28, a beautiful age let me assure you. Age - using an artificial system to measure the longevity one has lived in this world - is normally nothing to brag about. However, I’ve been consistently bragging about my age, again and again in countless of the resumes sent out in the last couple of days.


This is what I wrote about 28: “... mature enough to see things as they are while still possessing the remaining passion of the youth.”
Its true!
This is a wonderful time to be at. Especially if youre relatively healthy, still with your limbs intact, and not being tightened down by any responsibilities. Its even better if youre an open-minded person wandering about in a strange city, just hungry to learn, to find out who you are and willing to break a thing or two in the process.
I still remember Alan Phan - a respectful businessman and a millionaire - wrote in one of his pieces. More or less like this: sometimes, I just want to go back and be a 30-year-old Xe Om in Sai Gon. With all the knowledge I have right now still in my head, I’ll be building something much greater by my current age.
But 28 is also an age that carries enormous expectations from other people about oneself: “you should have a clear career path, a stable romantic relationship, should be financially independent. Even further, you should own a few material icons like houses and cars…”
There’s a quiet yet relentless pressure overcasting my whole generation about one having to “make it” before a certain age.
That pressure is grueling! It doesn't hurt like a punch - intense and short-lived. It's more like having a small needle under your skin, it’d prick you now and then, makes you feel uncomfortable, and distracts you from enjoying a good book.
I know only too well that I have that needle under my skin, one just can't ignore it. What I can do whenever being bothered by such uncomfortableness, is to recall those lines from Alan Phan. They assure me that I am in the right place, at the prime time in my life.
It’s going to be alright.