Unplugging the Treadmill: Reflections from Sabah
There’s an old saying, the “rat race,” that conjures a life of motion without movement: sprinting from obligation to obligation with barely a breath between. Running to work, running at work, running home, running to do chores, running to socialize — all of it on a treadmill with no end in sight. Beautiful British Columbia, for all its structure and comfort, often feels like that. A treadmill existence where slowing down equates to failure, and pacing yourself is seen as weakness.
Here in Sabah, the treadmill has no power. It’s been unplugged, set aside, repurposed into a place to sit, sip kopi ping, and watch life carry itself forward.
Learning to Carry Stress Differently
What strikes me most is not the jungles, the food, or the wildlife, but the way people live with stress. Of course, Sabahans feel pressure and anxiety as those are human constraints. But here, stress is carried differently. Instead of one person tackling a large task alone, community makes it lighter. If rice needs to be delivered, ten people show up. If a report needs editing, friends step in. Accountability becomes the spark that runs through human connection, forming what I call genuine community, not the curated, performative “support systems” that are so often marketed in the West.
It has forced me to confront my own pace. Back home, there was a stark contrast between how I went about my productivity. I either moved fast, overthought, and equated intensity with meaning, or when, not if, I eventually burnt out, I’d procrastinate and submit an adequate excuse of a submission. Here, I’m learning to slow down. Although not always, I still run when I should walk, but the lessons are sinking in.
Between Worlds
My daily rhythm hardly resembles Canada. Workdays stretch long, often without weekends, yet feel less like a checklist and more like showing up for people. One morning might be loading rice sacks and fertilizer from trucks into the elderly’s cars, another drafting reports, or trailing behind YB Jannie Lasimbang for door-to-door campaigning. By evening, I lace up for runs that have become my anchor. Five kilometres or thirty, it doesn’t matter. Running has been my way of dissolving whatever anxious energy lingers.
Still, I float between worlds. There are nights of loneliness, where I occasionally miss the feeling of familiarity. Then there are nights I enjoy a barbecue at Babagon River with Tang Tang and his family, play basketball with some friends, or partake in an unexpected conversation with a stranger that stretches unexpectedly long. All of which reminds me why I’m here. Those imperfect, unscripted moments mean more than any polished event could.
Outlets and Balance
Back in Canada, I often treated balance as an abstract idea. Here, it’s becoming a practice in different ways. I journal, I read, and I discovered Kevin Costner’s hit show Yellowstone. Yet most importantly, I’ve picked up a camera. Photography and cinematography have become my quiet rebellion against the slowness that sometimes eats me alive. I’m all for self-reflection and living in the moment, but being in a place as slow-paced as Sabah, and as someone who is innately impatient and energetic, picking up hobbies has been my lifeline at times of existential crisis. Slowly, a short video essay is taking shape, a kind of visual essay on The Pursuit of Happiness in Sabah. Editing is tedious, colour grading is brutal, and I’m far from tech-savvy, but in the slowness of the process, there’s meaning.
People as Teachers
The lessons here often arrive through people. My friend Tang, for example, effortlessly radiates warmth. He’s a loving husband and father of two girls, a quiet co-worker, and someone who makes long days feel light. Without knowing it, he’s shown me that patience, humility, and humour can be their own forms of strength. I spend countless hours a day with Tang and the scenarios always vary. One day it’s five hours under a UV index of 11, painting a basketball court until the sun paints my back red. Another night it’s sitting on a porch with his cousins, wife, and two daughters, singing traditional Kadazan songs followed by a rice-wine-fueled rendition of Don’t Look Back in Anger by Oasis. Perhaps the most admirable trait of his is his commitment to show up the next morning with the same energy he had the night before. A man of longevity. Without fail, he picks me up from my house at the break of dawn to stumble through Tai Chi at 6:30 a.m. with a circle of elders who move with serenity like Koi through still water. Tang and I are the youngest there by decades, yet we’re the ones trembling like that one busted family suitcase: knees buckling, quads cramping. One cheeky sideeye is all it takes and we’re choking down laughter and pain in equal measure, trying not to collapse while everyone else floats with grace. It’s ridiculous, humbling, and the kind of wholesomeness that makes this friendship matter. Whether it takes life through sweat, in song, or in silence, I’m always grateful to spend another day with him.
Then there’s Lbot – my Spicoli-Gandalf figure. The yin and yang derived from comic relief and quiet wisdom; he’s the kind of friend who drifts in with laughter but leaves you with something to think about. He reminds me not to take myself too seriously, a lesson I need more often than I admit. I consider him the godfather of karaoke. If I vanish on a weekend and nobody can reach me, odds are I’m elbows deep in fried chicken, letting loose on the mic, and swapping stories and life lessons with Lbot. Yet behind the late nights, he is stitched into the fabric of the DAP team. He’s the master behind the camera at every campaign event, and never misses the weekly mobile services: the checking of glucose levels, blood pressure, and showing up for the community, week after week.
Perhaps my most recent friend, Kokhao, whom I met at a basketball tournament, has become a daily presence in my life. He’s my age, easygoing, down to earth, and now my running partner. Every evening we hit the pavement together, side by side, trading stories and silence. Those runs have grown into more than exercise; they’re a ritual of friendship, rhythm, and accountability.
And then there’s Sabah itself, teaching in subtler ways. It reveals that politics can look like empathy – a glucose check at a health program, drainage repairs after flooding, or just sitting with neighbours to listen. It shows that kindness doesn’t have to be transactional, that joy can exist in a vendor’s smile or a Grab driver’s unsolicited philosophy about life.
Sabah also challenges me. Just when comfort begins to settle in, it launches a curveball, the kind that elicits both a headshaking sigh and a smirk. Sometimes it’s the weather, bipolar in nature, consistently inconsistent rainstorms massacring a proud outfit and outdoor programs. Other times, it’s the paradox of punctuality: being urged to arrive early for something deemed essential, only to watch those who insisted, nonchalantly arrive 45 minutes late, unbothered. Then there’s ordering food. What was once my anchor, a brief craving for simplicity, something not lathered in oil and fried twice, ended in betrayal when I opened the box to find deep-fried chicken smothered in an unidentifiable white sauce over limp, soggy lettuce masquerading as a salad. These are the moments that force me to break the fourth wall, to laugh in that bittersweet way, looking at the non-existent camera, hoping something else saw the same tragedy I did, acknowledging both the absurdity and the charm. Sabah is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re going to get.
Carrying It Forward
At the halfway point of this internship, I realize the growth I’ve found here doesn’t live in campaign rallies or political briefings alone. It lives in dismantling my own habits: overthinking, performing productivity, obsessing over the finish line instead of noticing the road beneath me.
Sabah is not just where I’m interning. It’s a mirror, a mentor, and a reminder that stress can be reshaped, that community can be the antidote to pressure, and that even when I slip back into old patterns, there’s another chance to slow down.
Halfway in, I feel less like I’m running the rat race and more like I’m finally learning to walk.
Amaraiti.
