—not worrying about work. Because I was productive earlier today and finished my tasks before leaving the office. There’s still work to be done, sure, but that’s for tomorrow.

    For those of you struggling with procrastination—if you want to overcome it, you can. Start today.

  • Hello Hostinger, Goodbye iWHOST

    Hello Hostinger, Goodbye iWHOST

    You know the adage—you don’t know how good something is until you’ve tried it? That was me with web hosting for the past decade. I stuck with the first web host I found, iWHOST, until December 2024.

    For years, I put up with my blog’s constant downtime and slow performance—both from a user and visitor standpoint. My website’s performance was terrible on Google Analytics, and I was failing all speed tests. I tried everything within my means to improve my blog’s performance. Coincidentally, we were dealing with the same issue at work, though I wasn’t directly involved in the process there (they had higher stakes to deal with—mine’s just some public diary).

    Through all this, I learned about things like headless CMS, flat-file CMS, and non-database blogs. I even considered switching to a different CMS for speed, but I quickly realized I’d lose all the convenience and features of WordPress. Customizing my theme would be a pain in the ass. So, I decided to stick with WordPress.

    I started with the obvious fixes—switching to lightweight themes, using performance improvement plugins, and constantly looking up ways to optimize my blog. After a while, I realized my biggest bottleneck wasn’t WordPress itself but my hosting provider’s hardware.

    My first thought: upgrade to a higher plan. For context, I had been using iWHOST’s RM199 plan for the better part of a decade. It used to be cheaper, but the price went up by about RM50 a while ago. However, what was good enough in 2007 wasn’t cutting it in 2024.

    So, I clicked around their better plans. Turns out, I wasn’t even on SSD hosting—no wonder my speeds were trash. The cheapest SSD plan started at RM250 annually—a slight bump but probably my choice if I had stayed.

    Then I checked out their WordPress-specific plan, thinking it might be optimized and cheaper since I only needed it for my blog. Nope. It was RM389.04 annually. At that point, I started wondering: was it even worth sticking with iWHOST? I don’t make money from my blog. I have less than 30 readers a day. Maybe it was time to move to a new platform like Medium or Substack instead?

    But I love the control I have over my blog. I can change everything about it, from the design to the back end, all without serving you any ads. That choice is important to me. I didn’t want my blog to end up looking like every other standard Substack or Medium page.

    So, no—I wanted a custom solution. I had been with trusty ol’ reliable for over a decade. Loyalty! I couldn’t just abandon them, right? That’s what I thought at first. But then I started looking around at alternative web hosts.

    Holy shit, there are so many web hosts out there. Then something caught my eye—the first Google ad in my search results: Hostinger. Yes, SEM works (for people with high intent, apparently). But what really got me? RM3.99/month.

    Wait a minute, web hosting can be that cheap?!

    I had never heard of Hostinger before, so I did some research. After reading some reviews, it turns out they’re pretty legit. I reached out to them, but their chatbot only gave generic answers. However, a few hours later, I got an email from their sales rep with detailed responses to all my questions.

    That was enough for me to take the leap. They had a 30-day money-back guarantee anyway.

    I signed up for their promo offer—RM191.52 for 2 years, which reverts to RM119.88 annually after that. I had nothing to lose.

    My account was created. I logged in, kickstarted the blog migration process, and changed the nameservers for goodnewsgeorge.com to point to my new host.

    Crossed my fingers. Hoped for the best.

    Holy shit. The difference in speed was night and day.

    I couldn’t believe how fast my blog was. For years, I had been crippling my website (and my visitors) with slow loading times. And all it took was a chat with a sales rep, some money, and less than two days.

    Now, look at my website’s performance:

    • It’s blazing fast.
    • I’m paying less than before (even after the promo expires).
    • I had a great experience with their sales team.
    • The migration process was smooth.
    • Their dashboard is nice to use.

    Honestly, no complaints so far. The only drawback of my current plan (Single) is that it supports only one website. With iWHOST, I had unlimited sites as long as I didn’t exceed my storage (a feature I never fully utilized). If I ever need multiple sites, Hostinger’s Premium plan is still cheaper than what I was paying before.

    One of the best upgrades I’ve made in a while. You’re welcome.

    If you don’t notice the speed increase, that’s fine. Google Analytics does. And that’s good enough for me.

    If you’re considering a web host, check out Hostinger. I’m sharing a referral code for the first time in my life, feel free to use it or erase the UTM parameters in the link—your call.