What’s on my phone wallpaper

Two quotes and a photo

Phone wallpapers are the new wallet photos.

When I was in school, I adorned my wallet’s photo slot with photobooth pictures with my best friends and inspirational quotes from my favourite K-Pop stars. The quotes were something like “work hard for your passion” taken from a Girls’ Generation docuseries. I looked at the photos and quotes often, glancing at them every time I needed cash to pay for an afternoon snack (my favourite was the chi chong fan across my school gates) or fried sweet potato from the gorengan stall that would pass by my house in the evenings.

I have since adapted this “photo in your wallet” concept to my phone wallpaper, since I would look at it every time I tapped my phone to wake. Up till last year I had a photo of the Brooklyn Bridge because I have always wanted to visit New York. I believed that constantly having a dream that I can look at and envision would help make it come true. I teared up when I walked the bridge for the very first time last April, chill air blowing my hair back and Alicia Keys’ “In New York… concrete jungles where dreams are made of” on continuous repeat. Yes, the folks looking to capture tourist money literally looped just those two lines.

The phone wallpaper gets updated every time I feel like I need a new dream refresh or whenever I find a new quote that I subscribe to. It’s like a vision board in my pocket. 

This is what’s on my phone at the moment:

• A photo of the New York skyline set against a penthouse decor. I believe this is from Succession, which I have yet to watch. My ideal apartment would be Laura Peterson’s from The Morning Show but I wanted a New York skyline in the background so this was what found instead.

• The Algebra of Wealth formula from Scott Galloway. The positioning is a tad close to the clock so it won’t be covered by the notifications bubbles (despite having many notifications turned off). I added this in when he first wrote about the formula on No Mercy/No Malice. I particularly need a constant reminder for “time”, which I am still far too young to perceive even though time is very much in my favour.

• “Stack the deck in your favour” which I picked up from one of Ali Abdaal’s YouTube videos, so I typeseted this quote in his style too. I believe it’s impossible to have something 100% guaranteed (e.g. if I work hard, I will succeed) because the real world always introduces an unpredictable X factor (e.g. COVID) but I can always increase my chances or surface area of luck.

What’s on your phone wallpaper?

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Update log:

• 📘 Finished reading Good Work by

  Paul Millerd
  . Would recommend this to anyone who ever thought, "Is this all there is?”

• 📸 Tried out a pre-release point-and-shoot film camera from FilmNeverDie. I’ll be receiving the scans back soon. If I like the results (I already really liked using it), I’m going to get that baby when it’s released in October (maybe?)

• 🏋️‍♀️ Tried out my gym’s branch right here in Melbourne. It’s fun to travel to another place and go do the same routines. It’s also wild to sleep one day in one continent and wake up in another?!

• 🎨 Learned that you can borrow stools from the National Gallery of Victoria to draw/study a painting. I felt like an artiste with my very much artiste bestie whom I’m visiting here in Melbourne.

• 🛩️ For the first time, I felt a bit of a dread in packing up to leave the flat. Am I hitting a traveling plateau? I did fly quite a bit this year. I’ve been operating with a “why not?” mentality but perhaps next year is time to slow down. (I’ve got two trips planned out for this year).

• ✍🏼 September log (or dump) is available here. Still missing the last few days which I’ll update when I get back.

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