still figuring it out
You did everything right. It's okay to wonder if this is it.
A weekly letter for anyone who did everything right — the degree, the job, the plan your parents could be proud of — and quietly started wondering who it was all for.
This is me figuring out what a good life actually feels like — not the one that looks right on paper.
Every week, one short letter: a reflection, a photograph, and one small thing to carry with you.
No hustle. No five-step fixes. Just the things we don't usually say out loud.
01 The mind
The 11pm thoughts you don't say out loud: the comparison, the quiet is this it. Said plainly. Not therapy. Not advice.
02 The body
Discomfort I pick on purpose — a long run, a cold morning — because it's the one kind of tired that actually helps. Not a fitness plan.
03 The lens
One photograph a week, and what it taught me after the fact. Usually something I walked right past at the time.
Coming soon
This is Lenses of Happy, a brand new site by Joseph Chua that's just getting started. Things will be up and running here shortly,
I took it without thinking. Looked again later and saw the light was beautiful. I just wasn't in the room for it.
That's most of my weeks lately. Technically present. Rarely here.
Every issue ends here: one photo, and what it knew before I did.
I'm Joseph. I did the version of life that makes immigrant parents proud — the degree, the steady job, the plan. Then my marriage ended, and the whole paper version stopped holding.
I didn't have a backup plan. Just a growing suspicion I'd been living someone else's idea of a good life.
I'm still working out which parts are actually mine. That's mostly what I write about.
Come figure it out with me.
One letter a week. For the part of your life you keep to yourself.