yes, but why?

Motivation is a scarce and elusive thing. I fancy myself a rather self-motivated lassie and never needed my parents’ goading to get on with studying as a child. I still can’t quite tell if I was more driven by the reward of gloating rights or the fear of shame, but nevertheless, I never really had trouble aiming for a goal. Suddenly though, cast out of the regimented, point-value life, motivation was much harder to come by. I knew what I had to do: get a job and do well, and I fulfilled this obligation soon after graduation, but before long work felt like, well, work. But not in a good way. It felt like a chore, to “get over with,” to struggle through in order to reach and merit the weekend. Little inefficiencies and mishaps started to take a toll, and I no longer felt the urge to go the extra mile every day.

My very wise boyfriend pointed out that unlike school where your performance was reviewed and awarded every couple of weeks or months, in the real world, the interval is all of a sudden stretched into years. The reward, the sense of achievement sometimes won’t come even until after you’ve left a company. I remember the oddity that was working at magazines with a 5-month lead-time so that some people who’ve left will still find their names on the masthead months after. Or even my engineer boyfriend who tinkers with cars—cars that won’t reach the showroom until years after the fact. So how does one derive motivation when working on something so drawn-out? How does one wake up in the morning with relative excitement to work on a tiny fraction of a part of an idea that wouldn’t come into fruition till much later? We all know that Pinterest quote “Never stop doing your best just because someone doesn’t give you credit,” but simply how does one find daily energy to do that?

The answer is, to ask “why.” Somewhere in the shuffle that is work-life, I've forgotten to ask why. In Simon Sinek’s TED Talk, he explains that the most successful and inspirational people and companies always start with why. Everyone knows what they do, he says, many know how they do it, but only great leaders know why they do it. Most people function by selling the end result, the “what” before figuring out the “why.” For example, releasing a shiny new laptop and telling people to buy it. But great companies act from the inside out, so that all their successive actions are grounded from that point of conviction. Apple, he notes, projects their fundamental beliefs, namely their commitment to perfection and innovation, and then tell people to buy their projects.

In the same way, I’ve found that in our lives, action for the sake of action is not sustainable. Without purpose, every morning you’ll find yourself mustering every strand of willpower to get out of bed. Without motivation, even the hardest workers will find themselves running out of steam and the most challenging tasks will cease to be inspiring if they have no purpose with which to propel them, never mind minuscule duties of our every day lives.

So perhaps the response to this relentless question is to ask who.

My boyfriend’s super-smart-and-driven colleague, who’s only in his twenties just beat out his much older colleagues for the company’s equivalent of Employee of the Month and earned himself a hefty raise. His work, though riveting I’m sure, is not without its inconveniences. Nevertheless you rarely see him frown, complain or gripe. “Why?” Because he locked his sight on the company’s Vice President and said “I’m want to be him in 10 years, and doing this shitty thing right now is going to get me there.”

It’s been a while since I've been asked about my icon. I’m not confident I ever really had one, I mean sure I look up to my mother’s success and this powerful woman or that stylish beauty, but they don’t amount to a muse. This muse can be an existing person or even you in 10 years but he or she can’t be a fleeting image of success, she needs to be so alive that you could trace her steps, trace them all the way back to you now so you can say, “yes this may be a small step but it will lead me to you.” The muse will inform your every decision, drive your every action, be so compelling that she’ll help you make sense of the nitty-gritty as well as the abstract, and hopefully she’ll put to rest the ever-itching question of why.

we all have secrets, but are they all necessary?

“Connection is why we're here. It's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives…neurobiologically that's how we're wired. Shame is really easily understood as the fear of disconnection: Is there something about me that, if other people know it or see it, that I won't be worthy of connection? What underpinned this shame, this "I'm not good enough," The thing that underpinned this was excruciating vulnerability, this idea of, in order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen, really seen.” –Bréne Brown

There was a girl I went to school with who always smiled. She had the best attitude you could ask for in 15-year-old and never believed in gossip. But if you read between the lines you’d see that she didn’t talk about other people in no small part because she didn’t like to talk about herself. Then, on a fateful bus ride one afternoon I found out why. When she was a child, she once tried to open up her feelings to a friend. But the person cut her off, blatantly annoyed saying, “Why are you telling me this?” From then on, she kept her thoughts to herself.

It may seem like a dramatic response, but what you experience as a child often has exponential, even traumatically debilitating effects. I, for one, know this to be true. You see, I have a secret. I used to have a really bad temper. Like, really bad. It was so bad one day my middle school best friends decided to stop being friends with me. It was the first time I realized that people whom you’ve completely revealed yourself to could and would turn you away. It told me, as Brown says, that there was something about me that wasn’t worthy of connection. And so, using my above-average learning curve, I conditioned myself (mostly subconsciously) to stop showing that side of me entirely. And it worked. In fact, it worked so well that when I told one of my post high school friends that I perform acts of violence against those who dare disturb my slumber, she looked at me incredulously and said, “Yeah right, you wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

But whenever I see their heads shake in disbelief, instead of feeling a sense of accomplishment I feel a little sad. In an attempt to find out why, I looked back on some of my most recent conversations with friends over ludicrously priced coffee and found myself to be so…boring. Conversation was bland as we circled the same topics that barely scratched the surface of my inner thoughts. The words I uttered felt tired as I echoed their small talk and regurgitated happy nothings. And as an introvert who often loses energy during meaningless conversation, I found myself constantly drained.

I was sad because in all that effort to be personable, lovable and agreeable I had forgotten what it felt like to have an engaging conversation and to dig into each other's minds, to talk about things that are uncomfortable in hopes of emerging with a greater understanding of the topic, if not a greater understanding of each other.

 “One of the ways we deal with vulnerability,” says Brown, “is we numb it. But you can't numb those hard feelings without numbing the other affects, our emotions. You cannot selectively numb. So when we numb those, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness.”

Indeed, I’ve found that those who’ve grown up with me and seen the gracious and the volatile, who have seen me completely go off the rails, lose my shit in anger and rant at 950 words per minute are the only ones that I feel truly know me. And I think, in turn, they feel that this other side of me informs and explains the rest of my personality. 

I’ve found that I actually enjoy it when my friends seek my sympathetic ear when something’s troubling them, and when they show me the side of them that isn’t always happy. It makes me feel like they trust me enough to help carry their burden, and value my support enough to ask for it. They, in essence, are deeming me worthy of knowing them better, so maybe it is only polite that I return the favor.

After all, “those who embraced vulnerability,” says Brown, “Neither spoke of it as being comfortable nor excruciating. They simple saw it as a necessity. As a result of authenticity, they were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were, which you have to absolutely do that for connection.”

So watch out world, from now on, you’re going to get me, unreserved, uninhibited, unequivocally, me. Good luck!

friends for now or friends for life?

My friend has an interesting method of gossip. Like a compulsive disorder, it makes her incredibly uncomfortable if she relays another person’s story or quote in anything less than exactly the way it was. To her, paraphrasing simply won't do. I used to joke that maybe she should have been the journalist, what with her acute memory for quotation and moral obligation for truthful reiteration. But jokes aside, I think I came to adopt a little bit of her philosophy. I found, that while some people are comfortable calling everyone a “friend,” I feel the same itching discomfort in saying the words, “I have a friend who…” if said person was a mere acquaintance, even if he or she wasn’t in the room.

A lady I know would appear to be the most well connected person on earth if all of those models, magazine editors, and designers are truly her best friends as she says. And maybe she really does have 57 best friends, I guess only she could know. But if science is any indication, chances are, only a fraction of those people are privy to her innermost thoughts and desires, the foundation of what the post-millennials only know as BFFLs. 

I myself only have two people that I consider best friends. In fact, since middle school (and maybe it’s because of all those super realistic tween dramas I watched) I kind of subscribed to the idea that one is only supposed to have one best friend—and that’s it. And then, of course, I have friends, those whom I see regularly and who are caught up with my life experiences and my thoughts and feelings about them. Those who are privy to select parts of my innermost concerns, and, in a crude way of speaking, serve a select purpose. I’m sure we all have that one friend we see when we want a good laugh, the one we see when we really need to talk, and the one we see when we want to do neither and just want to get shit-faced. Those, I can confidently call “friends” because I am certain that when each of them are asked the same question, they will be sure to reciprocate.

I think that’s the reason why I’m so hesitant to call that girl I’ve only spoken to twice in college, or that girl I only ever call on when I need something from her at work, or that girl who’s a friend of a friend I’ve seen around, “my friend.” Even if she wasn’t in the room and I was simply describing her to someone else, it would be so much easier to roll out the word “friend” but instead, I turn into that long-winded grandma who must tell you the full context of the story, your standing appointment be damned. I end up saying “I have an acquaintance” (yes I know that sounds super awkward) or “I know a girl.”

Upon bouncing this thought off a few people, I’ve found this gut reaction stems from the fact that we feel a responsibility to the word, “friend.” That in calling someone a friend you are acknowledging and implying every sense of the word. I’m going to risk being accused of being self-righteous and say perhaps these same people will by extension be better friends themselves, because it means they hold themselves to that same definition of friendship. In other words, if someone calls a girl who she sees rarely and who only knows her first name a “best friend,” what do you think that phrase means to her?

I guess this whole thought process helped enlighten me to the various ways in which our vernacular reflects our beliefs. That who we call a friend shows our definition of friendship the same way what we deem beautiful is a reflection of our aesthetic. After all, Merriam-Webster can define these words for us, but where we use them is what gives them meaning. 

after all, the only constant is change

I’d like to think that I’ve grown up a fair amount since high school. Once I left the suffocating bosom that it was, I found myself in countless compromising positions that tested the very foundation of my morals, but I emerged with a much greater sense of self. I guess that’s what they call “maturity,” the vague term we use to describe those older and wiser, but I’ve come to see that the word has less to do with age and knowledge than it does with self-acceptance—that time and knowledge are tools to help you understand yourself. So I guess in this self-centered pursuit, it’s only natural that we sometimes forget that people around us are changing too.

There’s a girl I’ve known since kindergarten who has an endearing nature, but which also lends itself to sometimes being reliant on the approval and company of others. I remember the very same girl who needed to be walked home by her boyfriend after school every day and who loathed being in public alone. It’s as if our perceptions of the people in our lives stay suspended from the last we’ve seen them, that because I haven’t spent a significant amount of time with this girl since high school, in my mind, four years later, I still see her as the 18 year-old girl I knew. So when we finally had lunch one day, and she updated me on all things college, I was surprised to hear she actually “enjoyed shopping alone sometimes” and “preferred one-on-one meetings.” The idea that people change, you might say, is a very “duh” concept, but then why is it that we’re still surprised when it happens? If I’m not the same girl who hated mushrooms and threw tantrums at my mother, then how could I assume that those around me are still thoroughly the same?

Indeed, to paraphrase Dosteovsky, what makes us human is our ability to surprise. We can guess the trajectory of a plant’s growth with much accuracy, and even anticipate an animal’s next move based on its environment, but no matter our faith in psychology, humans are unfailingly capable of surprise. So to forget that someone has the ability to do so is to strip them of their humanness.

We might all be guilty of that crime at some point or another. I know I am. When a quiet girl a year below me in high school who was never even in my periphery grew up to be a web-famous gif artist, I knew I had forgotten to see her as someone with the vast range of opportunities and possibilities as I had. And so I leave you with the same words that my college English professor left my class on our last day, “Look around you once in a while, and don’t forget, you might think you’re the hero/heroine of your own story, but you may just be an extra in someone else’s.” 

running on stilettos

My mother is five-foot-two (and a half, she’d argue) but her shoulders are broader than her height might suggest. When she sits at a table for a conference, no one could guess how short she is because her shoulders are clearly supposed to carry more weight, though her ankles dangle underneath. The Chinese call the cheek bone the “power bone,” and the higher the cheekbones, the more power you’re meant to wield. Her cheekbones jut out like the Queen’s orbs, the one thing that doesn't move no matter if she’s laughing or crying. And if someone’s personality could be deciphered from their walk (my shuffling feet and concave shoulders exposing my many insecurities) my mother jabs her size-5 feet into the ground, flings her shoulders back, head high, like she’s out collecting a debt.

She was the child that got away. The only girl of four children in a patriarchic family, and she was determined never to live a life picking up slippers for the men, or anyone for that matter. Even at an early age, if she dropped a pen, she would never stoop to pick it up. Under no circumstance will she bow down. She was the child that flicked ink at her calligraphy teacher’s face, and peed immediately next to the toilet (standing up, no less) just to infuriate her mother. And she got away with it. As her father prepared her brothers to take over his Asian furniture manufacturing empire, she ran away, all the way to Canada, and didn't come back for a decade. There, she tumbled her way down black diamond ski slopes as an amateur skier. She traveled everywhere in six-inch heels to be at eye-level with “the white people” before finally settling in Hong Kong. She got away with it all. 

Then she met my father. He was a salesman at a shoe store, she was an office manager. He took other people’s jabber, and was learned in the art of appeasement. She did all the jabbering, and to her, compromising would be admitting defeat. He spent his days tying people’s shoelaces; she never looked down to see if they were untied. They were perfect for each other. He told his friend once, “yeah, she’s nuts, but I’m nuts for her.” The Chinese say the thicker the lips, the more generous the person. He had lips so plump, many women would go under the knife to replicate them.

Even with her husband, she got away with never having to take care of herself. It was as if life itself knew she was meant for great things, and so it sent her my father, so she never has to make breakfast herself. And taking care of her is like taking care of a child. She loves peanuts and would skip dinner to eat a pound of them in front of the TV. Then she’d go around complaining about her “whale of an ass” the next morning as she shoved another handful of peanuts in her mouth. He decided this was unhealthy, so he tossed all nuts the next day. She threw tantrums for weeks, but then one day, curiously, she stopped. Turns out, she stashed peanuts in the back of the car so she’d have her fill during the ride home every day. He knew this all along from all the peanut shells on the floor of the car, but he would say nothing, and shake his head with a smile. That’s the thing, no one ever feels obliged to take care of her. Her tyrannical disposition is always redeemed by the charisma and ease at which she could draw laughter from even those she commanded.  She is the larger than life character that people felt honored to serve, the pretty face that everyone deems deserving of attention. In recognizing her potential for success, it’s like all they want is to be the person to reheat her food or carry her stilettos. They just want to be near her, to admire her bravado, yet recognize and bolster her frailties.

Like most people who spit on authority, she had to create her own business lest she drove all her employers to therapy. So with her husband, she started a business with one office, three employees and many sleepless nights. Sometimes they’d come home at 7 am, just in time to see me off to school. As the days wore on, her disposition grew pricklier, and the slightest disturbance from her thoughts, smallest scratch on her shoes would send her voice ringing off the walls and vein-mapped eyes bulging in fury. I remember flipping through my diary of when I was eight, and discovering passages like, “Dear Diary, today was a good day because Mommy didn't yell at me.” These were the years that Daddy woke up to my nightmares, while Mommy never slept, and even when she did, her eyelids fluttered in worry and her brows furrowed, like she was suffering from perpetual nightmares. But I guess hard work does pay off because slowly, she found herself on billboards and TV shows and soon, they had ten offices, over a hundred employees and took the weekends off. Through it all, I could see her metaphorically sticking her middle finger up at everyone who ever doubted her. 

But as she sprints by the many molds she’s determined to break, dark hair whipping through the winds of fate, she loses consciousness of her limits, her scruples and even those around her. Sometimes she gets away from even herself. Sometimes those cheekbones jut so high that they leave her cheeks hollow.

“Strength is something you choose,” she’d say. With a philosophy like that, her health didn't stand a chance. As she stumbled down the stairs one morning, lips pale, eyes sullen, she insisted on going to work. I gently reprimanded her, saying she was in no condition, but she waved me off saying there are five hundred people out there that paid to see her lecture. I followed her to work that day and sat quietly in her office as she cradled her forehead in her hand. The talk was in ten minutes. Her assistant came in with tea and she hugged her small frame around it gratefully. Suddenly, in a jerking motion, she dove under the table and kept her face in the trashcan until the spasms stopped. In a horrified whisper, her assistant asked if she would like to cancel the talk. But she lifted a hand in defiance, took a sip of tea, and walked into the lecture hall. From the other side of the wall, I heard her voice greet the students with one of her signature jokes. The room erupted in laughter.

It’s as if she knows no other way. She was never meant to crawl. Her father used to joke that she was born and just took off sprinting. She was never meant to breathe the same air as a clerk, because she’d rather stride up Mt. Everest and breathe on higher ground even if it’d make her swoon. One summer, as we biked through the tightly tiled streets of Amsterdam with the smell of smog and salt in the air, we stopped every ten minutes or so to take in the red and blue houses “sardined” along the canal. One time, we biked to the end of the trail. At a glance, there were no moving cars along the street so we rolled our bikes over the sidewalk and began pedaling down the road. But just as the rain always comes when one forgets their umbrella, sure enough, a bus came lurching around the corner and was swiftly gaining on our rear wheels. We deftly swerved into the closest niche in the sidewalk, before we heard a yelp and Daddy and I witnessed the semi-comical sight of Mommy biking vigorously ahead of the bus. We screamed for her to get off the street but all we heard was a huge laugh as she screamed back, “I don’t know why but I cant’!” It had nothing to do with her bike. It had nothing to do with fear. Like with most things she sets her mind to, there’s nothing her body can do to make her turn back, whatever the expense.

They say mothers are like superheroes, what with their ability to cook, care, and comfort the entire family without fail. I could count on one hand the number of times my mother has cooked for me, and she’s literally the worst person on earth to run to for comfort (seriously, when I got a paper cut as a child and came to her crying, she’d say, “I guess we’ll have to cut your hand off”), but I've seen her lift mental boulders Superman would only deign to try. I've seen her verbally slaughter a naysayer in a way Donald Trump would fear. And I've seen her embrace the role of both mom and dad since my father’s passing, in a way I would forever be grateful for. All that in six-inched stilettos, of course.

say no and don't look back

The 21st century adage of “learning how to say no at work” is splattered all over the internet, with every career advice site preaching it religiously. There are endless self help books guiding people on the right and wrong times to refuse your boss. In fact, just this past week I've had to do so twice and while I knew it was the right thing to do, it made me squirm. And then I realized, everyone tells you you have to say no sometimes, but no one teaches you how to not feel guilty about it.

When I was asked to work a couple hours one weekend, I said no because I had visitors coming in from out of town. I then sat there and looked a little glum, which is probably why my coworker and friend in the office tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey, I hope you don’t think you did something wrong, because you didn't.”

Then why did I feel like I did?

My mom sometimes calls me “princess”, mostly when she’s being sarcastic (as one does a Yorkie in a bedazzled hoodie), and sometimes when she’s trying to make me feel better. And while every girl dreams of being Cinderella at some point (though personally, I’m more of an Ariel), I always kind of winced at the sound of “princess.” I grew up incredibly privileged, I have things most of my peers envied, and I was incredibly aware of it, even wary of it. But I try my best not to draw attention to it , especially when it comes to my work. Mixed in with the fact that I’m part of the generation they call “millennials,” a.k.a. “privileged brats that can’t stay at a job for longer than three months,” I always try to go out of my way to ensure that my employers have no reason to think of me as such. That means at every internship I nodded even when I wanted to shake my head, and smiled even when I loathed what was in front of me.  

But at some point, I might have forgotten where the line is drawn—namely, the line between saying no because I’m a millennial and saying no because it’s important for my mental and emotional well being. But I've since learned that saying no means that you respect yourself and that you demand that others respect you too. A friend of mine told me that she once had a part time job at a modeling agency and her friend worked there too. Same age, same pay but they were treated drastically differently. Why? From day one, her friend was assertive in her responses, giving off an air of control and quickly drawing boundaries. On the other hand, my friend didn't dare to say no and always worked the extra shift. In the end, she noticed, she worked harder and longer hours, but the boss respected her friend more.

At the end of the day, me punishing myself, and overcompensating for the fact that I've been privileged did no one any good. It neither put me in a happy position nor gain me any more respect. Sometimes saying no to someone else means saying yes to yourself, and saying yes to yourself doesn't mean you're acting entitled, it just means you can do anything but not everything and not right now. 

...stay...

No one would ever call me a terribly adventurous person. Unlike my mother who wanted to be anywhere but home as a child, I craved order, schedules and plans. I needed to know exactly what I was doing today, tomorrow and five years from now. Ditching my preconceived plans to cook in favor of ordering in was my idea of living on the edge.  

To me, being a nomad would probably be a fate worse than death. My current boss never stays in one place for more than a week at a time and I could not imagine doing the same. The four years I spent in college were bad enough in terms of the transience and constant relocation. At every point in my life I was doing long distance with someone, whether it was my best friend, my mom or my boyfriend and I found myself packing a suitcase every couple of months. The homebody in me hated that existence and dreamed of the day I would have a home to call my own and to return to for decades to come.  

But then this visa thing happened. In a couple of days, I’m going to find out whether or not the US government will grant me an application to stay in the country and my brain has been on fire. I’ve had nightmares for the last week and the stress of not knowing but almost knowing has given me a migraine. I feel the way I used to feel when we were about to get test scores back except 1000 times worse because at least then I had some sort of gauge as to how I did. Here, it was just chance. Pure chance. My life after August 13 is a dark amorphic mass. And so for the last couple months I’ve been trying to have no expectations or hopes at all. In fact, I really did feel that I’d be equally happy if I didn’t get the visa. I had my Plan B mapped out—I would go to fashion school in the UK (where I’ve never lived before, but have several friends there and have always wanted to try) and in a couple of years I might marry my boyfriend and get a green card. I thought, in terms of the pros and cons of staying, me staying would give me stability but me leaving would give me a challenge. Leaving and starting over is always the more challenging thing, right? 

And then it hit me—no. No, it isn’t. The only jobs I’ve only ever gotten up till now had been internships that lasted no longer than three months. Even in college, I was in a quarter system rather than semester. If I hated anything or anyone, I would never have to see them again after 90 days.   

It's slowly dawning on me that there are certain challenges you can only experience by staying put. It’s kind of like when one of my girlfriends told me that you actually get better at sex by staying with the same partner, learning together what works for each other, rather than by jumping from person to person. Time is the only thing that will help a tree grow, and using different water on it every day will not make it grow that much faster or slower. I know this seems like an every-idiot-knows-this concept, but for the scaredy cat in me who’s always seen leaving as the hardest part, it took me by surprise to see that sometimes staying would be even harder. To reference the most recent installment of the longest running franchise--in Furious 7, Brian O’Connor began “missing the bullets” after he started a family. He always felt that the adventure was “out there” and that home was boring. But at the end of the movie (after he almost dies 37 times) he returns to his family and realizes, staying with them may be the biggest adventure he’ll ever have.  

Those who dare to chase the unknown often deserve our admiration, but sometimes, it is those who have the tenacity to stay who might find the greatest adventures.  

smile, even when you don't know what the f*** you're doing

I had never really believed in the phrase, “Fake it till you make it.” The scaredy-cat law-abider in me had always thought, “what if you get caught? It’s so much safer to only do what you’re sure of.” But little did I know, much of perceived adulthood consists of making things up as you go.  

As a child, I remember my parents laying down rules like, “Don’t eat sweets before dinner,” or “Don’t sleep with your hair wet,” and I followed them, and believed in them like they were universal laws carved in stone. And as a child, I never questioned these things because I just figured, they’re adults, therefore they know best. These mantras, idioms, philosophies, rules must have come from a vast archive of knowledge and experience. But really, they probably came from “something my mom read somewhere once,” or “she had a headache after sleeping with her hair wet once.” I’m sure there’s some truth in them, but some truths, as I’ll grow to learn, are relative.  

I should have seen the signs during a hilarious episode involving my ludicrous mother and a scared-shitless Four Seasons staffer. My boyfriend had come to visit me in Hong Kong all the way from America for the first time and we wanted to take him to dimsum. Specifically, we wanted to take him to the best dimsum in town which happens to be from the Chinese restaurant at the Four Seasons. As you’d expect, however, one does not simply have dimsum there unless one makes a reservation months in advance. One morning, we woke up, and my mom came prancing into my room with her chest puffed out. She said, “I got us a table at the Four Seasons for dimsum.” I gawked at her and asked how, to which she responded, “I called, pretending to push an existing reservation back an hour, and when they said they couldn’t find the reservation, I flipped out on them. So they 'made it up to me.'”  

My mother’s antics aside, the main takeaway from this story is that if you believe what you’re saying and doing, or at the very least, come across like you do, then very few people will question you. It’s a dangerous game, and in my scaredy cat world, a gateway drug to a life of identity theft, but there is some value in it. I mean, look at the very foundation of college, where a bunch of teenagers are plucked from their homes to live in a four-year bubble. You could have been a pimply nerd called James in high school, but if you want, you can reinvent yourself as a cool, coding genius named Jim in college. No one will question you, and soon, neither will you.  

It’s an incredibly valuable skill when it comes to fostering a sense of authority whether you’re an assistant or the president. In a prime example in the cheesy college show Greek, Casey, the president of her sorority, made a mistake by exempting her best friend from a rule she laid down for the rest of the house, creating much animosity from the rest of the sisters. At first she attempted to remedy the situation by apologizing, but the sisters only took advantage of her softened position. So finally, she let them vent and then shut them down for good, essentially exclaiming (and I paraphrase), “Yes I fucked up, and I accept the consequences, but I am still president so you still need to respect me.” At some point, you just need to stop apologizing and start standing by your decisions, both good and bad, because the truth is, if you don’t back yourself up, then how can you expect others to do the same? 

When I first began realizing this, it felt like a rug was yanked out from under me. All of the adults and authoritative figures that once loomed large now seemed small and suspect. But as I stumbled over the rug and thought I would fall on the concrete, I found myself on….lets say, dirt, because the good news is, there really aren’t as many ways to fail as I thought.  

what if i don't want to recover?

Are we all meant to be torn apart  

By all things good, 

And then expected to recover 

With tears 

With distance 

With time? 

But what if I don’t want to recover,  

If recovering means to return  

To normal, 

When normal no longer exists 

Since you came into existence? 

I just want to recover 

What was lost— 

Recover the pieces, of what was left 

Even if they’ll never make a whole, 

Because I will always see you 

Through blurry contacts 

Through a veil of mist 

Through rosie colored lenses. 

"hey, you're really good at this!"

 “The harder you work, the luckier you get.” –Gary Player

 The other day a friend at work told me her sister is getting married. She knew I was big into planning birthdays and events so she asked me if I had any restaurant suggestions for the rehearsal dinner. Without skipping a beat, I immediately interrupted, “Yes!” and Google-imaged a chic, modern restaurant perched in an art museum. She fell in love with it immediately, exclaiming, “Wow you’re so good at this! I would totally trust you to plan my wedding.”

And then it hit me: this is how some people get their start. I’ve heard rumors of jewelers beginning by making a piece of jewelry for themselves that all of a sudden become a hot commodity amongst her peers. Or florists who began by sending homemade thank you bouquets. But they all started with someone saying, “Hey, you’re really good at this.” 

More and more I’ve noticed, outside the college regiment, everything you do or say becomes a potential “step” towards a career, whether you intend it or not. There’s something about finance people that I’ve always found quite off-putting and it’s that they always seem to be “on” or selling themselves with over-the-top charisma or too-firm handshakes, even when they’re just amongst friends. But it’s because they know that might lead to their next promotion or job opportunity. Every conversation isn’t just a conversation; it's there to squeeze out any current or potential opportunities there might be, to plant the seeds in case they flower. 

I’ve never been good at schmoozing, I’m afraid. Even normal conversation could be a taxing feat for a severe introvert such as myself. So thankfully, I realized, I don’t have to rely on my verbal aptitude, because I was doing it already.

When I first started interning at a styling firm, it was mainly to help with their social media presence. But slowly, my bosses started noticing what I wore to work and realized I could be a stylist. No one ever told me these things, but dressing for work essentially became my portfolio, my pitch for why they should hire me. And it paid off. That’s when I realized, you may not think you’re doing anything, but sometimes when you want something enough, when you’re interested in something enough, you’ll start exuding it without even trying. If you love it enough, you’ll become an expert in it, and people will start coming to you. Somehow, inadvertently, I’ve started practicing what Rhonda Byrne has been preaching about in The Secret, the idea that you are a magnet and you attract the relevant opportunities from the signals you put forth.  

And it’s not about how much time you spend on something, but how much energy you put in it. You could spend 8 hours at your job but if the 2 hours you put into your side project, be it writing or cooking, are the 2 most vibrant hours of your day, that’s where your energy is going. It’s scary to think my subconscious thought could bring forth realistic, life-changing outcomes, but it gives me hope that whatever we put out there for fun isn’t in vain, that the universe is also out there looking for you, and that we all will have someone say to us someday, “Hey, you’re really good at this.”  

you can't kick ass if you don't wake up. and drink coffee.

I had just flown back to NYC one morning on a 6am Spirit flight (my third 6am flight in two weeks) and my head was pounding having hardly slept the night before as I dragged my suitcase up to my apartment. I had to be at work in an hour and every fiber in my body longed to just curl up in the purple and white bed in the corner of my eye. I seriously considered calling in sick but it was just my second week of work and my very tired brain still knew better than that. So, skin looking dull and dry from the flight, hair disheveled, will hanging on a thread, I forced myself onto a cab to race to work. The whole ride I thought to myself resentfully, “I’m just an intern. They can do without me anytime.” Other irresponsible thoughts flitted through my pounding head all day, as I ran errands and edited and organized things here or there. But then, soon after lunch, after my third cup of coffee, one of my colleagues turned to me and asked “Do you want to go to the fashion week party? The boss can’t make it so he said you should go.” I was really excited to go, but I kept thinking, “Of course it has to be the day I’m most sleep deprived and look awful…” Though I cursed the inconvenience of the timing, I was ultimately very very grateful I had chosen to come to work.

Multiple times in my life have I felt that the timing of an event has played a cruel joke on me, that had I not dragged myself out of bed to do this or that, I would have missed something significant entirely. Once, it was when I got to interview one of my all time favorite celebrities (I had woken up crazy late that morning, wore jeans for the first time to work and was incredibly disheveled so of course it to be that day). Another time, I had horrible cramps and did actually have an excuse to call in sick but it was the day my boss told me he had decided to keep me on after the internship and then flew off on a long business trip the next day.

I can’t tell you how many couples I know (including myself) that started a relationship before they immediately had to embark on some long-distance in one form or another, casting an undeserved shadow on a budding relationship. But through the exchange of advice with my friends as they asked whether they should bother taking the relationship to a new level right before they are to part, I’ve learned that just because the timing isn’t perfect, doesn’t mean the relationship, or the feelings are any less valid. So much of my life has been dedicated to planning and preparing for big moments, but I’ve found that some of the biggest moments always come unannounced and on the day I’m least prepared. And all there’s left to do is kind of take it and go with it, and pray that your faith will pay off.

I’m reminded here of a success story that has given me encouragement whenever I feel that I’m planning and preparing to no visible end: A lady named Taylor Tomasi Hill used to be fashion icon, on top of being accessories director at Marie Claire, then creative director at Moda Operandi. In a sudden change of heart, she quit her job in hopes of focusing more on her family, and while doing so, decided to send her past coworkers, bosses and clients flower arrangements as a token of her gratitude, flowers that, she arranged herself. Before long, everyone was ringing her up asking for a reference to the florist who made those beautiful bouquets and, well, I don’t have to tell you that she owns a flourishing business as a florist now. It was a fluke, just a fun idea to arrange the flowers herself, having had an interest in it before, but it turned into a passion that took over the next chapter of her life. There are a myriad of success stories that mirror this one, but more often than not, they are obscured by the neat resumes we read, about CEOs and bosses who seem to have gotten to their position by dutifully climbing the proverbial ladder.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, grand as our ideas for success may be, sometimes it’s easy to forget that those jobs, those opportunities, those life changing moments, do not fall out of the sky on the day you’re most groomed or prepared but start with the most mundane, most tedious, most simple actions, like dragging yourself out of bed even when you least feel like it, because you never know when today might just be your day.

when can we stop waiting and start being?

“What have you been doing?” ……

…….“Waiting for you.”

Time seems to stop

When we’re apart

And only move forward when we’re together.

Everything I do

In between

Feels like

Waiting.

It feels like things have not truly passed

Until we’ve done them together.

So that even when I’m enjoying myself, with friends,

At a new restaurant where I’ve found the best cookies in the world,

I can’t truly check it off my list

Until you’ve tried them too.

You’ve said before that no amount of time we spend together

Will ever be enough,

Even when we’re finally together,

And promised forever,

30,

40,

50 years, will still never be enough.

But we can still be happy during the time we’re given.

But sometimes I find it so hard,

Like I’m holding

My breath.

During our precious few days I’m terrified

Of being apart from you or doing anything banal that could wait

Till you’re gone.

My omnipresent phone goes unchecked for the time you’re here

So that when you leave

I see that my last message to you

Was when you arrived.

We must not waste time.

So time is suspended even when we’re moving forward, because

It’s clutched so tightly in our intertwined hands for fear

Of letting it go.

We comfort ourselves and say,

The time we spent apart,

We would have spent working or sleeping anyway,

But those are the moments I want most—

The ones I can take for granted.

And yet when you drop your bags at my door and

I swing my arms around your neck, my heart

Stands two feet away,

Because it knows this moment is fleeting

And on Sunday the apartment reverts to silence and it is I

Who will be forced to listen.

I guess in the end we never win,

You and I

Against time

That we urge to speed up towards our reunion yet it speeds right on through

And we are left always,

Endlessly,

Waiting.

if someone were to describe you in three words, what would they say?

Whenever I ask a guy to describe a person he’s just met, he usually says something along the lines of “He’s pretty cool. He does x” and “x” is usually “he plays the drums” or “he’s in finance” as if that’s supposed to tell me everything I needed to know about this person. But men’s fear of elaboration aside, I couldn’t help but wonder, if someone were to describe me to another person, what would they say?

I recently attempted to read The Little Prince for the first time. To be honest, I understood little about this trippy Prince’s voyage to space, but one thing he said really struck me. (At least, I think the passage means what it means. You never know with this psychedelic story).

“When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, "What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?" Instead, they demand: "How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?" Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him…  If you were to say to the grown-ups: "I saw a beautiful house made of rosy brick, with geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof," they would not be able to get any idea of that house at all. You would have to say to them: "I saw a house that cost $ 20,000." Then they would exclaim: "Oh, what a pretty house that is!’”

It’s so true that in our natural instinct to compartmentalize our world, we seem to naturally oversimplify people as well, stripping them down to a few words in order to represent them to another person. But we lose so much in the process. Perhaps, you might argue, that it is impossible to do a person justice in just a few words, unless you attempt to spew forth a biography. But maybe, as the prince complains, we could do a little better with the few words we do choose to use.

When my dad died and the well-wishers chatted amongst themselves after the funeral, many things were said about him. They said he was so smart, generous, funny, and most people said he was “a good man.” To me, that’s the highest praise one could get. I could think of so many people who are kind, or considerate, or compassionate, but only a few I could think of that I would call “good,” and wouldn’t even consider myself one of them. Maybe it’s because the word feels so definite, unquestionable, so all encompassing that it would seem hollow to dole it out easily. And yet, despite his flaws, I would still consider my father a good man.

I don’t know what words my friends would use to describe me to others, I could only hope they’re more positive than not. But the prince has turned my attention onto the few words I want to be described as, and they have nothing to do with my job description, college degree or athletic prowess. In fact, for now, I think I’ll strive for “good.”

my nonexistent reading list

It’s been many years since first saw the movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, portraying four teenage girls and their friendship. The story was based on a series of books by Ann Brashares, and though they were meant as “young adult” novels, the emotional profundity that seeped through the scenes and dialogue kept me going back to the movie. And so, after watching its sequel, I finally decided to read the last novel, which depicted the girls’ lives ten years from the last movie. If you haven’t read the books, then spoiler alert: one of the girl dies. The book is emotionally and mentally heavy as it walks the reader through the remaining three girls’ grief and struggle to cope with their seemingly flailing lives as well as the loss of their friend. The two nights I read the book, I felt inexplicably tired and depressed yet I could not tear away from its pages. I found myself wishing that I could read a novel without fully investing my feelings into it so that I didn’t feel so drained and nauseous afterwards, because somehow, unfailingly, I’ve not only dug up similar feelings of grief that I’ve experienced but have also acquired and must bear the burden of the characters I’m reading about. It’s such an incredibly taxing feat that moments after I turned the final page, a picture of a cat sent me weeping.

Many of my friends have created reading lists after college probably so that first of all they could later brag about all the New York Times bestselling books they’ve read but I guess, also so that they could keep track of the interesting novels they’d like to read. Though a writing major, I, surprisingly have not created such a list because I’m incredibly picky about my choice of novels. Frankly, if school hadn’t forced me to read the variety of texts, I would never have picked most of them out myself. I actively steer clear of science fiction, politics, autobiographies, biographies, highly ethnocentric, war, horror and cancer (or other diseases) novels. Yeah, I think that just about covers 80 percent of genres out there. But the thing is, I’ve read books in all those genres before (usually because I had to) and I’ve almost always enjoyed them. So why is it that I never voluntarily reach for them? I realized it’s because I’m scared. These are mostly things that I don’t naturally understand or am afraid of tackling, because of the horror I’ll be imagining from war stories or cancer stories, or the complexity in science fiction or biographies. I’m afraid to read 80 percent of the books out there because I’m afraid to feel the emotional baggage of someone going through cancer, or rack my brains over a mind-boggling space odyssey.

A friend from small town Iowa once told me, “I wish I was more cultured,” having heard of my expansive traveling record, and I hypocritically told him, “being cultured isn’t about how much you’ve done, it’s about how much you’re willing to try.” As I stared at my empty reading list, I felt that statement slap me in the face.

We can’t spend our lives surrounding ourselves with only the familiar and seek only the safe and comfortable. How often do we see a new thing and grope for something we can relate to or meet a new person and try so hard to cling onto only the things that are the same as you. It is, after all, only human nature, a psychological instinct to sort out our surroundings and make sense of it all. But how much more enriching would it be if we simply accepted the alien as just fact, and embraced it without question, delving headlong into the emotional and mental abyss without fear of recoil.

I’ve never doubted the knowledge that reading about diverse and unfamiliar things could provide, but I guess there’s something to be said about emotional knowledge, as well. The bravery to reach into the recesses of your heart and feel things that you otherwise wouldn’t. As I wrote down the name of the first book on my reading list, I found myself remembering the wise words of Reese Witherspoon’s therapist that gave me this newfound bravado and prayed that they would keep me afloat through war plagued novels: They can wound, confuse or delight you but “A feeling (thankfully) can’t kill you.” 

to smile or not to smile?

I’m one of those girls who is accused of having a “resting bitch face.” When I was a senior in high school, holding executive positions in various clubs, I was told that younger classmen were afraid to approach me because I didn’t smile or laugh a lot (in my opinion, unnecessarily). I wondered for a long time whether I should care, whether that meant I should smile more to come across as friendlier, even though those who did know me well knew I was perfectly friendly. Then when I started working for a magazine, the editor-in-chief, a woman who went to my college and the most soft-spoken person I’ve ever met on the planet (seriously, I had to crane every time she spoke), made me realize that as a woman, you don’t have to be the funniest, loudest one in the room to be heard, and you certainly don’t have to be the funniest, loudest one in the room to succeed.

It seems difficult for a woman to come across as unliked. Men never seem to have a problem coming across as ruthless or self-serving in their pursuit of success while women have had a history of having to pander to others' tastes (cue subservient Asian housewives, or Victorian Etiquette of the 1800s). As a result, nowadays fun, charismatic women are considered lovable while those with a steelier personality are considered, well, bitchy. So I found the rise of power women incredibly refreshing. I mean, if I lived in the aforementioned bygone era, I probably would have been destined to be alone forever in a dungeon.

But perhaps the most fascinating case studies to me are Victoria Beckham and Angelina Jolie, who dwell in the entertainment industry where their primary job is to be liked. These are women have been misunderstood as mean, unfriendly, and wild. In a recent 73 Questions by Vogue I saw on Victoria Beckham, sure, she never really smiled as was expected, but she was kind, generous, strong and serious, and I like to think that this list of attributes is enough for anyone, man or woman, to look up to, without an award-winning smile or excessive personableness added to it. On the other side of the pond, while the tabloids are still busy pitting her against her blonder, "sweeter" rival, Jennifer Aniston ten years later, Angelina Jolie, once infamous wild child, has now turned serious director of somber movies and professional humanitarian. She too, does not appear on video interviews often, but when she does, she is soft-spoken, somewhat reserved, yet thoughtful and kind.

Though they both once thrived in the entertainment industry, what allowed them to break the mold was their ability to not let others’ like or dislike of them define them. As a result, they were able to channel their don't-give-a-fuck energy into building their respective empires. With the campaign to view powerful women as a #girlboss as opposed to "bossy," hopefully the lifted stigma will allow girls to see that while sometimes one would be wise to heed the advice of others, sometimes there's something equally empowering and immensely more liberating about not giving a damn. 

magic

After years of judgmental glares from my loving friends at the mention that I’ve never read the Harry Potter series, I finally decided to read it and had just finished moments ago. For those of you staring with the same amount of judgment on the other side of page, and who want me to cough up an excuse—well, I have what some call an addictive personality when it comes to books and TV shows and I knew the moment I picked up the first book I would never put it down until I’d reached the end of the last one. Who has that kind of time! With all my AP classes in high school and literature classes in college, the last thing I wanted to do in my spare time was read more. But those excuses ran dry now that I’m working a part-time job with nothing but time…so I finally picked them up.

And I have to say, despite the fact that my high school English teacher deem them unworthy works of literature (probably because they weren’t laden with immense vocabulary and didn’t require a dozen readings to understand) I rather enjoyed them. Many times in the books, I found myself impressed, not merely by the imaginative world, but with the ability J.K. Rowling had to convey the sense of loss. Many times, after the death of the character, I thought: “This was written by a woman who truly understands loss.” Because the truth is, just as when Sirius died and slipped behind the murmuring veil, more often than not, death does arrive without any pomp or circumstance. While most authors would play up the death of such a major figure, describing him slain in a noble duel with trumpets signaling his valor, death often comes with no rhyme or reason to the best of us and worst of us and the rest of us. The shock that Harry felt, that certainty that Sirius would just come right back out the other side of the veil was equally real, because the passing of a person does indeed feel like a sudden disappearance that does not make sense for the living for whom time continues as if nothing has happened. The utter anger Harry felt towards those ignorant of Sirius’ death, those who just went on doing what they did every day, is the same incredulity that those left behind always feels. The world, as he knew it had ended. How could everyone else not know that? And then, when Harry looked into Dobby’s and Snape’s and several others’ eyes as they breathed their last, those unfortunate enough to watch someone pass in front of them know it truly is the most absurd feeling, that everything from his hair to his birthmark are all there right in front of you and yet, he isn’t. And finally, the oddity that is entering a room that once belonged to the deceased, looking at their belongings, as Harry did in Dumbledore’s office, and seeing every evidence of their existence just mere moments or days before and knowing that the hand that had written those letters has vanished, and your brain strains to understand the disconnect. Death, truly is, as J.K. Rowling titled her first book after the series, a Casual Vacancy.

She, like George R.R. Martin of Game of Thrones, understands motives, the struggle to steer in the right direction, that even the good can stray and the bad can have compassion. She conveys the honest, awkward, unreasonable thoughts that would run through anybody’s minds as they did Harry’s, making the series so much less about a lofty hero, above common struggles, set out on a quest to vanquish his enemy and more about a boy, a real boy, thrown into an impossible world.

Perhaps then, this is why I’ve always preferred Harry Potter to the Lord of the Rings and Star Trek to Star Wars, because, even in the most fictional worlds, I crave a shred of reality, the notion that the world could very possibly exist whether past, present or future. I’ve preferred adventure on a smaller, more manageable scale (much like my personality in real life) hence my love of the small wizarding community over the vast world of Tolkein, and the confined setting of a Star Fleet, to the many worlds and aliens of Star Wars. After all, I’ve always been more of a creative non-fiction writer, taking what’s already there and adding to it instead of conjuring something out of thin air.

That being said, I found myself more than a couple times wishing I could conjure fries when I craved them, or clean up my apartment with the flick of my wand (I do have a wand actually, I bought it at Harry Potter World in Florida; I’ve tried, it doesn’t work). I told my boyfriend immediately after finishing the books with a sigh that I wish I could do magic. He chuckled and said he thought the same when he finished the series as a child. I pouted with the behavior fit for an adult and stepped into the shower, grateful to have a boyfriend who tolerates my childishness.

And then I realized that J.K. Rowling has not left us out in the cold and kept all the magic confined to Hogwarts. No, I realized that she, like Dumbledore has been hitting the source of this magic over our heads since the very first book (albeit sometimes, like Voldemort reckoned, a little heavy-handedly). I realized, that us mere mortals, do have a little bit of magic in us, and it’s something I couldn’t put it into words better than the mermaid Aquamarine, from the thrilling, eponymous tween novel:

“…There has to be a reason why everybody wants it so much!”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

“Because love is the closest thing we have to magic.”

the day i learned to shut up

It was my fourth anniversary with Kevin. Four years sounds like a long time to some, but after the third year, time feels suspended, like you’re no longer bothered to count anymore because you know this relationship is pretty much permanent. Four years is a milestone for me—I’ve never had a relationship last longer than a year—but it’s a milestone long past for one of my good friends who has been dating the same guy since freshman year of high school, so it’s been like, eons, as far as the rest of us are concerned. When we were still in high school, they had been dating for four years at that point and I was dating my then-boyfriend for a couple months, I remember asking her how she “coped” with having a long-term boyfriend. The usually bubbly and talkative girl took me by surprise. She told me that she’s actually felt, at times, incredibly lonely because no one else has had a boyfriend for as long. She’s had to go through and figure out a lot of kinks on her own. I suddenly felt sorry for her. The rest of us often jeered at them and their seemingly perfect and all-consuming relationship, and I never even stopped and considered how isolating being in a long-term relationship could be. And then she surprised me again. “I learned to cope,” she said, “by not talking about my relationship to anyone.” It suddenly struck me that though she could talk for ages about Ryan Gosling or her latest bag obsession, it’s true, she never really talks about her boyfriend.

Four years into my own relationship I now realize why she chose to never speak of her relationship. It has nothing to do with trust in your friends or maintaining an air of mystery, it’s simply that, when you let other people into your problems, you encourage a lot opinions that could sometimes lead you astray. It’s a weird thing, confiding in a friend about a boyfriend. The whole time I’m talking, if it’s a single friend, I see her apathy seep through the sympathy she tries to muster and she usually ends up siding with me, which achieves nothing at all besides me feeling more justified in my anger (so bad news for him). If it’s a friend in a relationship herself, her first sentence is always, “well Charlie and I…” and the comparisons go on, as if what happened to her is somehow supposed to change how I feel about my boyfriend. In short, talking to my friend always ends in two ways. Either she agrees with me and I’m angrier, or she doesn’t agree with me and I’m left explaining myself over and over again to get her to side with me. When we talk about our relationships, more often than not, we’re seeking encouragement and concurrence. Anything they say au contraire is what we already know but merely do not want to recognize.

I remember a while ago, my boyfriend and I had one of the biggest fights we’ve ever had and we were on the brink of breaking up. My gal pal of the time was infuriated for me and implicitly encouraged me to break up with him. But somewhere along the venting and confiding, I realized she was only so keen on me breaking up because she broke up with her boyfriend not long ago and it was the best decision she’s ever made. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it was the best decision for me. I ended up not breaking up with my boyfriend (obviously), and that was the best decision I’ve ever made.

That’s not to say you should never speak to your girlfriends about your significant other. Sometimes you need to vent, sometimes you need comfort, sometimes you need to be talked out of a ridiculous notion. But more often than not, I’ve realized that nobody knows your relationship better than you do. As much as your friends have your best interest in mind, they can only speak from personal experience and, well, no two couples are the same.

I then started practicing silence when it came to other aspects of my life. When I started this blog, I actually began creating content weekly for three months—in secret. I gave myself a writing schedule, I shot looks with my boyfriend whenever we had a chance. I gave myself deadlines and quantitative goals. And I told next to no one. In a childish way, somehow I felt like talking about it would jinx it. Turns out, in a way, I was right. I watched a TED Talk recently on the psychology of success (because I’m still totally convinced I’ll end up as a troll under a bridge). Apparently, if you set a goal such as “I’m going to lose 5 pounds this month,” then tell your friends and family about it, you’re less likely to succeed. That’s because having the satisfaction of saying it out loud tricks your brain into thinking you’ve already done it, therefore making you more likely to give up when it comes to actually following through. So when I finally launched in January, in the midst of warm congratulatory messages, I felt the most at peace and rewarded for completing this goal I had set for myself.

It was when I learned to shut up about my relationship, my goals, my worries that I finally learned to listen to myself. Part of this growing up thing has opened my eyes to the importance of tuning it all out and just banking on myself, and trusting myself to make the right choices, because sometimes I’m the only one whose opinion matters.

remind me to set an alarm so i don't forget to tell you this:

My boyfriend has the worst memory of anyone ever. One time, I baked too many cupcakes over the weekend and encouraged him to bring some to his swim club meeting on Tuesday. I reminded him on Saturday. Then on Sunday. Then on Monday. I reminded him Monday night. I put the cupcakes on the table in clear sight. I reminded him Tuesday morning. And so naturally, he forgot them. At that point he would have had to forget them on purpose. I was furious, and it wasn’t just because of a dozen stupid cupcakes. This wasn’t the first time he’s forgotten something, and what if it was something important? What if I needed him to bring me medication that could be the difference between life or death? Well, thankfully, that won’t ever happen because I’ve learned to never give him something that important to remember, which, by the way, sounds like the basis of a really healthy relationship. I screamed at him, eyes bulging, him cowering and speechless, and I finally blurted out, “The only other reason left for you not remembering is that you simply don’t care.”

While it was indeed something I fired at my boyfriend in a moment of fury, one day I found out that this statement might actually be true. While reading a book called Mastermind, a psychological analysis on how to think more like Sherlock Holmes (don’t laugh), the author says that we are more inclined to remember something if we are motivated and interested. I know, I know, you’re probably thinking, “DUH.” But she goes on to cite a trial, which led to the coining of the Lewis “Scooter” Libby effect, during which Scooter claimed no memory of having mentioned the identity of a certain CIA employee to any reporters or government officials. The jurors did not believe him, thinking, “How could someone forget something so important?” The answer was simply, that he did not think it was that important when it happened. And no amount of importance ascribed in retrospect would help him recall the incident. As far as his trustworthiness was concerned, he could very well have been telling the truth.

It’s scary to think that our split second decision in any given moment about whether or not the task at hand deserves our attention could determine the contents of our memory or lack thereof. Perhaps what’s scarier is the next statement in the book which reads, “we know only what we can remember at any given moment.” The idea that you could read a 500 paged book on how to milk a cow, but if you can’t recall any of it when you’re standing in front of an actual cow, you may as well have not read it at all.

While my boyfriend is horrendous at remembering simple tasks I ask of him, he has a remarkable ability to remember virtually every car he’s ever read about or seen. I’m talking about the car color, brand, model, year of production, everything, to the point where people are left gaping at him by the time he’s done. And so, aptly, he is a mechanical engineer at Ford, and not a professional cupcake picker-upper. In the same vein, I’m left with my mouth hanging whenever I hear my coworkers rattle off contents of the closets of every client they’ve ever worked with. “Oh yeah, Peggy has a Burberry ¾ sleeve sweater in green but it’s getting a little old, so we’ll need to get her a new one this season.”

I’ve heard of many sayings regarding how one should determine their destined profession. “Do what you love and the money will follow.” “If you’re willing to do it for free for the rest of your life, you should do it for a living.” And the list goes on. But I’d like to add my own version to it: maybe your calling, your destined profession, your chosen craft, should be based, simply, on what you can remember best, because chances are, that’s probably what you care about the most. Ahem, I’m looking at you, boyfriend.  

7 strange questions that help you find your life purpose

One of my best friends recently sent me an article written by Mark Manson entitled “7 Strange Questions That Help You Figure Out Your Life Purpose.” Since I was a rudderless college graduate worrying daily that I’ll never have a successful career and will end up living under a bridge, I decided to answer these questions in hopes of finding some enlightenment. Here are my answers (I just did 6 because one felt repetitive) and I hope everyone might find some insight by answering them too!

1.     WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE FLAVOR OF SHIT SANDWICH AND DOES IT COME WITH AN OLIVE?

This is a hard one, because being the privileged child that I am, I haven’t had to sample a lot of shit in my life. After reading this question, many examples of past shit surfaced in my mind—hauling shopping bags across town, scanning 75 years worth of magazine covers in two days, working till midnight— and honestly, I don’t want to eat any of them. But then I realized, that’s the problem. I’ve been going through life complaining about the shit sandwich every job has hurled at me, not fully comprehending the meaning of every job is going to give you a shit sandwich. There is no such thing as a job that doesn’t have some flavor of shit sandwich, and if I want to succeed, I better pick one. In the wise words of Mark Manson, the author himself, “Everything sucks, some of the time.”

2.     WHAT IS TRUE ABOUT YOU TODAY THAT WOULD MAKE YOUR 8-YEAR-OLD SELF CRY?

In other words, what very important thing that makes you happy have you forgotten in your desperate road to find so-called success? When I was 8-years-old, I first learned how to write a research paper in class. While most of my friends drooled on the keyboard, I went home and wrote another research paper on why cats are better than dogs…for fun. Yes, you read that right. For fun. A couple years later, I wrote some short stories that got published in a newspaper, also for fun. I wrote a long, absolutely awful adventure story that was basically about if Hansel and Gretel got lost for a VERY long time in the woods. It was awful, but I spent hours and hours after school writing it, for fun. After college started, I could count on one hand the number of times I wrote for pleasure. It took an incredible amount of effort for me to move my mouse from Google Chrome to Microsoft Word. My excuse was that I wrote a lot for class so I had no juices left to write for fun. But I know it was also because I didn’t think that these writings would “get me anywhere.” That’s the thing, somewhere along the way, it became all about doing things that would “get you somewhere.” It became a meticulously calculated game of chess, of making all the right moves, talking to all the right people so that you could build a metaphorical path to success. But somewhere along the way, I forgot where I wanted this path to lead. I got so caught up in the bricks in front of me I forgot to look up and make sure I’m still going in the right direction. And I can tell you now, my 8-year-old self would not approve.

3.     WHAT MAKES YOU FORGET TO EAT AND POOP?

Interestingly, what makes me forget to eat and poop isn’t writing. While I could (and have) sit in the same place for 7 hours typing away, if I’m hungry, I can’t write. But I distinctly remember, when I was head of my high school magazine club, I spent every day after school scheming away, drafting meeting memos, charting our budget on excel, rehearsing motivational speeches in my head. It didn’t matter that it was 11pm and I hadn’t eaten dinner or that I was supposed to have a test the next day. Bossing people around is the thing that makes me forget to eat and poop. It was also the year my father died and very few things made me feel more alive and made me feel more in control than having something of my own to manage. That year, the magazine made record sales and had a record number of applicants. Nothing, absolutely nothing, topped that thrill. Now I realize that that experience is not just “something I did in high school.” At every internship since then, I found myself poking holes in the system, thinking to myself, “I could do this so much better if I was in charge.” Now I realize that at some point, I have to be my own boss.

4.     HOW CAN YOU BETTER EMBARRASS YOURSELF?

What the author means is, what embarrasses you? Because if it’s not what you’re doing now, then it’s probably what you should be doing. The reason being, most people avoid doing what embarrasses them because they care a lot about it and don’t want it ridiculed. I probably had the clearest answer to this question out of all seven: Event planning. I’ve enjoyed planning parties and gifts for those around me for as long as I could remember. For some reason I’ve always had it in my head that every year’s present has to be different and better than before. I’m a ridiculously introverted person but I threw the most extravagant parties for people in my class. It wasn’t until college that I realized this passion is so much more than just a weird quirk I have. It’s an actual talent. Most people don’t think that hard about gifts. Most people can’t envision a themed party then make it come to life two weeks later. But somehow, while I am very proud to do this privately, I’m too embarrassed to pursue it professionally, and it’s because, I don’t want to come across as unambitious or dumb. Most of my friends started their first job after college at large firms, from massive tech companies to I-banking. I was always the smart one in school with the highest grades and the biggest ambitions. How would I look if I came out and did event planning? Something that you don’t even need a degree to go into? It’s really easy to put down these creative professions because all our lives we’re taught to measure intelligence with numbers. Your IQ score is based on a test that consists of entirely logic and math questions. The phrase “he works in finance” immediately evokes respect and intelligence because you can quantitatively know what it takes to be a “finance guy” and how much he makes for a living. But what about creative intelligence? Sometimes I have to remind myself that while most people can be that “finance guy” as long as they work hard enough, not everyone can have a knack for aesthetic coherence or other such intangible skills. But sometimes it’s also nice not to have to explain my passion and profession to skeptical, condescending voices.

5.     HOW ARE YOU GOING TO SAVE THE WORLD?

Mark Manson says that whatever you’re doing now is great. But if whatever you’re doing now is just for yourself and your own benefit, somewhere down the road, you’ll find it to be insufficient, because we all find purpose when we’re doing something for a greater good. This question put things in perspective for me better than any of the others because it made me realize the path that I’ve tentatively chosen is for all the wrong reasons. It’s to catch up with my peers at glamorous, high-paying jobs. It’s to come across as competent and to climb the proverbial social ladder. But what I truly love to do—writing, event planning—I loved doing them because it made other people happy. Because I loved seeing my friends’ faces light up when they can relate to my thoughts. Because I loved seeing the look of genuine surprise when my mother walks into the party I’ve spent weeks preparing for her. In those moments, my hours of labor feel worth it and the world feels right. That’s when I realized that I cannot spend the rest of my life without these moments.

6.     IF YOU KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO DIE ONE YEAR FROM TODAY, WHAT WOULD YOU DO AND HOW WOULD YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED?

Ah yes, the grave questions (pun absolutely intended). The truth is, I don’t know what I want it to say exactly, but I do know I want to be remembered for being someone who wasn’t entirely selfish. If I only had a year left to live, yes I’d love to go through my bucket list and do insane things just for the heck of it, but I also want to go around and make sure my friends and family are happy. I want to be remembered for some of the things my father was remembered for—his generosity, his affinity for making people laugh, his genuine good-personness—and not how I spent my time agonizing over making fake friends for the right connections or the right career moves for the wrong job.

7.     In case you were wondering the last question is GUN TO YOUR HEAD, IF YOU HAD TO LEAVE THE HOUSE ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, WHERE WOULD YOU GO AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

it's not better, just...different

I had brunch with a close friend a couple weeks ago and she told me that her boyfriend’s sister recently got married. The wedding was beautiful and elaborate as most Indian weddings apparently are, but then what struck me was how old the couple was. She is 32 and he is 36. No, I’m not saying they’re too old to get married or anything like that. What I forgot to mention was they’re also both doctors at the pinnacle of their respective fields, namely cardiology and neurology. I know right?

On a similarly important note, the forever bachelor George Clooney got married to a gorgeous international and human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin. The news sent everyone into a googling frenzy trying to figure out who this mysterious and seriously lucky woman is. And apparently, she’s not just a lawyer, she’s an internationally acclaimed barrister who has worked for the UN and has represented some of the most high profile cases. And yep, she’s only 36.

Now what do these two things have in common? They both momentarily gave me anxiety. Post-grad life has been a jumbled journey of self-doubt and confusion because I no longer have a curriculum to follow or a grade scale to conquer. My success can no longer be quantified by a number and progress can no longer be marked by the passing of a school year. Instead, we have these crazy successful people around us doing kick-ass stuff by a certain age. And these have become our markers.

It’s a scary enough question to ask: What if I can never be as successful as them? But an even scarier question is: What if I don’t want to be? Does it mean I’m content with mediocrity and destined to lead a sad, pathetic life?

No. Because 10 years ago, I had a different idea of where I was going to be, and at what level of success I was going to achieve, and the truth is, in a sense, I’ve failed. I thought I was going to be working a kick-ass job making the same kind of money my engineering friends are making and living with a gay roommate who will shop with me every weekend. But I’m not. And guess what? I’m okay. And what if I ended up fulfilling that marker I set for myself 10 years ago? Does that make me a successful person? No, because by the time I’ve reached that, I’ve probably set a much higher goal by now.

The most terrifying thing about leaving the school bus that has driven me from school and back for 16 years is now I’m prone to getting lost or taking detours. But I suppose that’s also the best part of it, because now, even if I get lost or wander endlessly on a rabbit trail, at least I’m the one behind the wheel.