There was a time when I measured my worth by the number of hours I worked.
The longer the spreadsheet stayed open, the safer I felt. It was proof that I was trying hard enough—that I deserved the chair I was sitting in.
I was in my twenties, freshly out of university, working in a role that normally required years of experience. Ambition came easily to me—so did duty, and the quiet hunger for approval. I wanted to do well. I wanted to prove that taking a chance on me wasn’t a mistake.
Then the pandemic arrived.
The world fell still, and my life shrank into a glowing rectangle. From morning until midnight—and often well beyond—my computer screen became both my window and my cage. Work blurred into meals, meals into anxiety, weekends into weekdays. The days lost their edges; time became a flat, colourless thing, punctuated only by the blue light that stained my vision long after I’d closed my laptop.
At first, I thought this was what dedication looked like. Hard work prevails—that was what I’d always been told. So I pushed further. If ten hours weren’t enough, twelve would be. Then fourteen. Then sixteen. At one point, I was spending almost every waking moment working, as if sheer endurance could bend reality to my will, as if exhaustion itself was currency.
But there’s a moment where effort turns against you.
My sleep began to fracture. Even when I closed my eyes, my mind kept whirring through formulas and to-do lists, looping like a broken record, stuck on item 87 of 120+. I smiled in meetings—the kind of smile that aches behind your eyes—so no one would notice how much I was unravelling beneath the surface.
One evening, I ran a bath, put on some music, and sat there in the warm water. I was learning violin at the time, and Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto played through my speakers—soaring, urgent, beautiful. But I couldn’t feel the warmth. I couldn’t hear the beauty. The notes washed over me like white noise.
A thought surfaced—gentle, but undeniable: This can’t be it.
I wasn’t angry. Just tired. Not the kind of tired that rest can fix, but the kind that comes when meaning drains out of things, when the very thing you’ve built your life around begins to suffocate you. Stress and anxiety covered me like a second skin. I promised myself I’d leave the job—but only after I’d succeeded. I couldn’t bear to quit defeated.
Eventually, I did succeed—though not in the way I expected.
Success arrived quietly, not through output but through surrender. I began setting boundaries: no work at weekends, no more midnight emails. I started jogging—masked up, around empty streets at dawn, when the city was still holding its breath. At first it was simply to exhaust my thoughts, but something shifted with each run.
The stress I carried—the tension that lived in every muscle, that made me unable to even recognise my own exhaustion—began to sweat out of me. And in that release, I could finally feel that I was stressed. Before, it was everywhere and nowhere. After, I could name it. Touch it. And feeling it meant I could finally rest.
Around that time, my old boss mentioned an online volunteering programme—tutoring English for children in Taiwan. I joined on impulse.
It was simple, ordinary work. But after months of isolation, that single hour of human exchange each week reminded me what being alive actually felt like. One day, a boy I was teaching produced a full sentence in English—structured, correct, proud. His face lit up. And in that moment, I felt something I hadn’t felt in what seemed like years: I was making a difference in someone’s life.
In hindsight, my real problem wasn’t overwork; it was disconnection.
For half a year I hadn’t truly spoken to anyone. Not friends, not family, not even the colleagues I spent twelve hours a day on video calls with. My conversations were about projects, never feelings. Even when people asked how I was, my automatic reply was, ‘I’m fine.’ The truth was, I didn’t know how to admit I wasn’t. I didn’t know that vulnerability could be anything other than weakness.
It took years—and many quiet evenings of reflection—to unlearn that reflex. I began to see how most of us move through life surrounded by people yet starved of understanding. We laugh, chat and share updates, but rarely the raw stuff: fear, longing, doubt. We hide the most human parts of ourselves behind competence, behind the carefully curated version we think the world wants to see.
Then, in my thirties, something changed again.
I met my partner—someone who didn’t just listen to what I said, but how I said it. Our conversations went deep. We explored our pasts, our fears, our hopes, as if diving into the same ocean from different shores. She taught me something I’d never learned: that vulnerability is strength. That being able to admit how you truly feel isn’t weakness—it’s the bravest thing you can do.
For the first time, I felt what real synchrony meant—when two inner worlds begin to resonate, when you can be fully seen and still belong.
I only wish I’d met her sooner. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to go through it all alone.
It made me wonder: what if that kind of connection could exist beyond romance? What if it could be cultivated, designed, shared?
That question became the seed of Soulchronise.
The name came to me like a piece of music. Human connection, when it’s sincere, feels like harmony—two melodies intertwining without losing their own shape, each note distinct yet part of something larger. To synchronise souls is to let people be fully seen and still belong.
That experience also shattered my understanding of success. Wealth, corporate ladders, titles—these are the benchmarks society hands us like a script we never auditioned for. But during my darkest moments, I asked myself: Do these really matter to me?
The answer was no.
That realisation left me adrift for years. The lost years were a blur—I worked, I went to social activities, but I wasn’t consciously present in any of it. It was almost as if I was watching my own life from behind glass, going through motions without meaning. I hadn’t lived it; I’d survived it.
I contemplated the meaning of life itself. Today, I cannot say this is the final version of that quest. But I believe my life’s meaning comes from helping others and tackling societal problems.
Since then, I’ve stopped chasing success as a ladder.
The version of me who once worked past midnight believed achievement was the same as worth. Now, I believe worth reveals itself in how deeply we connect—with others, with purpose, with ourselves.
True bravery, I’ve learned, isn’t pushing through pain alone. It’s admitting how you truly feel. Joy, sadness, anger, fear—they’re all legitimate. We only know ourselves when we can admit, with honesty, what we’re feeling. And only then can we connect deeply with others.
Some connections go deeper than others. It’s like swimming—the sea is beautiful, the water comfortably warm in summertime. But a deep conversation is like diving into the ocean’s depths, where you begin to truly understand a person’s inner world. Only then do you see the true beauty beneath the surface: the tranquil waters, the vibrant marine life, the quiet wonder that was hidden all along.
That’s where real beauty lives.
I don’t claim to have it all figured out. But I know this: when we dare to tell the truth about how we feel, when we show up as we are—unpolished, uncertain, human—we create the kind of connections that heal not only individuals, but society itself.
And that’s what Soulchronise is to me—not a company, but a quiet rebellion.
Against the cult of speed. Against surface-level living. Against the idea that connection is a luxury rather than a necessity.
A space for depth, for sincerity, for synchrony.
A space for the conversations that matter. For the kind of understanding I once desperately needed but didn’t know how to ask for.
This is why Soulchronise had to exist. This is the problem I lived. This is the solution I’m building.
That story, that journey from disconnection to synchrony, is the reason Soulchronise exists.
It is why we are building a quiet rebellion against surface-level living. It is a sanctuary for the conversations that matter. A space to be unpolished, uncertain, and fully human. A place to be seen, be known, and be you.
This is our story. Now, we’d be honoured to help you explore yours.