There is a public park in Taman Desa that shaped much of my childhood. Its uneven, hilly terrain is framed by a running track, with a football field on one side and—on the other—a tennis court and an open-air badminton court. Around 6 p.m. each day dad would make his way there to jog. This routine, unchanged for as long as I can recall, left a lasting imprint on me.

When I tagged along, I found ways to play and watched him run lap after lap. He never pushed himself; his pace was modest, just enough to count as a jog. When his run ended and he returned home, the sky would already be dark. I now believe this habit subtly modeled the value of regular physical activity in my own life. It sparked my interest in staying active and, eventually, in sports.

I never adopted jogging myself—not for lack of effort. The first time I tried with dad I was a small child, and an intense itch spread through my leg. I had to stop, scratch, and couldn’t explain the reaction even now. I never completed a lap. As a university student I tried again, this time without the itching. I managed to run a respectable distance, using the activity as a mood regulator during periods of anxiety. Yet that version of me never turned jogging into a habit; the boredom was still something to avoid rather than embrace.

I suspect dad used jogging as an unspoken form of meditation—a quiet way to keep darker thoughts at bay. Until a week before his death he was still jogging, though he never joined a marathon and showed no competitive drive. His lack of ambition to win (or to make others lose) seeped into my own approach to competition. I once chased ruthlessness after discovering Machiavelli as a young adult. Wishing for a mentor who could teach me to be “ruthless,” I devoured The Prince—a stark contrast to dad's quiet endurance on the track. For a time, I wondered if that competitive fire was what I lacked, the missing piece to thrive in zero-sum games like sports or business. In hindsight, that desire seems absurd, but it reveals how deeply his inner struggles influenced me.