It’s been seven years since the last Game of Thrones novel was published. That’s as long as my career. While I was traversing through startups, clients, and countries, George R. R. Martin has been trying to write what happened after a certain someone was stabbed and fell onto the cold. That’s how far behind the novel is from the TV series, and it feels like the same distance I am from where I want to be in my career. I’m beginning to think that maybe the next big step in my life will happen when he publishes The Winds of Winter.

I take that back. If that’s the case then I’ll never progress in my career.

These days I’ve been feeling like I’ve been running. I’ve gone on a sprint then slowed down, but I’m still running all the same. There was only one instance during university days that I did anything remotely close to exercise: for one semester I ran a few rounds at the university’s “oval” (a small indoor track, really). I ran twice a week with a friend who laughed at me when I confessed that I only managed to finish the rounds because I’d imagine there was a strip of ribbon at the end, marking the finish line. That friendship ended long ago, but the running never ceased. I was running to lose weight, then for love, then for dreams. Now I feel like I’m running after ‘success’, whatever that means. It’s such a narrow word for such a subjective term. And in this new country, I’m running alone. I observe other girls who seem to be running the same race, but I’ve left my ‘exercise buddies’ back in Singapore.

December’s halfway done. On a new notebook I’ve recently bought, I penned milestones I’d like to achieve next: career goals, financial goals, skin goals, weight goals. I didn’t want to wait for a new year to kickstart resolutions. Instead, I’ve been applying the concept of Objectives and Key Results to life outside of work. I’ve been aligning the things I’m doing towards those objectives. This is how I’ve been running these days.

I feel a little anxious. I don’t know what will happen next. I don’t know if I’ll tick off the little things I’ve already set myself out to do. I don’t know if I’m doing the right things.

I know I’m not going to wait. I know I’ll keep moving. I know I’ll be unhappy if I don’t. Sometimes it gets a little lonely, sometimes it gets a little tiring, but the world doesn’t stop moving just because I want a little break. I just keep on running towards my next objective, and the next, and the next, and the next.