Between Two Kingdoms: Two Responses 👑

Memoir-style reflections from two friends who love self-discovery.

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted — Suleika Jaouad

This week features a collaborative piece that my friend Serinda and I crafted. We wanted to run a simple experiment: to test how deep we could stretch an author’s work to unlock new means of intentional reflection. Our premise goes beyond book reviews and book clubs that often only scratch the surface of mindful introspection.

We’re super happy to publish our responses to Between Two Kingdoms, a powerful memoir that touches on themes like illness, loss, uncertainty, presence, and renewal.

🌱 The Revival of a Soul

Two kingdoms, three messages

by Serinda Kong

Suleika Jaouad: diagnosed with leukemia at 22, fought for her life the next 4 years, and embarked on a 100-day, 150,000-mile road trip shortly after remission. Her journey leaves you in sympathy with how her cards were dealt. When you juxtapose my “normal” life as a healthy, 25-year old on the brink of a quarter-life crisis, the points of connection are far from limited.

While I enjoyed watching Suleika’s entire journey unfold in Between Two Kingdoms, there are three quotes that especially resonate and draw parallels to my own life.

“Ultimately the events of the last few years have been a terrible lesson in being present, and not just being present in my own life, but being present in the lives of the people I love.”

Death, or near-death experiences, shakes us up and reminds us to relish in all that we have. It puts a pause on the ruminating thoughts of past missteps and plans of the future. I am guilty of spending the majority of my time in the world of possibilities — from minute tasks such as what will I cook for dinner to what will my passions be at 50? For Suleika, cancer was the trigger to be present. For me, it was covid. Pre-pandemic, I would say I spent 20% of my time in the past, 10% in the present, and 70% in the future. That distribution shifted as the pandemic forced me to slow down and pause. I had to stop planning for the future, given the restrictions and uncertainty. I had to stay put.

In the past three years, I honed into being present with myself and others. Being present with myself began through a formal meditation process, but has transitioned to mindful living. Initially, I wasn’t able to sit in silence and observe myself — I felt like my mind was moving so quickly and I couldn’t hold up a stop sign. However, through time, I was able to slow down the busyness and unlock my third eye. Since developing this ability, I’ve been much more in-tune with myself — I notice when I get anxious and learn to follow my intuition. As much as I’d like to be present at all hours of the day, I often fall back into auto-pilot and go about life unconsciously. Though it takes some time to notice, all it takes is a mindful moment — of truly seeing my surroundings, listening to the sounds around me, feeling the floor beneath me, smelling the natural scents, and tasting my meal for its entirety to ground myself in the present again.

The pandemic restrictions prevented friends and family from seeing one another or made it limited to outdoor spaces or a specific number of people. This made me truly cherish the time I saw people in person. To be present with others meant physically putting my devices out of sight and mentally silencing the thoughts of what I was going to do after or what I should’ve done prior. Being present has allowed me to really listen, observe, and understand others. Although I am now a 15/35/50 split for past/present/future, there is still room for improvement. Though the pandemic predominantly triggers a negative sentiment, gaining more presence was a silver lining for me.

“What scared me more than death itself, was the thought of being remembered as someone else’s sad story of unmet potential.”

Suleika couldn’t have said my deepest fear more clearly. When you are raised in an immigrant family, there is an invisible weight of privilege on your shoulders. For I have not had to see my siblings get into relationships they didn’t want to be in, for the sake of the family’s future. For I have not had to flee my well-paying and respectable job in my home country for the possibility of a better life. For I have not had to survive in a place where I don’t speak the language and find my way alone. For my parents, and many like them, passion wasn’t part of their vocabulary. You were in a profession because it generated money and all pursuits led back to the objective of survival and just having “enough.”

Though my parents had not pressured me towards making a name for myself (they actually persuaded me not to pursue medicine), I will always know that no struggle I experience today will be comparable to what my parents and other immigrants have endured. To know that I’ve had access to higher education, healthy food, and community, put me at a better starting point to make the most of my life. For my parents, dreams were just dreams. For me, dreams have the potential to be turned into reality. That’s the scariest part.

For Suleika, her fear of unmet potential came out during the process of battling cancer. My fear comes from reaching the age of 25. I very much identify with the quarter-life crisis and the invisible weight of privilege makes my fear of unmet potential even greater. This is especially when I’ve been constantly told that I have great potential in the contexts of career progression, learning a new skill, and in reference to “life.” Potential sounds great, but potential doesn’t bring in money, fame, or pride. In fact, potential is an empty promise unless it is fulfilled. With that said, I’m always left questioning what this potential is, whether this potential will be reached, and ultimately, whose definition of potential I’m working towards. Is it society’s or my own? Society may measure potential by money, fame, or pride, but to me, it’s a measure of how true I am to myself and if I feel like I’m living life to my fullest.

I’ve been in crisis-mode for the past 4 months, in between coasting at the baseline to living up to my potential. Baseline is life on auto-pilot — the activities of the day are routine and repetitive in nature and I feel bored, stagnant, and weary. Living up to my potential is having a beginner mindset, full of curiosity, and learning and growing each day. I feel driven, full of energy, and motivated.

I want to live a life with presence and adventure, with new experiences, activities, and ideas to help me develop into the best version of myself. With this definition, there is no end to potential, as my life will constantly evolve, pushing the finish line further and further away. This fear of unmet potential is then somewhat irrational and impossible to achieve — I just need to remind myself of that.

“I can’t keep waiting until I’m ‘well-enough’ to start living again.”

Prior to her diagnosis, Suleika lived a life of adventure. As she began to heal, the spark of spontaneity reentered, in the form of a cross-country road trip to visit the strangers who wrote letters to her. Though people around her were hesitant about her adventure, she knew she couldn’t wait until she was “well-enough” to begin living.

Though covid has definitely had an influence on taming my daring nature, I’ve found myself delaying my next adventure of moving abroad. I’ve had a desire to live in a foreign place for some time as I crave the discomfort of new environments, love connecting with others from different cultures, and am eager to see my growth through navigating the unknown. A few years ago, I had been so set on moving — actively applying and interviewing for jobs, networking, and researching visas. Now, I’ve been hesitant, wanting to wait until the world has calmed down, for my career to be stable, for my brother to graduate high school, and for many other reasons my anxious mind fabricates. It feels ironic to think I want to control as much as I can in a world with so much uncertainty.

The last time I felt truly audacious was in 2019, when I made the decision to quit my first full-time job, only after 2 months of employment. I was in a specialized graduate program, on a paved track to accelerate my career, and with young and fun colleagues — what more could a 22-year old business graduate want? Apparently a lot more.

This was an important milestone for me, as during this period, I had an awakening. An awakening of who I was, what I valued, and what I wanted. I became aware that my core values of learning, connection, health and wellness, were not met. This trigger of misalignment between my profession and my values is what led me to leave my role, with the uncertainty of what I would do next. Following that mental release and liberation — recognizing my values, leaving my job, and deciding to move cities in a few weeks — I was seeking serenity, with a hint of adventure. Nature was calling.

I’ve always been fond of being among trees, water, and mountains as they bring a calming energy and often allow me to slow down. Algonquin Provincial Park was always on my list of places to visit, so I took this as an opportunity to go. The twist? Going solo, by means of hitchhiking.

The trip kicked off with a nervous energy. Ahead of me was a whole lot of discomfort — discomfort in having to talk to new people, discomfort in possibly running out of food, and the discomfort of having to hitch a ride. That all dissipated as I watched the city fade into the distance and became engulfed on both sides by endless trees. After being dropped off at my hostel just on the outskirts of the park, I could hear the streams of running water, feel the dirt roads beneath my feet, smell the fresh air, and see the single winding road that would connect me to all the trails in Algonquin. I just needed a way to get there.

This trip had endless possibilities. I could’ve ended up meeting someone who would kidnap me (which is what my mom thought), meeting someone whose idea of adventure would be to rock climb down mountains (which I wouldn’t be entirely opposed to), or running out of food and having to fast (again, not the worst thing ever!) But none of those possibilities panned out. Instead, I met a few special people during that trip — a passionate emergency medic from Germany, who became my hiking and portage buddy, a values-driven learning & leadership partner at my current place of employment (talk about full circle), and a honeymooning couple, who left at sunrise and returned at sundown with freshly caught fish, each day. To date, I still admire my boldness in going on that adventure.

There’s no doubt that traveling and adventures that push me outside my comfort zone, make me feel alive. These types of experiences challenge and re-energize me in ways that sleep or good food don’t, and are what I’ve been missing the past few years.

Suleika has reminded me that I don’t need to be waiting until I’m ready and for everything to be in its place before making the leap. That means acknowledging my inner critic, but not allowing the objections or concerns to dictate how I live. Time is progressing, whether I like it or not, and things may never be fully “ready” for me to feel completely prepared. 2022 is the year to break out of my familiar, pandemic life and to seek discomfort and uncertainty, through the means of competing in my first jiu-jitsu competition, publicizing my writing (thank you Sam), and ultimately uprooting my life to somewhere new. Suleika said it best — “I decide to trust what feels unknown and frightening will soon feel familiar and safe.”

I don’t need to lose my loved ones or to have a near-death experience to be present with myself and others, to understand my own definition of potential and the impossible nature of achieving it, or to release the need for control to live freely. Suleika’s story has sparked reflection and inspiration that all in all, life is short, and it’s time to let my soul fly.

So to all of you reading this, here’s my commitment to live more presently, to continue to grow into my best self, and to free the adventurous soul — the soul that solo backpacks Spain, that skydives over Byron Bay, and hitchhikes into provincial parks.

With gratitude,

Serinda

🔮 The Kingdoms of Reality & Fantasy

Floating between two internal worlds, trying to find myself in the mix

by Sam Wong

I’ll admit, with great privilege, that sickness has not played a big role in the life of me and my family. It’s definitely true that I haven’t felt the extent of grief, loss, pain, and uncertainty that cancer brings. But where I resonate especially with Suleika Jaouad’s memoir is found in the title itself: being trapped between two proverbial kingdoms. For me, these two kingdoms are what actually happens (reality) and what I want to happen (fantasy).

As Suleika speaks to the musicless nature of hospital hell, I can’t help but draw parallels to another type of liminal space — being alone with your thoughts, in all their idealistic, illogical, intense forms. Instead of the incessant beeping of medical equipment and muted chatter from hospital-goers, I find myself getting lost in IV drips of my own thoughts. This self-talk sways and beckons me in an almost infinite number of directions: “You could do this, you should feel this way, you would do better if you consider this 300th possibility, and you must keep asking yourself the question: what’s next?”

Now, you might argue that this type of neuroticism isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Many people would kill to have acute self-awareness and the ability to process a lot of ideas at once. Yes, I do owe a lot of my personal development to a few “future-forward” guiding principles, which have formed a strong foundation for my early adult life. Among them: chasing novel experiences, harvesting my curiosities, and making large-scale changes. And yes, I do pride myself in being a possibilities thinker, striving to envision all sorts of possible futures and relishing in the beauty of asking “what if?”

To me, fantasizing is the ultimate form of intoxication. It’s easy to fall into daydream mode: imaginary career pivots, imaginary creative projects, imaginary encounters. I mean, why not let yourself dream a bit? The promise of what ‘could be’ acts as a temporary emotional lubricant, romanticizing the charm of The “New” instead of finding meaning in The “Now”. Mindfulness interventions like meditation provide the first line of defence, but wearing this armour can feel heavy at first as distractions continue to assault you. In other words, the practice of being present feels urgent, but competes on attention with an idealistic future.

What I tell myself: If reality is punishing, then fantasy is promising.

(1) The Now vs. The New

The problem is if you’re like me and you spend a bit too much time in the fiction-verse, you tend to ignore the fact that you’re writing your own history in real-time. It’s the classic double-bind: both the movements of reality are not in your control and the events of fantasy are likely not going to play out in every desirable way. Escapism is certainly healthy in controlled doses, but only if you’re able to pull back and anchor your sentiments to the present. Suleika describes the same eagerness to look ahead but highlights how the looming threat of cancer strips away the joy of fantasizing:

“My twelve-year-old self had different types of conversations from the ones I had at sixteen, or at twenty. But they all shared something in common: They were looking ahead. With mortality in the balance, one of life’s most delicious activities when you’re young — imagining your future — had become a frightening, despair-inducing exercise.”

Suleika’s cancer-induced situation shook her life philosophies to the very core, creating a sort of forcing function that prevented her from planning more than a few steps ahead. Survival was paramount. In my own situation, I can appreciate that it’s not just disease that can turn futuristic thinking into an infinite loop of despair. Even the most microscopic interruptions — an undesirable work project, an unexpected friendship break, an uninspiring conversation — can change the way we view our basket of prospects.

I think it’s only fitting that we drive through memory lane before deciding how to best balance the competing pressures of reality vs. fantasy. I’ll share three substantial life moments, which intentionally mirrors Suleika’s own growth across her 20’s: romantic love, personal identity, and solo travel. I’ve linked to longer personal essays that cover each of these themes in-depth if you were curious:

In February 2019, I attended a one-week business competition in Copenhagen and got bit by the love bug along the way. This wasn’t an uncommon sight at these events, as you’d be surrounded by highly motivated attractive people who were all in an emotionally-heightened state. My fatal error was visualizing all potential scenarios with this person, forecasting a non-existent relationship without taking the time to seriously consider what I wanted and needed in the present.

In February 2020, only 6 months into my first corporate job, I found my mind already wandering to new spaces: what skills should I learn next, what new themes and topics would be most interesting to discover, and what would make me into the budding genius polymath? At work, most of my starting class would not be thinking about these grandiose thoughts, and I realized I was grappling with a few difficult questions: Why was I already charting out my corporate escape plan? Who should I become? What is my real potential?

In February 2021, all I could think about was escaping the winter wasteland of Toronto at the height of almost draconian pandemic measures. I started designing a digital moodboard of my top destination draft picks: New York City, Los Angeles, London, Singapore, Sydney, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris, Istanbul… I noticed that I had defaulted to travel as an escape valve. As much as I try to convince myself that it would be super fulfilling to adopt a digital nomad lifestyle and immerse myself fully, the dominant reason for wanting to leave was my fear of stagnation. The funny thing is my default reaction is to leap forward, rather than to pause or reset.

You could say I get stuck in a vortex of fantasy in the month of February: Futuristic February as I call it. I mean, can you blame me? We’re in the thick of the darkest point of the year: the sky hibernates in bated anticipation for brighter spring energy. With darkness comes a hunger, a stronger desire to seek light and illuminate a path forward. What my three chosen experiences had in common was the unfortunate habit of abandoning the pleasures of the real, and being controlled by the flattering attractions of the unreal.

You ask: is there a remedy to stop us from going into fantasy freefall? What’s the point of all this preamble? The answer shouldn’t be surprising: being present and sharing presence make up the two-shot elixir. Yet I also want to offer some practical gifts to better illustrate this point, taken from both my life adventures and inspirations from Suleika.

(2) The Present Time

I’m not intending this piece to be a pessimistic cautionary tale that claims future thinking is a terrible thing. After all, by sheer willpower and a willingness to reinvent herself after her chemotherapy chaos, Suleika carved out an unimaginable new future. This desire created a new design space in her life, where previous liabilities coalesced with new liberties. In her quest of leaving the familiar, she crafted new routines and rituals that hypercharged her post-cancer rebirth: from immersing in creative work like the Hundred-Day project to seeking silent refuge during forest cabin excursions.

One ritual that comes to mind is appreciating the rites of passage we cross in life. Building on this spiritual take, I consider rites of passage as formative experiences that unshackle us from the phantoms of the past and ground us back in the present. In recent memory, this looks like: quitting jobs, moving cities, and making connections.

These rites of passage allow us to migrate from one phase of our lives to another; they keep us from getting lost in transit. They show us a way to honor the space between no longer and not yet”

For Suleika, new love injected more passion and texture back into her life — we see that with her re-entry into the dating market. For Suleika, writing represented a flexible method for recounting experiences, sharing gratitude, and processing emotions — we see that when she actively engages with her letter pen pals. For Suleika, travel hurtled her out of old ways of being and created conditions for new ones to emerge — we see that from her trek to India, and later with her US road trip.

Even though my present path feels drastically different than the author’s, the act of walking and crossing through these passages is what remains universal.

For me, I’m still single, but happily accepting the current trade-offs of my nomadic lifestyle and understanding that “love” extends beyond just romantic contexts. For me, my personal identity is no longer tied to flashy titles — product manager, startup operator, technologist — but is framed as a kaleidoscopic career where “writer” and “comedian” are just as part of the equation. For me, solo travel is about extending the channels of connection: living, laughing, and learning with others from completely different worlds and on my own terms. In their own strange ways, I think all of these elements teach me how to be present, how to be a better human, and how to live.

The “how to live” is the trickiest to untangle. Just like a seasoned chef’s refined recipe, figuring out the optimal flavour is a deeply personal endeavour. Though tastes change over time, I think a life worth living mixes foundational with aspirational elements. Not too bland where you feel stagnant, not too spicy where you feel numb without stimulus. This begs the question: what is the universal idea that anyone can tap into, as an antidote to living life with presence? My answer: connection.

I love Suleika’s mentality of sending personal letters as a creative gateway to connection:

“The idea was that if you wanted to connect with someone out in the world, someone far removed from your own life, someone who maybe even seemed unknowable, you didn’t let the distance stop you — you said what the hell, and you wrote.”

Connection with others might just be the greatest equalizer, because it’s almost an unspoken requirement to be present in the presence of someone you care about. I think I want to take this specific ritual even further: giving thanks to people who I often don’t give enough credit to or take for granted, including my favourite online newsletter writers, old teachers and professors, and friends sprinkled across the globe. Integrating this type of routine into your daily affairs can be life-changing, especially with the level of serendipity that it boasts.

I’ll summon a classic gardening analogy to tie it all together: routines and rituals become nutrient-rich soil that germinates all of our seeds of opportunity into the present. As long as you direct your attention to nurture this little corner of energy, you truly reap what you sow. That’s precisely what my goal-seeking for 2022 is all about: a year of focus, prioritizing attention to what really matters to me. Some practical tactics that I’m experimenting with: balance the number of “yeses” I say with firm “nos”, start with the one small thing, choose health first, go deep instead of wide, and share my gratitude with people who have significantly influenced me.

(3) The Two Kingdoms, Remastered

I want to leave this response to Suleika’s memoir as a memo of hope and freedom to everyone who finds themselves stuck in an inescapable bubble, between two kingdoms.

This is especially directed at the high-achiever crews I often find myself floating around — it seems second nature for the structured management consultants and ambitious tech founders to get clouded by future judgments. Funnily enough, these two groups use the same vocabulary: “x years and then exit”. For my increasing base of creative friends, I empathize with your lofty ambitions that may compete against enjoying the process for what it is: the desire to be published, the desire to be prolific, the desire to be perceived as someone of worth.

I’m not bashing any particular career decision. On the contrary, I wholeheartedly think where we choose to spend our time and energy, whether initially by choice or not, is the root of a self-confident & self-resilient identity. The important distinction here is resisting the tendency to flatten your self-worth into titles or outcomes. The golden rule: don’t let your identity be taken hostage by people or processes misaligned with your truth!

There might come a point where something unexpected happens to challenge your identity to the core, to topple the foundation that made you whole. Sometimes this amorphous thing is a life-shattering event — for Suleika, it was cancer. Other times, the collapse takes the form of an emergent species, evolving with the changing environment — for me, it was the constant chase of novelty, through blind love, professional success, or faraway worlds.

I’ve been meditating deeply with what it means to let go of the relentless pursuit of novelty; to put up the windshield wipers and swat away the allure of another new, shiny thing. There’s a human nature element at play: we flock to what we think we need and ignore what is often right in front of us. But there’s also subtle conditioning that happens constantly in our lives, where dozens of custom narratives are being constructed and flaunted around us. If we aren’t self-aware and present enough to notice, we get swept up in the wave of someone else’s kingdom. We lean into easily accessible defaults and activate autopilot on impulse. Time trickles by, and it de-weaponizes pain. Suffering gets bottled up until it becomes volcanic, exploding at the cusp of a destabilizing life event. Can we really be present when this whirlwind of chaos threatens to choke out our very essence of being?

As my existential psychotherapist frequently reminds me, there will always be a subtle sense of suffering that lurks in the shadows. And that’s okay because you can’t have a happy utopian life in the present without confronting its complementary opposite: setback.

To overcome possible setbacks in our mission to be present, we need to open ourselves to moments of intimacy, tenderness, and honesty. We need to invite dialogues with both people that seem to just “get us”, as well as people outside of our natural orbit. We need to accept that not everything is in our control, that shit just happens. We can either brush it off and keep moving or let it destroy us from the inside out.

Pulling from one of my favourite sci-fi authors, Ted Chiang describes: “Past and future are the same and we can’t change either, only know them more fully.” I think that’s also key — knowing we have full agency over our own present helps shape the reality we want.

In a beautiful excerpt at the end of her memoir, Suleika expresses similar observations in a wonderfully eloquent manner:

“LIFE is not a controlled experiment. You can’t time-stamp when one thing turns into another, can’t quantify who impacts you in what way, can’t isolate which combination of factors alchemize into healing. There is no atlas charting that lonely, moonless stretch of highway between where you start and who you become.”

I know there’s no easy atlas to bring me back from fantasy into reality. Reading Between Two Kingdoms and crafting this response has been truly cathartic, breathing life into a dizzying array of emotions that I previously had no language for. I just need to remember that the map is not the territory; that even with all the unexpected and unwanted situations threatening to attack my essence at every angle, I’m still me and everything will be okay.

I wish you more presence,

Sam