Among the young and aspiring amongst us, the Forbes 30 Under 30 is an annual honour roll featuring notable peers who have displayed remarkable achievement and potential in the less-than-three-decades of their lives. It is a list that comes with its fair share of controversy of course, from under-representation of women and racical minorities to the blacklisting of former honourees, especially in Finance (Remember Sam Bankman-Fried anyone?). For the most part though, it is the modern equivalent of knighthood for a young adult.

I do have the privilege of having the acquaintance of someone who has been bestowed that honour. But just about the only illustrous thing we have in common is a GPA above 4.8 in the first year of university in our student club. While he went on to co-found start-ups in finance in Silicon Valley after a stint as a Rhodes Scholar, I masqueraded as your regular Japanese salaryman.

It has been a move that has raised many, many eyebrows to say the least.

While I will never be able to count myself as an honoree in this life, what I can count and recount are 30 episodes under 30 words across 3 languages. Some are more ridiculous than others; all of them are part of the 3 decades of my life.

1. Low-Maintenance. An adjective that my friends would describe my relationship with them. Especially after one of them had to call me through my number because I haven’t replied to her WhatsApp messages in 4 weeks. Turned out that I forgot to install WhatsApp after getting a new phone for those 4 weeks. We are still friends ten years later.
   
   
2. Reliable. An adjective that my friends would describe me. Somehow, people would turn to me for advice and help when they need. I am never sure how helpful the advice was, but am thankful that my friends help me feel useful at times when I felt anything but.
   
   
3. Skinny. How my physical stature has been described for just about my whole life. But no one measured my waist when I settled like a sediment into a purely sedimentary lifestyle during Covid-induced self-isolation. No one saw my shock when I could no longer fit into my only business suit.
   
   
4. Smart. Most times a thoroughly undeserved compliment. At times a thoroughly deserved compliment.
   
   
5. Benchmark. What my middle school teacher told me I was for an English essay more than half a lifetime ago. I had to check up what that word meant and it made me a little sad that my work was of a standard that others would have to surpass to get an “A”. And thought it wasn’t an “A” itself. (It was).
   
   
6. Mugger. A Singlish term to describe a very studious person. Originally refers to someone who commits robbery with violence. Occasionally lobbed at me by classmates when I “rob” them of their grades by scoring good grades and tilting the bell curve against their favour.
   
   
7. Fighter. What our choral director called us in middle school so that we would willingly spend hours rehearsing songs that were way above our leagues in terms of the rigour and musicality required. That’s about the only reason why I can hum along to Hungarian hymns.
   
   
8. Grenade. Threw a live one with my sweaty palms as part of sergeant training school during my military conscription days. The supervising officer was as scared as I was during my turn.
   
   
9. Cher. The truncated first name of a friend from high school and how she wants me to call her by. Also what my cram school tutees would call me when they want my attention on a middle school Chemistry question that was a part of their school assignment.
   
   
10. Strategy. What I eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But inadvertently fail to remember and apply meaningfully in my own life.
    
    
11. Anything. The name of a carbonated drink that went viral in my middle school days because it could turn out to be any random flavor. It was also my default answer to someone else’s “what do you want to eat for lunch” question until that same question was posed back at me once too often.
    
    
12. Whatever. The non-carbonated sister of the Anything drink. My reaction to the yen falling precipatiously against both the Singapore and US dollar in the last few years.
    
    
13. Inadequate. How I felt about myself for the longest time. And how I feel about my current income.
    
    
14. Enough. How I feel about myself these days. Also how I feel about what I have in my life now to be happy and healthy.
    
    
15. Compounding. The Eighth Wonder of the World when applied to interest (finance). A term frequently used by my parents when they remind me of the 4% per annum interest I am missing out by working in Japan and not contributing to CPF back home. Also applies to wrinkles and laugh lines.
    
    
16. Change. What I find myself vehemently resisting and just as emphatically exhorting.
    
    
17. Connect. How I see the role I play in my personal and professional life. Two culturally-different work teams across the Pacific. Two feuding friends over one of their love interest.
    
    
18. Sorry. A word I used too often in the past, so much so that it lost its meaning during the times that I needed it to really mean something. It is now a word which I now use with greater care and reverence.
    
    
19. Thank you. A word which can never be used enough and with the sincerity that it deserves. There have been so many people who have helped me in ways big and small, intentional and unintentional even if they aren’t a part of my life now.
    
    
20. Ephemeral. How long the days seem, but how short the years are. “Sunrise, sunset; sunrise, sunset; swiftly fly the years; one season following another; laden with happiness and tears”.
    
    
21. 哥 (Elder Brother). A role that I grew up with but got to grew out of as my two younger sisters become the fine women that they are.
    
    
22. 老男孩 (Old Boy). A poignant song reminiscing about an old, lost love from the Chopstick Brothers with some of my favourite lyrics all-time. And a most succinct three-character self-description.
    
    
23. 傻瓜 (Silly). What my science teachers probably thought when they saw me fumble with test tubes and other laboratory apparatus. Or when my army trainer presses his palm to his forehead for the n^th time as he watches me grapple and struggle with assembling a rifle.
    
    
24. 随波逐流 (Go with the Flow). An approach suggesting considerable flexibility and adaptability to the vissicitudes of life. What I like to think I have been adopting.
    
    
25. 得过且过 (Go with the Flow 2). A more accurate translation would be to “muddle along”. It is also the more accurate state of my life on most days.
    
    
26. なるほど (I see). Grunts of verbal affirmation that I give regardless of whether I understand what the other party has been saying. It helps that I understand more of it now.
    
    
27. 板挟み (Trapped between a rock and a hard place). My friend described it more as between a pillow and a soft place when I agonized for more than a year about choosing among university scholarships.
    
    
28. 運転免許書 (Driver’s license). The only other qualification outside of the Japanese language proficiency tests which I obtained outside of work. In my parents’ eyes, it is worth more than both my Highest Distinction degrees at one of the world’s higher ranking universities.
    
    
29. 穴場 (Hole-in-the-wall). By definition severely underrated locales of which there are many in Tokyo. From the izakaya of an effervscent okaa-san who never fails to give me a hug before I leave to a showcase of memorabilia made of discarded scraps of paper and cardboard from years gone by.
    
    
30. 詫び寂び (Wabi-sabi). An awareness of the transience of things and an acceptance of imperfection. A Japanese concept that still resonates deeply.
    
    
31. BONUS: Non, je’ne regrette rien (I regret nothing). The title of the Edith Piaf song that plays in the movie Inception to wake characters from a dream state into a shallower level of consciousness. Also what I am committed to for the next 30 years.