1. Character is an intrinsic part of a person's makeup that consists of beliefs and moral principles that can guide a person's behavior.

2. It is shaped by life experiences and reveals a person's intrinsic qualities and morals.

3. Character is different from personality, which is the sum of a person's physical, psychological, emotional, and social aspects that are manifested through behavior and actions.

4. Both character and personality are expressed physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Lately, I’ve started paying attention to life events through the lens of character development, mainly driven by self awareness around areas of growth.

Character development is really hard. It’s also really fun, when you notice you’re growing. To me, daily life feels much more interesting and engaging when we encounter opportunities that test our character.

It can be equally illuminating, to observe the people around us, living life well, and through their ways, teaching us character development in real time.

A few mantras for character development that are showing up lately:

1. No pain, no progress.

   My ideal self wakes up early every morning, takes her vitamins, and cheerily heads to the gym for a challenging set of exercises before tackling the day’s work. My actual self likes to press snooze; I’m a night owl. But, inspired by a desire to close the gap between my actual and ideal self, I recently got a personal trainer at the gym. Here’s where the character development starts: only through consistent work, and in this case, consistent pain, will I get stronger and build physical endurance. As someone with low physical pain tolerance, this is very hard. It is also very motivating.

   An anecdote: A girlfriend and I went to surf camp in the Dominic Republic. We were advised to get up by 6am every morning for breakfast, take two hours of lessons (aka get wiped out repeatedly by waves and getting yelled at by our instructors to paddle harder), we’d head back for lunch, do yoga, head out for an afternoon surf lesson (repeat of futile never ending paddling), eat dinner as a group, sleep early, get up and do it all over again.
   
   By day 3 of this routine, I was achy, tired, and ready to skip the early 6am lesson in favor of a quiet morning reading by the pool. Despite the disappointment of the head instructors, I did just that. My friend though, stayed committed. While I pressed snooze, she popped Advils in the morning to manage the bruising and aches from repeated surf sessions. By the end of our time in the DR, she had migrated to the hard boards, getting up on most waves, while I was in the white waters still. We both had the vacations we wanted, but her growth in just a few days illustrated quite starkly how much pushing through short term pain is important to achieving better results. No pain, no progress.

2. Boring is good

   As a lover of variety, routines can sometimes feel antithetical to embracing the many surprises life has to offer each day. Yet, from build my weeks around the same ritual of making coffee and breakfast daily, blocking the same hours weekly for chores, scheduling catch ups and calls routinely... I have discovered a secret joy to the predictability of knowing and preparing for what is next. It can be boring, but it has also noticeably created fewer hiccups during the week. It helps to see too, just how far boring can take you.

   Case in point: My dad picked up marathon running in the last two years. He joined a running group at first for social community and exercise, and then, led by the momentum of this group, set an ambitious goal of running all 6 World Marathon Majors. I thought this goal would take him about the next decade, given he is a full time professional and father and you know, a normal human being. Well, in two years, he’s at 5 of 6. His secret? He created a strict weekly running routine, and predictably, every day after wrapping up his meetings, before dinner time, he goes on a run. Our family house is in Seattle, and the weather is relentlessly bad in the winter times. I’ve seen him run in heavy rain, in complete darkness, in windy storms, and hot humid heatwaves.

   To me, his routine has always seemed so boring. But, he just keeps at it, every day. Haruki Murakami, an author I admire, also wrote about his own meditative journey towards long-distance running in his book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. For him, the act of running also has improved his writing. His ability to endure long runs and his ability to sit with writer’s block, seem extremely linked. Boring is good. Boring works.

3. No risk, no reward

   As an optimist, I used to naively believe (and experience) that with enough effort and determination, one can achieve anything.

   The equation was straightforward:

   • Individual Inputs → Desired Outcomes.

     (This worked for many years, through school, jobs, relationships, until it didn’t.)

   Now, the equation feels often like:

   • Individual Inputs + Unforeseen Factors + Blind Spots of Self + Mismatched Efforts vs Ambition → Desired Outcomes OR No Change OR Undesired Outcomes.

   Given the second equation, after a fair number of tries, the question becomes: when do you give up and when do you keep trying?

   Rejection stings. Failure is terrifying. Yet, many things in life are a numbers game, and logically, we know we should always ‘shoot your shot,’ even if feels scary to take this probabilistic approach in the trickier arenas of life (dream job, romance). Recent encounters in both arenas have really stretched my capacity to be vulnerable to both rejection and failure, at times making me wonder, is this worth it? It’s baby steps to growth, and I still have to remind myself: This is good, because it means I actually care. This is good, because I’m getting closer to what I want. No risk, no reward.

   ---

4. Acceptance

   I think a part of determining how high we turn the dial on character development, starts with acceptance:

   • We might need to accept that we might never close the gap between our actual selves and our ideal selves. (I like my actual self enough to be okay if that gap exists, but I’d like to aspire to try, anyways).

   • We might need to accept that there is going to be a great deal of pain associated with trying to bridge this gap, especially if these are new habits that take time, consistency, and discipline to develop.

   • We might need to accept that we are the only ones keeping score. While respect from others is nice, self respect matters more, because only we see the full behind the scenes reels of our every day behaviors.

   A recent revelation from chatting with friends: Character development isn’t mandatory! We’ve started recognizing that as adults, we have the autonomy and the agency to choose if, how, and to what degree we want to grow as people. It’s also like, totally okay to just be content with who we are, full stop (what?).

   And in case anyone actually made it this far, thanks for reading, hope you’re enjoying your growth journeys, and I like you exactly how you are, full stop. :)

“Nothin' really ends
For things to stay the same, they have to change again” 
- American Requiem, Beyonce 

Act 1: Responding to Change

A truism: Life is constant change — nothing stays the same forever.

Every day, things happen outside of our control. Some of these events serve as minor disruptions to a well-oiled daily routine — your favorite coffee shop relocates, a new construction project impacts your commute, a yoga instructor you love leaves the studio.

Other events are more jarring; they don’t just disrupt a well-oiled routine, but instead feel like the universe is wrecking havoc like a kid with an Etch A Sketch — a best friend down the block moves to the suburbs; a mentor at work leaves for another opportunity; a family member experiences a bout of serious illness.

Integrating changes into our understanding of ourselves and the world requires a lot of adaptability, a healthy dose of grit, some creative reframing, and maybe a bit of humor. Humans seem to have ample resources to navigate the incoming waves of change. In fact, some of the most celebrated stories in our popular culture are stories of overcoming unexpected setbacks — an unfair arrest in Shawshank Redemption, a plane crash in Castaway, a wrong turn at a train station in Lion, a war breaking up lovers in Casablanca. Across cultures and historic periods, the plot line of this hero’s journey is well worn and well loved.

How do we get better at responding to change, especially that which we did not anticipate? Maybe, we decide quickly to find anchors in the moving river. Essentially: build a fortress of security around you to insure that unexpected storms do not threaten flood your fundamental sense of self and perceived place in the world. For me, it looked like staying in one city, to build one career, with a few core friendships and loved ones. Even the best made plans though, might be thwarted by a shake up — Covid, a war, a recession, and in my case, the discovery of a second act. Etch A Sketch drawings are fragile.

Act 2: Grappling with Stagnation

I was born and raised in Shanghai. Many years later as an adult, I revisited extended family there, hoping to map my blurry memories à la my younger self — the sounds, the smells, the buildings, the people — to present day reality. Except, Shanghai had evolved beyond my rose-colored sketches, into a steely epicenter of modern commerce and foreign trade. It did not matter that I left Shanghai first; the city had not stood still. It’s common to imagine the counterfactuals of our upbringing but rare to have a glimpse of that answer: Even if I had stayed, Shanghai would eventually have become a stranger to me. I likely would have left my hometown anyways.

We choose to stand still, and everything else can still change on a whim! So, we get better at living the plot of ‘individual conquers unexpected setbacks.’ Then we stumble upon a new arc:

What do you do when faced with a long period of comfort, stretching ever closer towards stagnation? Essentially, how do you know you are ready to initiate change?

Here, I’d like to introduce the role of Certainty. Certainty is a trait I admire deeply in others. Certainty, as exhibited by clear thought, sound decision making, and aligned actions, signals confidence in oneself. Certainty is accepting that you can spin your wheels on the shades of gray and not get anywhere, so just choose the most solid dark in your palette, and make a beeline towards Your Goals already.

Certainty found me, recently, but not before Uncertainty hit hard. During the last year of driving into work every morning, while half listening to Ezra Klein or Kara Swisher opine on politics and tech, I heard another voice vying for attention: Can you be content with this life as it is, can you settle into it? Is there something missing, and if so what?

Objectively, everything was going well. I knew I was very lucky to have the life I had, and I was grateful for it. Nothing needs to change, I was certain of it! Well, almost certain of it.

Act 3: Initiating Change

Introducing a new plot line: ‘Protagonist Cautiously Tests Waters by Embracing A Bit of Chaos.’ Oof, what a mouthful.

Riffing on salient pop culture references mapping to this theme, I noted a commonality between the examples I could come up with: more complicated, at time morally ambiguous endings. My examples: Jen leaves her arranged marriage promising of wealth and stability, to test her mettle as a martial arts warrior in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (leading to deadly outcomes for everyone she involves), Elphaba choosing to transcend her experiences of love and friendship in Wicked (leading to the birth of the Wicked Witch of the West), and Jo March trading her beautiful long hair for a male pseudonym in order to be a successful writer in Little Women (which did end happily, although the movie hints that her male publisher only agreed to print the book on account of a conventional ending for her protagonist. Hint: marriage).

Maybe that’s the thing about this plot line — Initiating change also means weighing the risk of stagnation against the risk of landing an outcome that may or may not be better than status quo.

In my case, I didn’t think “almost certain” was a good enough answer to my internal monologue (Queue Belle: ‘there must be more than this provincial life.’) And that’s when it became painfully clear: against my nature of wanting stability and peace, it was time to initiate change.

So, how do you decide what kind of change to initiate?

In working in enterprise software product growth, one becomes accustomed to thinking about what product changes will bring about desired customer outcomes. On growth teams, we come up with strong hypotheses about user behaviors, and design controlled A/B tests with measurable success metrics to determine whether these hypotheses are sound.

Long story short, over the past months, I put on my growth hat on, and tried to get early validation on a few hypotheses, with the goal of potentially improving my personal life. From exploring new cities, to researching grad programs, to reconnecting with friends…It was all experimental, it was not always scientific, and it was all in the name of collecting data points. During this journey, a few interesting feelings made themselves prominent — curiosity, excitement, joy, and yes, a lot of nerves. Certainty showed up last. Hot on its heels, I decided to act.

Act 4: Change, Certainly

Stagnation sticks like molasses, but change melts it quickly. Time is traveling at warp speed right now.

In weeks, I sold my car, gave up my apartment, said hasty goodbyes to friends, and packed up all my hopes and dreams in boxes shipped to New York.

I bid adieu to a very cushy corporate job (a ‘welfare program for surplus elites’ à la the All In podcast), tossed my name in the hat for an MBA, again (old habits die hard), and made a commitment: do I finally have enough security, conviction, and courage to explore an intrinsically motivated career.

My community of familiar faces now looks overwhelmingly different, in this vast concrete jungle where no two days have mapped to a well-oiled routine. Everything is new, and when asked how it’s going, the only suitable reply is that still relevant bit from Taylor Swift, “We’re happy free confused and lonely at the same time…it’s miserable and magical oh yeahhhh.”

Is it mildly shocking to turn back and see everything I have just given up? Yes. Am I cautiously optimistic about what is ahead? Also yes. Is it going better than I expected? I feel so, I hope so, I am unsure, to be determined.

But have no doubt — Change is here, Certainly.

From heated rounds of Big Two,
TV controller wars with LongLong,
The delicate clatter of mahjong pieces,
And thick rings of cigarette smoke,
Permeating the kitchen and staining Yeye’s teeth a dark yellow.

I’m from red envelopes filled with coins and bills,
The slurping of soup noodles during Chinese New Year,
Scourging the neighbors’ yard for leftover firecrackers,
The day after celebration,
To set them off one by one, fingers jammed in our ears.

From salt popsicles in the clammy summers,
Lamb kebobs right off the grills on the street,
Candied haw desserts,
And fluffy white rice with every meal.

I’m from thrills — Clinging to uncle’s back while he zoomed past
blurry faces on his motorcycle,
Navigating through crowded alleyways at the farmers market, and
Rollerblading through nighttime streets, weaving in and out of elders
on their after dinner strolls.

From rusty orange apartments, flights of concrete stairs,
And ferry boat rides across the Yangtze River.

I’m from weekly phone calls with mom, our only line of connection until —

“You’re coming to America to live with us!”

I’m from 16-hr international flights,
And after school ESL lessons.

From cul-de-sac playdates,
Razor scooters,
McDonald’s drive thrus and
Saturday morning Nickelodeon cartoons.

Ready for a new life, but never ready to leave Shanghai behind,
And the piece of childhood that I call:

Home.

How do we build community?

Can we belong a community of people who are different than us?

These were the questions running through my mind during my time in Montana. A few weeks ago, my friend and I packed up my car with the essentials and made a beeline for a cabin in the Whitefish mountains. Friends and family met this decision with curiosity and excitement, albeit mixed with a healthy degree of skepticism: what were we going to be doing there? It’s a fair question: We crossed mountain ranges, vast farmlands, and rivers to plant ourselves among a tight-knit community that was in stark contrast to our own in the Bay Area.

My friend had less qualms than I did about standing out in Whitefish, dragging us to do everything the mountain town has to offer. At the touted local bar, Remington, we danced the Jitterbug to a live country music band. At the rodeo in Columbia Falls, we cheered on cowboys doing barrel races and bull rides. We took a shotgun class with a retired sheriff in his backyard. We went to the farmer’s market and more than drank our fair share of IPAs at every bar and brewery. We were picked up by a friendly group in a boat for an afternoon ride on Flathead Lake.

Fun activities and bonding aside, I continued to wonder: Do the people here have any interest to understand us and our worldview? Would they appreciate the diverse set of experiences that new members might bring to their community? Would pleasantries lead to real connection when we started deeper conversations about identities, politics, or values? I didn’t directly test the theories, but my inkling based on the quality of encounters we had, was yes.

For the trip, I brought along a few classic cabin reads: Walden, Leaves of Grass, The Grapes of Wrath, a climbing magazine, and a few others. Yet the book I actually gravitated towards is a collection of essays by Terry Tempest Williams: Erosion - Essays of Undoing. One story struck me in particular: A man, while on a recreational whitewater rafting trip, attempted to jump into the rushing river to his death. He was quickly pulled back by the alarmed tourists aboard, who did not know him but did not hesitate to save his life. As one of the people in the raft, Williams reflected on the encounter, “I think back to that moment on the river often, reflecting on how important community is to our survival and the amount of work it takes to support each other — and what we lose if we don’t. I think about the people who would have grabbed my arms or held on to my ankles if I had wanted simply to surrender to the rapids...To belong to a place and a group of people saves our lives. Without that, we lose sight of this precious gift called life.”

To belong. The sentiment resonated with me, overlooking the treelines of the nearby mountain ranges, as my close friends and family lived over 600 miles away. While my existing community wasn’t around, the passage was a good reminder that there were new people I could meet who could become my friends and family. Maybe this belief is what manifested for us the spontaneous invitations from the locals we met in the dive bars, to go kayaking with them, to go boating with them, and to share meals with them.

We are not islands — we have people we are connected to, people we care for, and people we haven’t even met yet, who will become important to us. Our actions and wellbeing inevitably affect others, even when we might wish for some temporary escape, even when we wish to be solitary (Sorry Thoreau, but modern 21st Century life might require more civic duty and compassion from us, rather than dogged self determination).

A boyfriend first told me about Bozeman. He was moving there for the winter ski season and I could tell his hunger for this community was deep. At the time, I couldn’t identify the city on a map and couldn’t fathom spending time in such a foreign place with him. As someone who has traveled a fair amount abroad, mainly to large cities in Asia and Europe, I had to confront that the limit of my comfort zone in 2020 ended solidly at the eastern borders of Washington and California, where urban meets rural. The breakup made me think hard about my fears of being around people who challenged my worldview. In the months that followed, I tried to dip my toes in the waters of alternative ways of life, and I was pleasantly surprised at what I found just around the river bend. Bend, Boulder, Breckenridge, Moab, Salt Lake City…and other cities became real places with real personalities to me, not just imagined locales.

Almost a year later, I made it to Bozeman. Ironically, the city felt like it could be transported to California without missing a beat. Yes, the city had glimmers of distinct local roots and Montana pride, but real estate has boomed and with that came the trendy coffee shops, boutiques, and bars catering to the steady flow of folks on their way to Yellowstone National Park. I’m not sure the locals appreciate that their hometown had been coined ‘Boz Angeles’ by the WSJ. I’m not sure there’s anything that could revert these changes.

Community building is complex. Today, we have physical communities formed based on geography, religion, heritage and lifestyle. We also have digital communities connected on the basis of interests and ideologies. These are often intersectional in nature, with individuals tapping into many communities based on their multi-layered identities. We may find our communities by living in a place that resonates with our cultural roots, that affords us access to lifestyle preferences, and all the while connecting digitally with our tribes around the world.

While we can create community anywhere, feeling a sense of belonging in the place we live is incredibly important. Having people around who look like me, with life experiences and values like mine, feels increasingly important for human flourishing. We all have personal histories and connections to cultures that we carry with us, wherever we choose to settle down. Having lived in Shanghai, the Pacific Northwest, and the Bay Area, I can’t imagine being a part of a lasting community that does not value diversity, cultural appreciation, and open-mindedness. While pandemic travel restrictions and polarizing political views have made cultural exchange increasingly difficult to attain, there is a lot of value in continuing to grow our understanding of people and communities with alternative perspectives. It took a long, long journey out to Montana to reaffirm these sentiments. I am glad we made the drive.

The Harvard study tracking men from youth to age 75 concluded that the secret to “happiness is love, full stop.” Having read that finding several years ago, I thought it was a rather trite statement. It has really taken me until now to fully comprehend that the ultimate gift and joy of life is to love and be loved in return.

What is love?

There is platonic love, sure, and I have felt pure affection for my dearest friends, for whom there is loyalty, admiration, and mutual support.

There is romantic love too, of which the experience is deeply visceral, but often come with qualifiers (they might have a deep appreciation for art or a similar view of the world, for example, and let’s not forget the idealization of each other as ‘my person’).

Then there is the love of humanity. With the circumstances in the world this year, it has become painfully clear that we must love one another. Love of humanity has a grittier quality; it is marked by sacrifice, commitment, and selfless acts. This Higher Love, as embodied by respected figures in human history, can bring us to tears.

‘Love, love is a verb,’ Massive Attack crooned.

To love is to act. There are small acts, like squeezing someone’s hand in encouragement, saying ‘you choose,’ or picking up a phone call from someone in need of a friend.

There are bigger acts, like forgiving someone for causing you harm, visitations at the hospital, and the statements “I see you,” “I understand you,” and “I accept you.”

Then there are the Big Acts, the ones where we forget ourselves in service of another, and when we do the right thing even when it may not be the thing we want selfishly. It is embodied by our frontline medical workers, risking their lives to treat patients every day. It is embodied by our teachers, working hard to educate our siblings and children. The love of humanity requires Big Acts from us; admittedly this often might demand of us more than we are willing or able to give. It is something to strive towards.

In experiencing our collective terror in the world at this moment, the big and small acts of love that we experience are all the more precious and harder fought for. The acts we bear witness to, from strangers and lovers and friends and others, hopefully can inspire more acts. It is the beauty amidst the terror, happening simultaneously.

In the dawn of the world re-emerging from our collective year inside, we can be grateful for love, of all kinds. We are in this together. We are not alone, we have each other. We are loved. We are loved.

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery — even if mixed with fear — that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity.”

Puerto Rico

There are moments when you want to channel Walt Whitman and sound your barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world and declare, “I am man. I exist. I can conquer.” Then there are moments when nature dwarfs the need to proclaim our identity by demanding our silence with its magnificent beauty. In Puerto Rico, the moments of silence were deafening. I felt it on our tour of the El Yunque rainforest, listening to the cooing of coqui frogs and the wet dripping of rain. Just like back home in the Pacific Northwest, I noted.

I felt it as we navigated our kayaks through the bioluminescent waters of Laguna Grande in the pitch darkness, surrounded by thick mangrove trees, when all that could be heard was the swooshing of our paddles. All that could be seen with our naked eyes was the flashes of neon light particles in the water produced by the ripples. Left stroke, right stroke, left stroke. We paddled for what felt like miles.

Finally, we reached the circular clearing. I could barely make out the mangroves that outlined the perimeter; the lagoon must have been several hundred yards wide. I looked up at the starry night and felt transported into a dream. Knowing that our cameras could never capture the beauty of this scene, I craned my neck and kept my gaze upward, trying to fill my widened eyes with the panorama. Can this moment stretch on forever? I blinked.

Yosemite

Outside the city,

(Yes, there is life beyond there)

The silence settles.

—

Here, you cease to find,

Right and Wrong; Ego; the Self.

Can we stay longer?

—

In the valley of

Granite and sequoia groves,

We found rare respite.

Hakone

Nature has no desires —

It does not wish to win, to impress, to please, to conquer;

Nature simply is.

Existence itself is already a blessing.

We are here to experience all of it and we cannot leave here with any of it.

Nietzche said: “There is one thing one has to have: either a soul that is cheerful by nature, or a soul made cheerful by work, love, art, and knowledge.”

Here are some eternal muses I have found for some inspiration on rainy days. Some themes in these works of art: the triumph of the human spirit over struggle, the ability for love to catalyze change, the exploration of the psyche.

Fiction:

• The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera (On love in times of war and the difficult decisions one makes under tough conditions)

• One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (On the repeating lessons of history and impact on family, tradition)

• Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (On the intimate struggles of one family out West during the Dust Bowl)

• The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck (On one farmer’s rags to riches story during 20th Century China)

• Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami (Exploring intimacy and closeness)

• Peace Like a River - Leif Enger (Truly gorgeous storytelling, with characters I loved enough to want to protect)

• Calvin & Hobbes - Bill Watterson (Comfort in the form of comics)

• The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (My favorite children’s book for us big kiddos)

Nonfiction:

• Boys In the Boat - Daniel James Brown (On small town farm boys’ road to triumph in the Berlin Olympics, go Huskies!!!)

• The Things They Carried - Tim O’Brien (Tales of the brutality and humanity of war, told by someone who saw it from the front lines)

• When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi (Resonates with me on personal level. A truly brave memoir from an incredible person about his race against death)

• Man’s Search for Meaning - Victor Frankl (A doctor’s journal of how he survived during the Holocaust, through reimagining the purpose of struggle)

• Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates (A father’s poetic letter to his son, about racial identity in America, a raw display of vulnerable, protective paternal love)

• The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion (A stream of consciousness look at grief and loss, in the aftermath of her husband passing away)

• Minor Feelings - Cathy Park Hong (A powerful examination of growing up Asian American)

• Factfulness - Hans Rosling (A much needed dose of optimism about how our world is changing for the better)

• Hunger - Roxanne Gay (On her relationship with food, body image, and the impossible beauty standards women face in society)

• Meditations - Marcus Aurelius (A guide post for personal growth and character development, particularly during trying times)

• Walden & Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau (An ode to self reliance, being independent minded, being one with nature)

• Eating Animals - Jonathan Safran Foer (The most compelling case for vegetarianism I have read)

• Essays by George Saunders (For true soul enrichment. He is an angel.)

• Essays by David Sedaris (For a good laugh and a case study in writing with self deprecation)

Film:

• Whiplash (How badly do you want it? Blood, sweat, and tears pave the way to greatness)

• Amelie (That piano score, the tenderness of a private life)

• Casablanca (Drama, gunfire, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, perfection)

• Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Every scene is a period painting, ending scene set to Vivaldi’s Summer)

• Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger (An unforgettable heroine’s journey)

• Moonlight (Such pain, so beautifully and tenderly expressed)

• Good Will Hunting (Robin Williams as the therapist we all wish we had)

• Shawshank Redemption (“Hope is a dangerous thing”)

• The Terminal (Heartwarming, period)

• Forrest Gump (Aren’t we all just feathers blowing in the wind?)

• Eat, Drink, Man, Woman (Encapsulates life and values as I remember from China)

• Motorcycle Diaries

• Million Dollar Baby

Classical Music:

• Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op 85 - Edward Elgar

• The Planets, Venus - Gustav Holst

• Four Seasons - Vivaldi

• Liebestraum - Franz Listz

• Reverie - Debussy

Poetry:

• The Guesthouse - Jalaluddin Rumi

• Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

• If - Rudyard Kipling

• Song of Myself, 51 - Walt Whitman

• Song of Myself, 52 - Walt Whitman

• Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost

Essays:

• Joan Didion’s ode to New York, “Goodbye to All That”

• Einstein’s essay, “The World As I See It”

• George Saunders’ commencement speech at Syracuse University

Music Videos:

• Lately, FJK’s live sessions

• Glitter in the Air - Pink

• I’ll Follow You Into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie

• I’ll Try Anything Once - The Strokes

—

This week marks one full year in lockdown in California. I remember the day, March 16, 2020. I was starting my first day at Atlassian remotely (my laptop was shipped to my Nob Hill apartment and I spent the better part of the morning setting it up with IT over a Zoom). That was also the first day we got notice that the state was sheltering in place for two weeks to slow down transmission rates for COVID. Alas, that ban has stayed in effect for 365 days! On the eve of this one year mark, I am dreaming and reminiscing about traveling.

There is research to support that traveling may foster more creativity and a stronger sense of self as shown by personality changes. Traveling makes me a braver, more open-minded person. While I am quite shy when first meeting people, when I am traveling, I don’t think twice when striking up conversations with strangers in hostels and trains, sometimes making fast friends for the road. I think it comes from the natural bond between two people who are experiencing something new together. Trust develops quickly when you realize you are both dependent on each other in this foreign land, or that your experience could be enhanced by doing things together (Reminiscent of Christopher McCandless writing that ‘Happiness is only real when shared.”)

Other studies have examined how exposure to new stimuli can improve brain neuroplasticity, which is process of the brain forming new neuron networks through growth or reorganization. As much routine provide us the ability to form good habits, it can also rob us of heightened awareness and engagement with the world around us. Traveling is the antithesis to routine; when I am traveling, I am more awake. When on the road, everyday activities, like grabbing a cappuccino from a local coffee shop or going on a walk, become an adventure. Being in a new city requires more problem solving in real time. Adrenaline kicks in and you become more keenly aware of your gut reads and judgments about a situation. I can feel my mind becoming more alert of my surroundings. I catch myself paying attention to the small details — the shape of a tree, the design of a building, the way someone walks, the sounds of the city.

So, in the words of Francis Mallmann, “Get out of your chair, sofa or office and go out.”

The mid-20s have been marked by a curious phenomenon amongst my peers: countless conversations now lead to those forks in the road, the ‘should I do this, move here, try something new, stick to my path?’ It may be exacerbated by our collective brain fog in this pandemic, combined with the unshakeable knowledge that as the years are flying by, our time is now definitively limited. There’s not that many years left for frivolous experimentation and exploration.

For me, the crux of personal decision making has always come down to the tension between choosing growth and choosing comfort. That might be the more obvious framing (of course most people would like to convince themselves that their decisions are not from following the path of least resistance). The more nuanced framing would be: am I happy where I am now, or do I think there is something better out there that I must try to find? As in, do I settle for the life I have now, which is very good already, or do I give it up in the hopes of finding a life that is more — more fulfilling, more interesting, more of what I want? And do I think I’ll find myself to be more fulfilling, more interesting, more ‘me’ as a result? At what point should we stop wanting more? Is this a greed or is this a natural human drive?

Regardless, decisions are made on a daily basis by each of us. Decisions that shape our next day, year, and life. We need to trust that we are able to handle these decisions and able to make them soundly.

One decision that I have wavered on for this entire past year is whether to go back for my MBA. I applied at the tail end of leaving a company and community that I loved, but had come to outgrow. I found myself 5 years into a very happy and comfortable life in San Francisco, having explored 3 companies, 4 neighborhoods, many friendships and outdoors adventures around the Bay. It is a really good life. I am grateful every day to be able to live in such a dynamic, intellectually stimulating and fair weathered city. At the same time, a part of me is itching to see what else is out there in the ‘infinite abyss.’

At this current moment, I am deciding not to go for the MBA. To get here, I employed as many decision making tools as I could.

1) I did a ton of external research.

• I reached out to coworkers and alumni of the schools I was considering to get their perspective on how the MBA shaped their career and what they think the value of the degree was in hindsight. Some of these were first degree connections, others were cold outreaches. Almost everyone replied and was enthusiastic to share their experience, most being very honest about the factors that influenced their choices. I learned from these conversations that the degree can be a very practical tool to make a quick pivot, allow for relocation to a new city, or in some cases, delay more permanent decisions around committing to a career path :)

2) I consulted my trusted ‘personal board of directors.’

• I lean heavily on my trusted close friends, family and work mentors when making important life decisions, because they are the ones who not only have seen how I show up in the world, but also can offer observations and address blindspots that I otherwise would miss. While those with limited context on your lived experience can be quick to offer advice, those who are in the trenches with you through the ups and downs of life can be more thoughtful in asking the right questions that guide you to making your decision for yourself, naturally.

3) I visualized what the consequences of the decision looks like for both scenarios and weighed the tradeoffs.

• Given the MBA is such a large financial investment, I made a budget for the next year based on a Go vs No Go decision. It helped me to check the box on whether the decision would be realistic financially, and that way allowed me to make the decision based on other qualitative factors.

• I also researched the housing options near campus, talked to a few potential students who could be roommates, and visited a few friends in the program after getting accepted, to visualize what life would be like in actuality, not in my head. This is important: As an idealist, it’s easy to fantasize what the future might look like, which is why getting acquainted with the reality of a situation is very important for good decision making!

4) After having done all the homework, I sat on the decision for as long as I could and listened to my gut (or heart, or intuition, or whatever you think that inner voice of yours is telling you).

• I knew that decision was signalling a deeper feeling of wanting to find purpose in my work and life. Even after having traveled to a few different cities in the last few months, I returned to my apartment, feeling restless still. I realized I needed to sit with my thoughts and worries, quiet down, and really listen to what is surfacing. I realized that what is holding me back from unlocking the next stage of my career growth is not more business education, or moving to a new city, which are just temporary fixes. In fact, the opportunity I have is to find more focus and long term thinking around my career goals and my life’s work. This is something that people spend decades committing themselves to! Having come to this conclusion, I instead am focusing my attention on slowing down, exploring new opportunities as they come, and getting a career coach to supplement my discovery of what fuels my fire and makes me feel alive in a work setting.

I think a version of this can be a repeatable process, one that gets easier and faster with practice, just like exercising.

Yes, the thrill of the unknown will always be more exciting than the life that we currently live, breathe, and inhabit every day. It’s impossible to compare imperfect Reality with the perfect Unknown — that’s because the Unknown is often Unknowable until after we have made our decision!

We might be genetically programmed to have a grass is greener mentality, but really, the grass is greener where you water it. Choose wisely :)

A few weeks ago, I visited my childhood friend from Seattle in her new home in Raleigh, NC. Seeing her fully embrace the values and culture of the South inspired me to explore more immediately a life that embodies the ideals I espouse. Embodied living: to manifest the intangible (values) into physical reality (habits, community, friendships). An attempt at forming an answer led me to New York. 

Upon landing in JFK in 20F weather, I immediately braced myself for a frosty welcome. Instead, New York quickly reminded me of the reasons why I came here. The first: solidarity and community among strangers. On my first night stroll in West Village, accompanied by string favorites, I quickly sped up my pace to join the collective tempo set by my fellow city walkers carrying their grocery bags, coffee or dog lease in hand, sometimes all three. It was freezing cold, but all seemed unfazed. In fact, the outdoor pavilions of mom and pop restaurants remained packed, with tables of earnest diners under glaring heat lamps chatting away, again, unfazed. That alone gave me enough courage to continue venturing onward to Van Leeuwen, where I got a scoop of chocolate fudge brownie around 9pm. Let me remind you that it was 20F outside.

The second reason: reverence for artistic expression and culture. The last times I visited The Met, The MoMa, and the Guggenheim, I was shoulder to shoulder with art enthusiasts, getting quick peeks at the great works. This time, the art museums were almost a private encounter, an intimate conversation between the artists and myself. They were effusive in their delivery and I was rapt, keen to absorb. In The Met’s Impressionism gallery, I craned my neck less than two feet away from the canvases of Cezanne, Picasso, Degas, Van Gogh. I could almost imagine the deliberateness behind the brushstrokes, the feelings emoting from their choices of colors. At the MoMa, I sat alone in Monet’s Water Lilies exhibit for half an hour. In the center of the colossal metropolitan that is New York City, in a corner gallery of the MoMa, there was a call for respite in front of his dreamy pastels. At the Guggenheim, a few visitors and I walked in staggered formation, in complete silence, up the round white spiral steps while pondering the questions posed: How do we reimagine the ‘countryside’ as more of the world’s population moves towards urban centers, which are increasingly designed as connected smart cities? One insight spoke directly to me in my state: how do we seek solitude and individual identity in the city, where so much of who we are is in relation to others in the hierarchy of different societal structures?

Just a few blocks away, the expansive trails of Central Park, now covered in half a feet of melting snow, welcomed me to unravel my thoughts. Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, I feel most at home and at peace near nature. Here, nature takes on an urban form. American elms, their branches bare, framed the meadows that lay in front of towering skyscrapers. The sun is blaring down from above, the air is crisp, and near me, an old couple were nonchalantly trekking their cross country skis through the snow. It is this dichotomy between the elements of nature and city that make city parks so astounding.

Later, at Fort Tryon Park, a few people and I spotted a lone barred owl sitting on a tree near the entrance of the trails. It looked so serene and rested on its branch, it made me question whether we were the ones out of place. It is precisely the juxtaposition of urban and nature that makes us appreciate both more. Having spent time in remote cabins on ski trips and camping excursions, I came to realize that extended solitude in nature makes one yearn for a human face. Yet, spend too much time in a cityscape and one gets the unbearable urge to escape to the countryside again. This push and pull of where our souls thrive best is what makes modern life quite challenging to grapple with. Where, oh where, does one exist as one’s best?

It’s a personal question of course; everyone will find themselves on a spectrum here. In my attempt at finding inspiration for embodied living in New York, I acknowledge the third reason this city continues to mesmerize me: time operates on a different plane here! Despite being more creatively engaged and productive here than in most places, I cannot seem to grip the hours of the day as so is easily the case in the suburbs or other major cities. My exploration has hardly begun and it is already the tail end of the journey. It is why I often return again and again here. Most environments serve as a rich backdrop for an individual life; New York serves as an omnipresent muse.