First day of the rest of my life. The world is my oyster. One door closes, another one opens. These are all things that people say, right? Well, in my case I don’t know if you would be able to find a more apt phrase. It’s done. I’m finished. I’ve retired! At the tender age of 30, I have voluntarily left the work force with no intention of returning. I’m taking a leap of faith. I trust in my ability. I’m confident in my decision. I promised you a story in my last post, so here we go. I am free! They say that “when you know, you know,” or “you’ll know when the time comes.” Well the time came, and I wasn’t about to let it pass me by.

It was time to quit. It was time to leave. I was ready for the next thing, to start a new chapter. Well here we are. I’m taking on the next thing, I’m starting a fresh chapter. I am now a full time writer! I said it once, but I’ll say it again and again until I start believing it. I have to reframe my ambitions, reframe my mindset, reframe my life trajectory. I was saying things like “on the road to funemployment,” or “I quit with nothing lined up.” But neither of these statements are fundamentally true. I’m done with the office, but I still have work to do. I’m no longer working for someone else, but I am working for myself. I’m doing my own thing. I’m off on my own. Writing is what I do, being a writer is who I am. I might not be getting paid for it at the moment, but that doesn’t alter the fact that I AM A WRITER. That there is fundamental truth. To sit here, and say that I’m not pursuing my dreams, to say that I’m not chasing my ambitions would be creating a false narrative. My career path may not be traditional, but it was never supposed to be. I was and am different, and forever will be. 

Even as a young kid, I was always wired differently. My parents were both scientists, but I was never interested in STEM. I was always more of a history guy, an English guy. I was the guy who needed to know the why and the how of everything. The kid who broke things apart to see if he could put them back together again. Yes, that sounds like it lends itself to engineering, but I never could put these things back together again. They remained broken in a drawer, or thrown out. That was who I was. Destructive but curious. But way too curious for his own good. I used to see it as a bad thing, but everything can be reframed. All negatives can be spun into positives. It’s not just seeing a half empty glass as half full. It’s not just seeing the silver lining. In job interviews they love to ask you about your strengths and your weaknesses. But they don’t actually want you to disparage yourself or expect you to highlight your inabilities. They’re looking for something different. They’re looking for you to reframe your weaknesses as consequences of having too much passion or caring too much. All of this is hidden in subtext.

Frankly, that’s kinda bullshit—just say what you mean to say—but that’s not what I’m getting at here. My destructive tendencies led me to where I am today. A writer who has a beginning and some key elements to the story he’s trying to create, but needs to deconstruct it and flesh it out. Someone who’s trying to turn a tree into a chair, a lump of metal into a sword. Creating a story doesn’t just require you to be able to write or have a big vocabulary. That means nothing if you have no imagination. Imagination is the muse, it’s the driving force, it’s the catalyst for your epic. I was blessed to not have “normal” pursuits or interests growing up, so I had plenty of opportunity to let my imagination run wild. And run wild it did.

I spent a good amount of my formative years exploring my imagination. Maybe life was simpler back then. I’d sure love to believe that. Let me just say that the rate in which technology advances is incredible. I mean I’m not that old, but I still grew up in a time without smartphones and without high speed internet. As a kid I made do. I only had a few options. I could play outside, I could play with toys or games, or I could make art. I played outside sometimes, but I wasn’t the sporty type. I did some occasional drawing, but I never saw myself as an artist until recently (but even so never in that sense). So that left me with games and toys. Being a middle child and the only boy did not lend itself to having a daily companion. Sure, I probably had more friends back then than I do now, but I didn’t hang out with them outside of school all that often. I was left on my own for many hours of the day.

Like many other American Born Chinese, I had my regular homework, my Chinese school homework, and my extracurricular workbook (not to mention, Kumon on top of that). My mom also made us take piano lessons. I was never any good at it, but it taught me how to practice, how to be persistent, and how to do the gritty work that I didn’t want to do. Other than that, I had plenty of free time. Much of this time was spent either reading or playing with Lego’s. Both are methods of stimulating your imagination. The time I spent playing with Lego’s was typically an internal storytelling of a continuous narrative. Yesterday’s story continued on into today’s play. And continued on until I got bored of it. I didn’t know it at the time, but these hours and years were foundational in building me up as an artist. Without the daily stimulation of my imagination when I was young, would I still be able to create a coherent story today? That question cannot be answered. There’s no way to know for certain. But I’d like to think that it had a profound effect on my writing. 

As I got older, I stopped playing with Lego’s. I stopped reading books for pleasure. I had developed a credence that reading was uncool. It was for losers and nerds. But even so, I was still a goody-two-shoes, and once infiltrated with that essence, there is no removing that from a person. So I read the required reading for my classes, and I did my homework. And I think I was better for it. I thoroughly enjoyed my English classes in high school. These classes were more important to me than I knew at the time. But my mind was on something else, what I wanted to do with my life back then was different from what I want to do now. My priorities and ambitions were different.

But that’s how life goes. You spend years trying to find out what you’re good at, what you like or dislike, what your passions are, what you’re supposed to do with your life. Not everyone knows what they want to do right away. You ask a five-year-old what they want to be when they grow up, and they might tell you one thing today, and something different tomorrow. A different five-year-old might be unwavering in their dream and end up pursuing what they said they would. I envy one-track mindedness like that. It may seem easier for those who seem to have known what they wanted from the start, but that’s just the view from the outside looking in. Everyone has their own struggles, and vices. Each set of circumstances is unique. No two people travel the same path. But the end goal is always the same: finding purpose. Sometimes your purpose turns out to be pursuit #1, sometimes it’s pursuit #3 or #5 or #10. You won’t know until you’ve tried, and sometimes you won’t find out what it is until way down the line. Things change, people change. Who you were last year may not necessarily be who you are next year. Each human being is in a constant state of flux. It may seem scary or intimidating, but everyone goes through it.

Some days, when I feel overly distressed or feel like the pressure is mounting, I think about past events in my life that pushed me towards where I am now. Sometimes, all you need is a little reminder that you’re on the right path. I don’t know that my series will be a smash success from the jump. What I do know is that what I produce won’t be substandard quality—at least not by my own standards. I know myself well enough to know that anything mediocre won’t pass my discerning eye otherwise it won’t meet the light of day. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I expect to be the talk of the town or that people will even want to read my shit. All I’m saying is that anything that finds its way to the screen or the page is a result of me putting in my finest effort. At the very least, I can say that I did my best. That’s all that’s within my control. The rest of it isn’t up to me. I can’t force someone to read a book. I can’t make anyone like my work. I am not the master of anyone else’s actions or reactions. All I can do is hope and pray that some people view my work the same way that I view my work.

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t also have faith that if it’s meant to happen, and when it’s meant to happen, that it will happen. All I can do is keep working on my craft. Tinkering and tweaking. Trying things to see if they’ll work. When it comes down to it, that’s all life is. Tinkering isn’t just a step in the writing process. It’s a part of regular life too. It’s how you grow, it’s how you progress. You’re on the path towards greatness, striving to learn more each and every day, while constantly experimenting with different elements to form and create your own unique persona, to create genuine content. But if you don’t learn from your past, then you won’t have a future. 

They say that every mistake is a lesson, that failure teaches us things. But that oversimplifies it a bit. You don’t learn lessons just from the bad. You can learn from the good also. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. There are two types of people in the world: those who act like they know everything; and those who act like there’s always more to learn. There’s no middle ground. Not really. You’re either open to growth or you’re not. That’s really what it comes down to. There are people who may say that they’re open-minded, but when push comes to shove they revert to the choices that they know. So let me ask you, are they really as open-minded as they say they are? Or are they more stubborn than they’re willing to admit? Good, bad or indifferent, there’s something to be learned. We grow through accepting that we may be wrong or that there may be a more efficient way.

People suck…. True. That’s the cynic speaking in me. But you also need people, and people need you. You’re a necessary cog in the machine of life. Everyone is. Your role may be big, it may be small. It may seem meaningless, but you are needed. Everyone means something to someone. We live in a society. We’re part of a civilization. We’re not nomads or hermits or hunter-gatherers anymore. We NEED other people. We need differing opinions. We need dissenting opinions. We need outside perspective. Without any of it, we’re on our own. Trying to figure out what’s best for us without knowing what else is out there. 

Well, after eight years of working, I can say with certainty that I know what is out there for me. I know what I was placed in this world to do. I have my purpose. True, I’ve known what it was for the last three years, but I’m actually doing it. I’m living it. It still hasn’t hit me yet, and it probably won’t for quite some time. Truth be told, until my first novel sells, I probably won’t believe that this isn’t just fantasy. But I did it. I quit my job so that I can pursue my dream. It’s been almost a month since my last day of work, but I’m still feeling good about it. I needed a few weeks off to detox and destress. Where I was at mentally by the end of it wasn’t where I needed to be in order to write to the best of my ability. Taking a break after leaving a stressful and/or toxic work environment is essential. 

I highly recommend it. Anyone, if given the opportunity should do it. There’s no rush to get back into the workforce right away. You can take a week off, two weeks off between jobs. If you’re going to be jumping into a new job for the next two years, that’s the least you can do for yourself. Give yourself a chance to relax. Take a step back. Withdraw from the world. Lord knows, you might not have a chance to do it later. Take advantage. 

I’ve been beating this drum for quite a while now, but I will continue to do so until my knuckles are raw. Your mental health is paramount. We don’t talk about it enough. Your brain is your biggest tool, your best weapon. But it doesn’t function properly if it isn’t fully healthy. Work on yourself first, and things will slowly fall in place. What a difference being mentally and emotionally healthy makes. Take the time to invest in yourself. Invest in your wellbeing. It took me reaching the deepest, darkest chasm before I was able to see the light. Before I was able to find a way out. Before I was able to step out on the path towards greatness. But it doesn’t mean that you have to. I’m telling you these things, dear reader, as a warning.

Don’t make the same mistakes that I made. Don’t get me wrong, for anyone who thinks that they may need to see a therapist, I’m all for it. But I’m standing here as the pre-therapy “therapist” to teach you lessons and tips so that you don’t have to go through the same things that I did. How selfish would I be if I didn’t impart the lessons that I learned? So I give freely. Cause let’s be honest, not everyone can afford therapy. It’s part of the sad truth in the profit-centric institution that is American healthcare. But that’s a discussion for a different time. Work on yourself and things will come together. There’s always room for improvement. There’s always room for growth. There’s always more knowledge to acquire. Dedicate some of your time to working on yourself. When you feel that you’re healthy, when you feel that you’re healed, you can progress onwards and upwards. Without healing first, there will not be any consistent improvement. You will only see forward and backwards motion. A step forward, a step back.

You need to drill down to the root. Your anxieties today—your depression, are a direct result of trauma from your childhood or your adolescence. I know it hurts, digging deep, but it’s necessary for you to flourish as a human being. That’s what it comes down to. Once you find your healing, things start to click. Before therapy, without healing, I was at a loss with what to do with my life. Trapped at a dead end with nowhere to go. My sights set on how high the walls were, how steep the cliff was. But little did I know, I could reverse down the way I had come, and find a different path. When the walls are closing in around you, when you feel like there’s nowhere left to go, remember that you can always go back. But know that in order to go back, you have to relive your past hurts. There’s no way around it. Do you want to stay stuck in your rut? Or do you want to find healing, and learn to love yourself? The latter takes hard work and dedication. It takes trying and trying again. It takes breaking down your old habits and forming new ones. It takes challenging your old mindsets and adopting new ones. It takes understanding your shortcomings and working on developing them into strengths. It takes shifting your thought process from “what I think I should do,” to “what I want to do.” It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.

I am a living testament to that statement. I am proof. I’ve walked through the fire, and been born again. Our problems and struggles may seem trivial in the grand scheme of things, but that’s not important right now. We weren’t born in a war-torn country or born into poverty. As such, we are incredibly blessed, but that’s not the focus here. Do not trivialize your struggles in life. Do not minimize the hardships you faced. The pain that you experienced was real. It was real to you, and it hurt you. Remember that. You could’ve had a worse life, but you didn’t. Fate had something specific in mind for you. The circumstances you faced were unique to you. The lessons you learned were meant for you alone. No two brains are wired the same. We may be on the same wavelength for some things, but never everything. Our brains were built differently. How we handle stress is different. But even though we were all created differently, it doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from each other.

Going through life is a series of trial & error. No one really knows what it’s like to have a perfect life. Even Jesus, sinless though he was, didn’t have a perfect life. He lived a perfect life in that His actions and His intentions were pure and blameless. He was a perfect being. But what happened around Him was not perfect. He still had to figure things out in life. There is no handbook in life. We have to figure out what works best for each of us. But it doesn’t mean that we all have to make the same missteps and mistakes. Sometimes we are blessed with the opportunity to watch others fail before us. Obviously, we shouldn’t be watching with eager anticipation to see when others fail. But there are still lessons to be learned. 

Take it from me. I just left two toxic work environments in the span of two years. Now, you might be asking why I willingly stepped into a second toxic work environment soon after leaving the first. I knew what I was getting into, but the short answer is my priorities were different. I entered the workplace knowing that it wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t the thought that was at the pinnacle of my mind. I was still going to therapy when I started, but I was nearing my graduation. We had started discussing the things that I wanted to do that would make me feel fulfilled, that would make me feel satisfied with life, that would make me feel like I was doing something worthwhile. We had broached the subject of writing. It had taken me twenty-eight and a half years for me to finally know my calling. To find my purpose in life. To finally have an answer to the age old question: “what do you want to be when you grow up?” It hit me like a ton of bricks. This whole time I had been doing what I thought was expected of me. But that’s just it. It was my perception of how I thought others viewed me. So nothing real. Nothing genuine. I was living life according to how I thought my parents wanted me to live, and according to what I thought my friends would respect.

But it’s not about that. It’s about you. It’s about what you want with your life. How others see you is meaningless. If other people think you should be a doctor, but you don’t want to be a doctor, you are not going to find happiness. You are not going to know your real self-worth. You won’t be content with what you have or where you’re going. Money isn’t everything. Fame isn’t everything. Reputation isn’t everything. There’s more to life than any of this. Life is meant to be lived in the way that makes you happy and keeps you mentally healthy. Oftentimes, we apply added pressure on ourselves. But we need to take a step back and see if our current life trajectory is truly what we want.

When I started at Workplace B, I knew what I wanted. Through our discussions, my therapist had shown me the light. Maybe we discovered it together. Nevertheless, I wanted this. I wanted to write. I wanted to see where it would take me. I had made myriad excuses over the years, but I was finally willing to take control. To seek out this gift and see what I could do with it. I knew it would take time. I knew it would take dedication. I knew it would take practice. So I slipped into Workplace B. Found a place with less stress than Workplace A. A new place. A place where I wasn’t already bogged down with bitterness and negativity. Although I was working, my brain capacity had freed up substantially.

Enough for me to think about the story that I wanted to create. Think about the blog posts/essays I wanted to write. That honestly was half the battle. Having the time to think. That may not seem like much, but time to think is essential. Without it, creating art is that much more difficult. No wonder I was overwhelmed when I thought about writing. No wonder I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t have a concept. I didn’t have a premise. I was trying to start a story from scratch without a base. Through the turmoil in life, through my struggles, I had lost the connection I had with my imagination. And that for me is my biggest regret. Not staying in tune with my creativity. But better late than never! I won’t waste energy on what things could’ve been like. The past is unchangeable. We work with the present to provide for our future. 

My future is writing. I believe that wholeheartedly. Sure, I may have my moments of doubt. Sure, I do have my fears. But this is a pursuit worth putting my time, effort, and energy into. This is what I’ve been building towards for the past three and a half years. I needed to be broken in order to seek therapy. I needed to be healed in order to love and believe in myself. I needed to love and believe in myself in order to find what I loved. The time I spent writing and thinking at Workplace B brought me to this point. Yes, it didn’t end the way that I wanted it to. But I stuck to my guns. I knew what I wanted. I knew what I was looking for. Workplace B was merely a stopgap to hold me over financially until I felt that my writing was in order. Until I felt like my skill was at a level where I could do something with it. I had wanted to stay at Workplace B until my novel was finished. But that turned out to be untenable. The pressure of the workplace, my role at the company had increased to a level that was no longer able to coexist with my desire to write. It was one or the other. And I chose this. This is who I am. Who I am is greater than what I do. I am a writer. We’ll see where this goes. I owe it to myself. Forever onwards and upwards.