Obsession

(Written in July 2024)

Haruki Murakami has two obsessions in life. Writing and running. Murakami was not originally a writer – or a runner. He was a heavy smoker, smoking 60 cigarettes a day, and an owner of a small jazz bar. How he started writing is an interesting story. He went to a baseball game one day, and out of nowhere, he just had a thought. A thought that he would write a novel. Then what did he do? He just started writing a novel.

He had a full-time job running a jazz club, so he had to write during his breaks, after work, an hour here, an hour there. He couldn’t focus on writing because he was always tired and doing errands. The jazz club was financially doing just fine, so the people around Murakami told him he should keep the business going. Later, they were surprised to learn that he was writing a novel. Just imagine someone you know very well who is doing just fine with his current job saying he’s writing a novel. Your first reaction would be like “Huh?”  or “Oh, like a side gig?”

But Murakami is a person who acts when he is convinced himself to act. He sold his well-run business and went full-on with writing novels. I said to myself. What a commitment that is. It’s hard to be committed. It takes courage. You need to be contrarian. When was the last time that I did something that it was outside the norm? To be honest with you, I don’t know. Or maybe it's more accurate to say, I don’t remember, or I’ve never done anything contrarian.

Anyways, he sent his very first novel to a magazine company and guess what. It was selected for a prize. He didn’t stop there. He kept writing every single day. He built a routine in his life. He would wake up at 4am, write for 5 to 6 hours straight with laser focus, run 10k, swim a little bit, and slide into bed at 9. He focused on consistency over intensity.

What he has built into his life was a religion-like routine. He would run 10k every day – not any longer distance. Incorporating high intensity in the run meant that he would lose interest in it and fall out of love. He once ran an ultra-marathon (62mile or 100k). After running numerous marathons, he became cocky and overconfident in his running abilities. At mile 27 of the ultra-marathon, he wanted to quit. All he wanted to do was nothing but quit. It took him several years to fall back in love with running after the high-intensity, life-teaching lesson he learned from running the ultramarathon.

Now he runs 10k every day. Not 15k, not 5k, but 10k. Consistency – not intensity – is what matters. Little by little, everyday compounds after a long period of time. 5 to 6 hours of writing, 10k run every day, and early bed along with easy end to the day have been Murakami’s routine for decades. Now he is a renowned writer with millions of readers in love with his writing.

Learning Murakami’s religious following of his routine made me reflect on my past life and current life. What am I or have I been doing consistently over a long period of time? I felt extremely ashamed as I could not answer my own question.

There were many things in my 30 years of life that I had interests in. I like playing soccer. I like playing guitar. I like learning about other people’s perspectives from podcasts and books. I like to learn about different businesses and how they make money. I like to talk about personal finance and investing. I like running. I like hiking. I like snowboarding. I like working out (sort of).

I am an engineer who studied chemical engineering in college with a focus in semiconductor manufacturing. I now work in biotech, but none of my interests or my past interests are even slightly related to my current profession. So, what in the world am I doing? What ARE my obsessions? What am I so obsessed that I lose track of time?

I don’t know. I really don’t. I’m running towards the end of my 20s (now it’s 2025, so I’m 30), and heck, I don’t know it yet. I wish to know. I would love to be obsessed with something that is so interesting that I don’t wait for Friday nights and weekends. Five-day work and two-day weekend ratio, or a 5 to 2 ratio, is such an unattractive yield in life (just like MJ DeMarco said). I want a seven-day work and a seven-day weekend ratio, or a 1 to 1 ratio, where work is so fun and exciting that it doesn’t feel like work.

Maybe I should also go to a baseball game by myself. Maybe then some light striking thought will arise out of nowhere and make myself follow the path like Murakami did.

Readers, what are you OBSESSED with? And how did you become obsessed with it? I would love to know.