Category Archives: Dreaming

Brokenness, Changing, Discovery, Dreaming, Greatness, Growth, Healing, Hope, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Self-Care, Self-Love, Wellness

A Neverending Journey

March 11, 2023 jhumisanumber Leave a comment

I met someone. Words that are often overused, but words that mean something. I didn’t meet a crush, or a lover, or some sort of romantic connection. I’m spoken for, and happily so. But I met someone nevertheless. Someone who will help me on my journey. Someone who will help me accomplish my dreams. I met a friend, and a collaborator, and a partner.

My life the last few years has been a bit of an adventure (at least for my standards). Since December 2019, I’ve quit two toxic workplaces. You may wonder why I quit one, just to join another, especially when my focus has been on maintaining my mental health. It was simple. I needed a job, but I had my eyes set on something else—something greater—so I didn’t mind it. It was only ever going to be temporary. The job kinda found me, and it was super convenient. It was low stress and not super taxing for a time, which freed up the brainpower that I needed to be able to write. I could come home fresh and ready to get my creative juices flowing. Something that I hadn’t been able to do in the six years prior.

Truth be told, I’ve wanted to try my hand at writing for a while. But something always held me back. Usually it was fear and anxiety, often times it was excuse making. It was something that I was good at, letting fear control my life, believing the misconceptions. When you’re mentally and emotionally drained for long stretches at a time it’s easy to allow outside circumstances to dictate your life. It’s easy to hold yourself back and to let yourself be held back. When you’ve self-deprecated for over two decades, and your self-esteem has been running on fumes for as long as you can remember, making excuses feels natural. Underestimating your competence, understating your abilities, convincing yourself that you’re not capable of more, believing that you’re destined for mediocrity. All these things are lies that we tell ourselves. Lies that prevent us from becoming the best version of ourselves that we can be.

For the longest time, I was plagued by a nihilistic mindset. I didn’t know what I wanted from life. I didn’t know what I could contribute. I didn’t know what I was passionate about. I didn’t know what fulfillment felt like. I didn’t know what satisfaction was. I believed that I was destined to live an uninspired existence. To work laboriously because that was all we were put on this earth to do. To grow up, work, recreate, and die. In that fucked-up brain of mine, I thought that my life was out of my control. That I was subject to the whims of whatever uncaring god was out there. I found myself stuck at a dead-end job, but what proved more detrimental was that I was stuck in my mindset. I had stopped dreaming a long time before that. I had forgotten what it felt like to strive for something better. I had never known what my self-worth actually was. I had convinced myself that I had already peaked, that it would only go downhill from there. The risk taker in me had been overcome by my fear.

It was easy to keep being mediocre, to maintain the status quo. Growing up, I had been taught to seek comfort. To find something stable. Not to take too many risks. This led me to the false belief that settling was acceptable. That just okay was good enough. I didn’t know what it meant to dream big, or to seek greatness, or to have ambition. The anxiety and depression that I suffered through in my teenage years and early twenties was crippling. They prevented me from becoming the best version of myself that I could be. In truth, I didn’t think I was capable of goodness, let alone greatness. My demons had robbed me of all of my ambition. There are many things that I could blame, but I’m not going to do so. One of the first steps in transitioning to adulthood is taking responsibility for your actions and holding yourself accountable. Shit happens that may or may not be within your control. That doesn’t matter. What does is how you react to such circumstances. What’s important is that you learn from any and all experiences—good or bad. It doesn’t matter how they came to be.

Everyone goes through shit. That’s a fact of life. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has their own demons and vices. How you speak, how you think, how you act matters. All of this stems from having a healthy mind. I say this time and time again, but I will continue to do so until I go blue in the face. Get your mind right and everything falls into place. Of course, it’s easier said than done, but you have to keep at it. I didn’t accomplish anything meaningful in the first twenty-seven years of my life. That’s because I had a bad attitude and an overly pessimistic mindset. At some point in time, a small voice needled its way into my brain, telling me that I couldn’t do shit, that I wasn’t capable, that I was useless, that I was trash. As disappointments stacked, I started to believe this voice. I gave it room to grow. To fester. To corrupt. The more I fed the voice, the more I believed the lies.

Unfortunately, this isn’t unique to me. As millennials, we were conditioned to run from our problems. To hide them in a lesser traveled area of our brain. Our parents’ generation didn’t really understand mental health, therefore not much focus was put into fixing the issues. We were told to suck it up. Be happy. Don’t worry about it. But as we got older, as we shifted from early-twenties to late-twenties we started to realize how detrimental this was to our well-being. Ignoring the trauma only made things worse. Numbing the pain was only a temporary fix. Pretending to be strong only sapped our energy. We were left broken and we didn’t know what came next. Some of us have found our healing. Some of us have addressed issues we’ve been ignoring for twenty years. Unfortunately, many more of us are either still broken or are trying to figure things out.

I’m blessed to be a part of the former group, but it didn’t come without growing pains. Of course, I had good days and I had bad days. Mostly bad. Figuring things out on my own didn’t quite work out as I had expected. For a while I was too stubborn to seek out the help that I needed. I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t have the answers, because that would mean admitting that I was consistently failing to meet expectations. But these weren’t expectations that others had of me, but rather expectations that I had projected onto them. I was supposed to be such and such a person, because that was what was trendy. I was supposed to study this, because it was a respectable career path. I was supposed to do that, because it would make me less of a loner. I worried so much about what others thought of me that I had lost sight of what I thought of myself. At the end of the day, it’s the thing that matters the most. If you don’t love yourself, why would someone else love you? If you don’t respect yourself, why would you be deserving of respect? If you don’t think that you’re capable, why would others give you more responsibility?

I couldn’t find happiness because I felt none of these things. I didn’t love myself, I didn’t respect myself, I didn’t think myself capable. Life wasn’t fulfilling because I had no purpose. I had no purpose because I had stopped dreaming. I had stopped dreaming because I could no longer find the goodness in me. I was worth something, but I couldn’t see it. I had spent too many years downplaying my self-worth. Too many years living in fear. Too many years trying to please everyone but myself. Life was meaningless because I had lost all passion. And that was a dangerous spot to be in. I had gotten too comfortable with my mediocre life. But it wasn’t worth living, because I was just going through the motions. I wasn’t looking to make an impact on those around me. I wasn’t looking to seek greatness. I wasn’t willing to take any risks. I had asked myself, “is this it? Is there more to life?” and had resigned myself to it.

But there is more to life than that. There’s more to life than being fine with okay. Okay isn’t good enough. Seeking greatness is the goal. You have to be willing to step out of your comfort zone to do so. I didn’t learn that until I turned twenty-seven, but it wasn’t too late. There isn’t really such a thing as too late. There’s always room for growth. There’s always time to change. You can always strive for better. There’s always more to learn. You aren’t confined to a box. You can step out, you can step up. Change is something that you need to seek. It won’t just happen, bad habits don’t go away on their own. You need to work at it until you break it down. Change has more to do with determination than it does with doing the right things. In order to change, you need to start with your mindset. The first step is to stop making excuses.

That was the biggest thing that held me back. It wasn’t my lack of self-confidence. It wasn’t my lack of drive. It wasn’t my fear. Yes, all of those played a factor in my average existence, but nothing played a bigger role than my excuse making. I didn’t write because I gave myself reasons not to. That was the easy way out, and I took it because I didn’t know how to deal with adversity and I didn’t want to. But anything worth doing takes effort. It takes determination. And it takes self-control. If you don’t force yourself to do things, chances are you won’t do it. I think I know that better than most.

Writing for me happened in spurts. Inspiration came and went. Without any determination, that left me not doing what I do best for long stretches at a time. I always had a way with written word, but I needed refinement and I needed direction. But most importantly I needed encouragement. I needed someone to remind me that I was good at something. I needed someone to help me realize that I had talent and that I was worthy of praise. I’ve mentioned many times that I wrote poems and lyrics as a kid. Somewhere down the line that changed, and removing my creative outlet left me feeling empty. Writing is what I was meant to do. I was put on this planet for a reason: to help others using my words. It took me more than two and a half decades to realize that, but I will run with it and never look back.

In the autumn of 2019, things began to change. By that point I had been seeing a therapist for over a year. I had finished breaking down and I had finished healing. So what came next? I didn’t really know, until she asked me if I was happy with my career. No surprise that I said that I wasn’t. I had spent my whole life chasing something that I didn’t actually want. It wasn’t my dream, it was someone else’s. It was time for me to start chasing the thing that had eluded me for so long. It was time to stop making excuses, and start writing. It was time to turn my idea for a novel into something tangible. I’ve had my ups and downs, but I’ve stuck with it this whole time. I’ve figured stuff out on my own, I’ve had to look things up.

After I quit my job, I started writing in isolation. For several months it bore fruit. I could see progress. I could see improvement. But I didn’t have any external affirmation. No one saw my work but me. Which was fine for a time. I hadn’t yet grown confident in my ability. However, even the loneliest hermit needs affirmation. Even the biggest introvert needs people to care. Everyone needs to know if they’re on the right track. I thought I was, but I didn’t know for certain. Which brought me back to therapy. I needed new answers. I needed to know what came next.

I needed writer friends. I needed peers. I found that in October through an online writing community. It led to some growth. It was scary, putting my work out there, but it helped me to learn and improve. I had some positive, helpful feedback. I had some not so helpful feedback. Assholes exist everywhere. For a few months I fell back into old habits. Every hater, everyone who told me that my writing wasn’t good put me in a rut. I took each and every criticism personally. Every negative comment felt like a dagger to the heart. The voices that told me that I wasn’t good enough began to rear their ugly heads again. The feelings of doubt started to reemerge. I started asking myself if I was built for this. If I had enough talent. I began spiraling back into this rabbit hole of insecurity. But an angel came and rescued me. In January I met my ideal reader—he is mine and I am his. Someone who understands the story the way that I understand it. A writer whose strengths and weaknesses complement mine. We are symbiotic. A friendship, a partnership, a collaboration that will go a long way.

The going may be tough at first, but your hard work will pay off in the end. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. Don’t believe the voices that tell you that you aren’t worth shit. You are capable of so much. You can do good. You can be good. You can be great. But in order to do so, you have to keep on keeping on. Push yourself higher and higher. Dream big; never stop dreaming. Everything is within reach. Nothing is too ambitious if your eye is set on it. You just have to force yourself to do it. Eventually the habit will stick. Your hobby will become your passion. You are meant to make an impact on those around you. You are capable of great things. Goals are within reach, but life doesn’t end there. They are only milestones, not end points. Life is a neverending journey. Keep reaching higher. Aim for perfection though perfection can’t be attained. When the time comes, you will show the world that you are worthy.

Brokenness, Changing, Dreaming, Greatness, Growth, Hope, Mental Health, Self-Love

Back to School

February 25, 2023 jhumisanumber Leave a comment

I started seeing my therapist again. I’m not afraid to admit that. I have said before that when I stopped going I felt like I had graduated from it. I still feel that way, but just because I graduated doesn’t mean I can’t go back to school. The issues that had plagued me didn’t pop back up—I didn’t slip back into depression or suffer through crippling anxiety. I didn’t regress. You know I’m not about that. I won’t ever let that happen. As we get older we should only be moving in one direction: onwards and upwards. Anything else is a failure. The more life we experience, the wiser we get. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.

So, it may seem like going back to therapy is a step backwards, but it’s not. Your mental well-being is more important than anything else in the world. If you don’t have a healthy mind, things are not going to work out. You’re only making things harder on yourself. You need to get out of your own way. The best way to do that is to address your issues head-on, starting with getting your mind right. Once you have your mind right, everything falls into place. The hardships aren’t as hard, the outlook isn’t as draining, the blessings aren’t as easily ignored.

Accepting that you need help does not make you weak. Acknowledging your flaws does not make you less of a person. Admitting that you’re wrong does not change other’s perceptions of you. You are human, and humans make mistakes. Every person has their own issues. Whether you accept that these are things that need fixing is up to you. Things can change if you’re willing to put in the effort. Bad habits can be broken. Mindsets can be altered. Outlooks can be shifted. But none of this can be done if you don’t have the drive.

You need to motivate yourself to change if that’s what you really want. There’s no cause without effect. Change won’t happen unless you put in the effort. You will have setbacks. There will be times where you feel destined to fall back into old habits. It’s all a part of the process. Sometimes you have to take a few steps backwards in order to go forwards. But you have to keep trying, no matter how difficult. You have to keep pushing. Yes, there’s risk involved with trying, but there’s also the potential for a great reward. You won’t know what’s in store for you until you’ve put in your best effort. Things might not happen the way that you envisioned, but at least you know for certain now. You tried your best and it didn’t work out, so try your hand at something else. That’s the only way to live a life that feels fulfilling.

Failure doesn’t come from lack of effort. Every experience in life comes with a lesson—good or bad. If you learned something from an endeavor that fell short it counts as a success. You learned something valuable for next time. Success and failure are relative, they need reference points in order for them to make sense. One person’s failure is another person’s success, or vice versa. So, instead of seeing things as successes and failures, instead focus on winning and losing. The only way you fail is if you lose. And the only surefire way to lose is giving up. Persistence is often underrated and overlooked. If you’re passionate about something, you’ll find a way to make it work for you. If you’re not good at it, the only way you’ll get better is through practice.

In the age of social media, it’s easy to get discouraged. It’s easy to see the end result—that’s what is broadcast far and wide—but we don’t often see the process. We don’t see how much time and effort it took for a musician to write a song. How much trial & error. How much practice it took for them to master their instruments. Sometimes we think that things in life come easy, but they don’t. Everything worth doing requires hard work. It requires ambition. It requires learning. It requires admitting that you don’t know the answers, but are willing to find them. It requires allowing others to help you. But most importantly, it requires sticking to it. Learning through the ups & downs, the bumps & bruises. You need to stay motivated, some way, some how.

And the best way to do that is to be confident, and to stay optimistic. Of course, that’s easier said than done. You know me, I was once the most pessimistic person in the world. I had to train myself to be the man that I am today. That also took hard work. Switching your mindset from glass-half-empty to glass-half-full is monumental. It might even seem impossible, but again, persistence is key. Don’t give up, don’t give in. Glass-half-empty might be the only way you know, but it’s a fallacy. Believe me when I say that. It’s a trap that sucks the fun out of living. It’s a demon that tells you that you’ll never be good enough. It’s a belief system that sets you up to fail.

Self-fulfilling prophecies are a thing. An easy lure to fall into if your mind is not healthy. Avoid this way of thinking at all costs. Learn how to win, forget how to lose. Self-fulfilling prophecies are no different than giving up—only you’ve given up before you even started. If you believe in your heart that things aren’t going to work out for you, they likely won’t! You become so focused on, “what if this fails,” that you don’t do everything in your power to make sure that it doesn’t. You’re doing yourself a disservice. You‘re trying to lose before you even put in the effort to try to win.

Admit when you make a mistake. Allow that you can be wrong. Acknowledge that there might be a better way. Embrace your imperfections and know that they can be corrected. Some truths hurt. But reality isn’t all sunshine and roses. Life is tough. There are hard lessons to be learned. It’s all a part of human growth. Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone learns from them. I believe that the same obstacles will be placed in your way until you change your ways. Learn from your mistakes, otherwise you might have to face the same ones over again.

I’ve certainly learned from my mistakes. My old mindset has not come back—I haven’t allowed it room to do so. But, that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to keep making them. It’s a part of human life and cannot be avoided. So, instead of spending all that time pretending that you’re perfect, stop lying to yourself, and admit that you have issues. Admit that you may need help. Admit that you’re unsure of what to do. You’ll be better for it.

For a time, things weren’t going well. Yes, it wasn’t as bad as before, but it didn’t necessarily mean that things were working as efficiently as possible. After quitting my job I became a bit isolated, lacking social interaction. I became disillusioned with my writing, seeing as I had no external input on my content. My novel manuscript was a file on my computer that only I could see. I had no reinforcement, neither positive nor negative. No one to tell me if I was on the right track. No one to encourage me to keep on going. So, I went back into my contemplation and negative thoughts started popping up again. I began to doubt. I began to fear. I began to feel like I had made a rash decision. My mind was still healthy, but trending in the wrong direction. Before I let it go too far, I told myself that it was time.

It was time to go back. To let go of my pride, and to once again admit that I needed help. That I needed more answers. That I needed more healing. That I needed an unbiased outlet for my thoughts. I hadn’t forgotten what I had learned in my first stint with therapy. All these things had been practiced and internalized. All these coping mechanisms were part of my routine now. But that didn’t mean that I had learned all that I needed to know. I had all the answers that I needed for that time, but then is then and now is now. The circumstances may have changed, the outlook may have improved, but that doesn’t mean I’m too big a man to speak to a therapist. Therapy served its purpose at the time, and it will serve its purpose now. I’m going back to school, so that I can continue to grow. There’s always more for me to learn.

Changing, Discovery, Dreaming, Gender Roles, Greatness, Growth, Knowledge, Media, Questions, Reflections

Crossroads

September 30, 2022 jhumisanumber Leave a comment

This is part three of a four-part series

My mental health journey has had many ups and many downs. That’s to be expected when you’re willfully living life like it’s a rollercoaster. Like I’ve said, the pre-therapy version of myself was not in control of his emotions, not very discerning, not overly knowledgeable. I wouldn’t say I was dumb. I was far from it. But I wasn’t nearly as smart as I made myself out to seem. Nor was I as unintelligent or as worthless as I believed. I resided somewhere in the middle, but for the longest time I didn’t really know where. I’ve said this a few times already but I’ll keep saying it: I’m not like most people. I think some people understood this pretty early on, but I most assuredly wasn’t one of them. You’d think my music choice would’ve tipped me off (I’ll touch upon this in more depth later), but evidently I was highly imperceptive. Being different, however, didn’t necessarily translate to tangible results such as more friends, a bigger social media following, more money, or what have you. In all honesty, I’ve never really cared about that stuff—at least not as much as your average millennial.

After puberty, I had become the weirdo, the loner. That had always been the role that was meant for me, the niche that had already been carved out for me. It just took some time for me to finally embrace it. It took me a long time to learn how to love myself. But once I did, my outlook never looked rosier. I won’t go back to the way that I used to be. I can’t. Regression is the genesis of decay. Stagnation is its precursor. If you’re not growing, you’re dying. If you’re not improving, you’re deteriorating. You know where I’m going with this right? Sorry to say but I’m somewhat predictable. Be great! In everything you do. Excel at all things and strive to improve at every turn. It’s one of the many mantras that I’ve been repeating to myself since I embarked on this journey.

Life in general is a journey, we hear this time and time again. It’s become cliche. But where did cliches stem from? Real truth. There will be ups and downs. There will be peaks and valleys. That’s just how it is. That’s how it always will be. How you deal with your adversity speaks more to your character than what you deal with. The only way to improve is to self-critique and to take constructive criticism into consideration. The former lays in the palm of your hand. It is wholly within your control. The latter generally proves to be more informative, but is not always a reliable source. Not in the sense that what others say is necessarily wrong, don’t mistake my intent. But in the sense that not everybody will tell you what you need to hear. Some people hold back, they don’t want to hurt your feelings. Others overlook your flaws in the name of friendship—there’s such a thing as taking “having your back” too far. Still others may be afraid of having a dissenting opinion, and would rather tell you what you want to hear in order to avoid conflict.

A little disagreement is healthy. You don’t want your life filled with only Yes Men. You NEED varied opinions. You choose the people that you surround yourself with. But you don’t choose how they are, how they act, or how they react. That’s not up to you; that’s up to them. Everyone has a different way of coping with things. That’s just how it goes. You can only control yourself. You can’t control other people, you have to remember that. Manipulation is not a healthy way of getting what you want. The last thing you want is to be the reason why a friendship/relationship is toxic. The only thing worse than being around drama is being the drama. I’ve talked about cutting out toxicity from your life before. That doesn’t just mean distancing yourself from people or situations that drain your mental well-being. It also means self-evaluating, and changing the way you interact with other people (if you think it needs changing). We are quick to blame other people or circumstances when things go wrong. But we need to keep ourselves accountable. Hold ourselves to the same standard that we hold others. Sometimes culpability for toxicity falls on us. We have to be willing to accept that. We are not detached from it.

I’m not a relationship expert and I’m not going to pretend to be one. But I can say that the mark of a healthy relationship is having great communication. It’s imperative to have an equal partnership. It’s not optional! You give as much as you take. You respect them as much as they respect you—if not more. You help your partner with chores around the house. You help them raise your children. You do anything you can to be of use. But most importantly you talk about things. You clear the air, you say what’s on your mind. You likely won’t agree on everything. But in any case, you need to talk about it. Your intentions and beliefs should be clear to your spouse/partner and vice versa. Of course all of this is easier said than done. Communication (or lack thereof) is something that many of us struggle with. Oftentimes we’d rather bottle up than open up. It may seem easier that way in the short term, but that’s not the case long term. But it will take time, it will take effort, it will take persistence. It won’t just change overnight.

Unfortunately we’ve been stuck in an antiquated mindset for decades. Maybe the old way of thinking worked for the 19th and (early) 20th centuries, but it didn’t work in 2012 and it doesn’t work in 2022. We seem to have a hard time letting that go though. You know how it is. The people in power want to stay in power. But I won’t get into that here. For many many years we’ve lived in a patriarchal society. That’s not liable to change anytime soon. As such, we’ve been conditioned to see the world in a certain way. For the longest time we’ve had firmly defined gender roles, especially when it comes to family. The traditional view is to see the man as the breadwinner, and the woman as the homemaker. But times are changing, and we need to change with the times. This way of thinking doesn’t work anymore and it hasn’t worked for a while now. Thankfully, we’ve steadily moved away from it, but progress has been slow. Some people continue refusing to believe that this is the new reality. But it’s something that needs to happen. We can’t keep seeing the world in the same way that our forefathers saw the world. This world is not the world that they lived in. We as a society, therefore, need to adapt. A man can be a stay-at-home dad if he wants to. A woman can prioritize her career if she wants to. Both adults can work non-traditional jobs if they want to. As long as it’s what’s best for the family. What may be ideal for one family may not be ideal for another. Just as each person is different, so too is each family.

We need to change our view on non-traditional families. I don’t just mean same-sex marriage, blended families, or multi-ethnic. Our thinking on gender roles needs to change as well. It’s not the 1950s anymore, when women mostly stayed home. Career options for women are more than just teacher or nurse these days. I know we’ve become more progressive since then, but we’re still not progressive enough. In my view, the ideal society is a feminist society. I know that’s not what a lot of people want to hear, but it’s the truth. Unfortunately for us, many people misunderstand the meaning of the word. Many people take it to mean, “more power to women at the expense of men.” But that’s not what it means at all. Feminism is merely ideology that promotes the equality of genders. Nothing more, nothing less. But you know how it goes. Misinformation runs rampant in this day and age. It was bad enough when I was in school (only eight years ago!), but it’s somehow even worse now. Of course it doesn’t help that we have a cohort of politicians that don’t actually know anything about politics or how the US government works. Part of that responsibility falls on us for allowing such inept individuals to gain power. Voting for “someone like us” doesn’t help if they don’t know what they’re doing or what they’re talking about. It seems logical (at least to me). If they’re like us—uninformed and ignorant—then what makes you think they’re capable of leading? It’s the blind leading the blind.

That tangent aside, it’s our duty as active members of society to combat misinformation in the media. It doesn’t take much. It starts with something as simple as fact checking before reposting things you see. It doesn’t take much time or effort to look something up. Of course, you could also take a class about topics that you don’t know about—it could be a college course, online tutorial, or a self-help book, etc. Know what you’re talking about before jumping wholeheartedly into a heated debate! Don’t be the person who misinterprets the meaning behind movements such as Feminism, Black Lives Matter, or “defunding the police”. Don’t be so quick to jump to a conclusion. Understand the context first, then make a decision. But even after doing so, be open to listening to differing opinions, and continue being respectful. They say there are “two sides to every story,” but that’s selling it short. It’s not just your side and my side. There’s also the truth, which they like to say, “often lies somewhere in the middle.” The key word there is often. Somewhere in the middle isn’t always the case either! What if both sides are lying or misremembering the facts? Be informed! Seek knowledge! Gain information!

Again, there are many ways to do this. The Internet is great for that. That’s what it was created for: the sharing of knowledge & information. But you also have to be wary. Not everything you see is true. Not every source is legitimate. Watch out for unsubstantiated rumors. Most news media often has an inherent bias. Fox News and CNN may report on the same story, but you will likely draw different conclusions from each outlet. That is because they have different target audiences, and as such, have a different bent on their coverage. Understand the context of what you are reading, hearing, or watching. Know that news media thrives on sensationalism. Yes, the world is a fucked up place, but it is not nearly as violent or as corrupt as they make it out to seem. Shock and awe makes money, as does panic; happiness does not (at least in their eyes). Learn to understand the thought process behind news media. Be deliberate in trying to improve your media literacy.

Most of what I say here I say from experience. I like to know what I’m talking about. I like to be informed. But most of all, I do not want to be the purveyor of false information. It goes against my ethos. I don’t usually talk just to talk. Of course, I don’t always choose my words carefully. I’m not perfect! But I try my best to be a positive influence on a conversation. What that looks like depends on the conversation and the audience. Sometimes I get carried away when I get too passionate. Sometimes I end up putting my foot in my mouth. I’m much better at writing than I am at talking. I’m more coherent that way. But even so, I still try to say meaningful things and give good advice. Now I wasn’t always like that. I know for certain that there were times when I was not a meaningful contributor to a conversation, and there were times when my input either ended a conversation prematurely or made it uncomfortable or was tainted with pessimism. We all had a darker past. We were all immature or ignorant at some point (maybe we still are in some ways). Sometimes we just didn’t know any better. Other times we thought we knew more than we did. Some of us were trapped in our own world. Others were just plain delusional. But when it came down to it, we were all trying in our own way. Right or wrong, good result or bad, most of us are trying to make something of ourselves while also striving to be good people. Doing that takes a lot of learning and growing. Trying and changing.

For many of us, this process can be jumpstarted through higher education. Of course, higher education wasn’t meant for everyone. Some people aren’t interested in it, others can’t afford it, some aren’t good at it, and some just don’t need it. College is not the be-all and end-all like it’s made to seem. There are other options. As for me, college is and was a part of my life experience. Truth be told, I was not mature enough to transition directly from high school to adulthood. The four and a half years that I had spent in college was necessary and fundamental. Now I do have my gripes about the cost of higher education, but it certainly wasn’t a waste of time. Life truly is what you make of it. Nothing is ever really a waste of time; good or bad there are always lessons to be learned. You just have to adopt the right mindset. Don’t be the person who grumbles their way through hardship. A debbie downer. A complainer. Don’t be the person who can’t see the good in life. Nobody wants to be around that person. I would know. I was that person for well over a decade. Learn from your mistakes. Face your adversity and understand that there are ALWAYS lessons to be learned. Count your blessings, you’ll be better off for it.

Unfortunately for me, I have let too many valuable lessons fall to the wayside. For a long time I didn’t learn from my mistakes. I didn’t understand the reasons for my hardships; I couldn’t see past them. I muddled through life because it was the easiest option. The life lessons I could’ve learned at 20 or 21, I instead learned at 29 or 30. These things could’ve made a huge difference early on, but would’ve ended up taking me on a completely different journey. It wasn’t the path that was intended for me. The right things happened at the right time. I wouldn’t be the person that I am today if the timing had been any different. Like I always say, your adversity is a part of you. Your hardships play a role in who you are as a person. The lessons you learned in life were learned at exactly the right time. There is a time and a place for everything. There is a reason for everything that happens. You just need to dig deep, do a little soul-searching, find the answers within yourself. But don’t worry if you can’t/don’t find them right away. Hindsight is a powerful tool. Introspection and reflection uncover many hidden truths.

Thankfully, I’ve been blessed with a great memory and excellent recall. Otherwise these unlearned lessons would’ve gone to waste. If there’s one thing I can thank my anxiety for it’s that. My constant overthinking has proven to be a boon in some instances. Just because you didn’t learn something at the time of your trauma doesn’t mean that you can’t learn from it still. The only wasted lessons are ones that remain unlearned. The only pointless adversity is when your behaviors and/or attitudes do not change as a result. The only time mistakes do not precipitate progress is when you repeat the same ones over and over. Learn from your mistakes, learn from your adversity, learn from your struggles. There are reasons why you’re going through what you’re going through. Dig deep, and persevere. It won’t be like this forever. Things do get better. But not if you don’t put in some effort. You can always perform better. You can always learn more. Something can be picked up from every circumstance or experience—positive or negative. The more life that you experience, the more wisdom and knowledge you’ll possess. With this comes clarity and an altered perspective. This allows you to view your past through a different lens. You know more now than you did then, and with that, you should be able to continue learning more life lessons.

During my time in college, I had learned a lot of things about myself. But there was always more to learn. I don’t think I quite understood that then. I said ages ago that there are people who go through life acting like there is nothing left to learn, and there are people that act like there is everything left to learn. Be the latter. You don’t have all the answers. You won’t have all the answers. But that doesn’t mean you don’t constantly strive to find out more. Isn’t that the essence of human existence? Finding out more? If you spent years not seeking knowledge or looking for answers, don’t fret! Again, hindsight is a valuable tool. There are many lessons hidden in your past just lying there for you to uncover. Sometimes you have to find a way to relive your past. Therapy is a great way of doing so. A way to address issues that you had conveniently ignored. If you’ve read past posts of mine, you know that conveniently ignoring things was a crutch of mine. Something I relied upon heavily. I was so non-confrontational back then that I ran away from everything—even myself. I avoided introspection because I didn’t want to deal with it. The war within my mind may as well have been a street fight. I was my own worst enemy. I neither liked myself nor respected myself.

But I was already more accomplished than I allowed myself to accept (or at least I wasn’t the failure that I had already labeled myself). At twenty-years-old it’s way too early to determine that. You haven’t experienced enough life to say that. Your life really hasn’t even started yet. Your brain is still developing at that age. You couldn’t have failed if you hadn’t even had a chance to try. Oftentimes the pressure you feel is internal; it’s unnecessary strain that you put upon yourself. Being your own worst critic has its upside and its downside. For me, I was a double major: business management, and sociology. Not everyone is capable of that, but I didn’t seem to realize it. It didn’t matter that the business program required me to double major or minor in something. Being a hard-working student was still the primary prerequisite for completing the program. It doesn’t say it on the program notes or the syllabi. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Yes, not every college graduate is smart or hard-working (it’s all relative), but it took some level of competence and some level of effort to finish.

That already is a great accomplishment, don’t diminish that for yourself. If you completed something that you set your mind to, that makes you a success. You only fail if you give up. You may not see tangible results right away, but you will see them as you keep on plugging. I finished college because I had set my mind to it. Receiving my Bachelor’s Degree was something I got to check off of my to-do list. But just because I finished, doesn’t mean that I had found my calling in life. I never had been all that interested in business management, I’m still not. But it was the thing that had kept me grounded. People respect business majors, they expect great things from businesspeople. So that’s what I had gone for. But unbeknownst to me, I had boxed myself in. I had limited myself from fulfilling my potential. I had shoved a round peg into a square hole. It took slogging through six years at the same dead-end job for me to finally realize that I could do better. That I was meant for so much more. I wasn’t destined to be a Customer Service Rep or a Salesperson. That wasn’t me, although I was good at the former (not so much the latter). It wasn’t my passion. It wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. It wasn’t even my greatest strength. I only excelled at it because I had put it in my mind to do so, but I couldn’t have been more disinterested. I WAS DOING THE WRONG THINGS WITH MY LIFE.

But years before I had made that discovery, I had come to an entirely different crossroads. Who I was clashed with who I was becoming. But this change didn’t come about through business school. It was through sociology—women’s studies in particular. My first women’s studies class was during the spring semester of freshman year. I didn’t take it because I wanted to; I took it because it fit in with my schedule. And I’m glad that it did. The first thing that it taught me was that although I had been a Christian my whole life, I did not have much love in my heart. Ironic for a religion that is touted as the religion of love. But that was who I was then. Someone who was hard-hearted. Close-minded and ignorant. I was low-key racist, misogynistic, homophobic, whatever you can think of. I was covert in my mentality as opposed to overt. But it doesn’t make that mindset any more acceptable. It didn’t change the fact that I was a bigot. It really didn’t matter how I framed it—my world view was offensive. Of course I dug my heels in at first. I had always been a stubborn person, and regrettably, quite sheltered. I hadn’t mentally prepared for the culture shock. In one semester, my world had been flipped on its head. What I thought was right, what I had thought of as “my truth” was slowly becoming the opposite. Truth be told, at the age of nineteen, my education had only just begun. Up until then, what I thought I had believed was not actually that. It wasn’t what I believed, it was what was indoctrinated into me through theology and pseudo-theology. Things I had been led to believe, which I later questioned. Ironically, many of these misconceptions had been taught to me from close people around me: mainly the church and family friends.

Regrettably, not all churches teach Biblical truth. Nearly every church is liable to err on certain things. Some aspects of church doctrine are subjective. You will differ on some things as a result. It’s inevitable. You’re likely going to struggle to find a church whose world view lines up perfectly with your own. That being said, just as there is no such thing as a perfect Christian, there also is no perfect church. It does not exist. Humans are imperfect creatures, as such, any human institution will also be imperfect. Growing up, I had attended a Chinese church. I have many issues, but I don’t want to get into them here, so just a word of warning: be wary of ethnic churches. Very wary. Of course, I can only speak for the culture I grew up in, but it can also be applied to others. I’ve noticed that Chinese cultural mores are sometimes passed off as Christian theology. For example, filial piety and obeying your parents are very similar things, but they are not the same. They can coexist, and maybe they should. But the former should not be portrayed as Christian theology, because it isn’t. If something doesn’t sound right, don’t be afraid to look into it further. Ask questions when opportunities arise. Not doing so is one of the few things I regret. I hadn’t asked the right questions when I was younger, and I never really received satisfactory answers anyway. Oftentimes questioning was conflated with doubting. The former does not necessarily lead to the latter.

Unfortunately for me, for most of my youth I had been told not to ask questions. Not from my parents necessarily, but from those around me (especially at church). For a time I obeyed. I tried not to ask questions because I didn’t want to show others my lack of faith. But I was doing myself a disservice. By not asking the right questions, I was blindly believing what was taught to me rather than getting a better understanding of what it was that I actually believed. Of course, this never sat well with me. Everyone knows that I have always been very inquisitive. It’s part of my nature. But also part of my nature (at least previously) was lacking self-awareness. I knew something was off about the vibe but I couldn’t pinpoint what. I would go to all the church functions and act like a “Christian,” but something always felt like it was missing. But I never knew what. And it did not materialize during my time at church or during my hiatus away. It took leaving and coming back for me to figure out what it was.

I never actually had a relationship with God. I knew how a Christian was “supposed” to act and I knew all the Bible stories, but I had never felt Him at work in my life. And that was because I wasn’t asking questions. I wasn’t able to get to the root of my belief. Up til then (and even past that) all I had was knowledge, with no application. Knowing about the Bible will only get you so far (likewise, having that relationship but not knowing the stories will leave you with the same amount of understanding—which is to say NOT ENOUGH). My view of who God was was heavily skewed. I saw Him as a vengeful god, not a god of love. So it’s no real wonder that I didn’t have much love in my heart when I got to college. But that wasn’t just it. That wasn’t the only thing that was missing. Not asking the right questions went deeper than that. It wasn’t just about my faith. It was about not knowing who I was, or who I wanted to become. Not knowing what interested me or what I wanted to do with my life. But more importantly it was about not knowing what happiness felt like and not knowing what would make me happy. It was about not finding fulfillment in what I did and not knowing what it felt like to live a fulfilling life. My life felt meaningless for many years. Because I had stopped dreaming. I had stopped dreaming a long time before. What dreams I had had been suppressed. Because I was easily influenced and swayed. I had spent so many years substituting what I wanted with what I thought was expected of me, that I had lost sight of what it was that I had wanted. And that to me was the greatest travesty. My life had become dominated with “woe is me,” and “will I meet expectations?” and “am I capable of what they think I am or am I destined to disappoint?” It wasn’t about doing better and being better, it was about not failing. I wasn’t thinking about how prosperous my life could be. I was focused on what it wasn’t rather than what it could be. What kind of life is that?

Be great! Ask questions! Seek knowledge! Find improvement! Keep dreaming! Continue chasing! Strive for better! Make a difference! Cause an impact! Never give up! Good things may come to you, but you need to seek greatness. Elevate yourself to a higher mental plane. Mediocre isn’t good enough. Okay isn’t good enough. Good enough isn’t good enough. There is no destination without a journey. Continual progress makes for a more fruitful journey. The only way forwards is up. Be better today than you were yesterday. Failure is not an option. To fail is to give up. Life is full of lessons. Success comes when you learn from your mistakes. Stop making excuses and take control. Grab life by the horns. You are the rider, not the bull.

Art, Dreaming, Mental Health

Who I Am > What I Do

February 18, 2022 jhumisanumber Leave a comment

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.

Art, Dreaming

Why Wait?

December 31, 2021 jhumisanumber Leave a comment

2021 has simultaneously passed quickly and progressed slowly. If 2020 was the strangest year in the past decade, then 2021 was a close second. It felt like an eternity, but we’ve finally reached the end. So what better time to do some reflecting? Similar to the outlook of the year I feel like there were times when my writing was flourishing, and there were others when it stagnated. No question, my writing has gotten better. I can see it when comparing old writing with new. No surprise there, that’s how it goes. When you’re working on perfecting your craft, you want it to improve. That’s the expectation. And I think I can objectively say that it has. But the problem I’ve come across is that I haven’t been doing enough of it.

I’ve been trying to develop a habit, but it’s tough when your schedule is inconsistent. There were times when I went to visit my parents or went on vacation, and I fell out of a groove. It took a little longer to get started again. No surprise there either. I’ve said this before, but it’s akin to starting from Park as opposed to starting from Gear 1. It’s an acceptable process every so often, but if you’re constantly stopping and starting you won’t hit your checkpoints, and your quality of work will suffer. So one expectation that I have for myself moving forward is being more consistently in gear. Easier said than done. Real work has gotten in the way of the work that I want to do unfortunately. 2021 has been much busier than 2020 in that aspect. Last year was busy but manageable. I worked extra hours but I was able to cope. I was able to keep up with the workload. But this year, work exploded. Even with my extra hours I haven’t been able to keep up with the workload, which has left me drained and has diminished my brainpower. That much is about to change, but that’s a story for a different time. A story that I’m not quite ready to share because it’s not over yet, so you’ll just have to stay tuned for next time.

So I haven’t been writing nearly as much as I would like. There are no excuses for that. In the end, it’s on me. I made the decision to work extra hours. I made the decisions to go on vacation or visit my parents. I made the decision to write or not to write. I’m the master of my own life. But I’m also the storyteller. In the end, I’m the one in control of the story. No one else can claim that. I’m the one pulling the pieces out of the veil and melding them together. I’m the one reaching into the depths of my imagination and crafting an opus. It’s me, all me. So there are no excuses for the story not to come together the way that I want it to. This is my world to shape. And believe me, it’s coming together, slowly but surely. I can see the separate threads being woven together, but it’s nowhere near done. I still have a lot of work to do. But that means putting much more time and effort into it. I can’t keep letting myself get caught up with life. So my question to myself lately has been why wait? Why have I been waiting? Why do I continue to wait?

Why wait? That’s a question everyone should ask themselves. It’s not just a question for me to ask myself. Check in on yourself periodically! What’s going on externally does not always line up with what’s going on internally. But how would you know that if you didn’t take some time to reflect? We were meant to live our lives, not just muddle about and exist. We were meant to live, and live to the fullest. To meet opportunity head-on and take it by the horns. We are in control. We are the walkers, not the walked. We are the leaders, not the led. We do not wait for things to happen. We go out and pursue that which we seek.

But I’ll be honest. I’ve spent a good amount of my life waiting for things to come to me. I did not ask myself the right questions. I did not seek out opportunities. I made excuses and I was weighed down by inaction. My self-loathing and my doubt won out every time. My lack of confidence reigned over my life. I did not know what I wanted, and I did not know what I was good at. I was wandering around aimlessly, without goals in mind. I didn’t have anything to drive me and I sorely lacked motivation. Because I didn’t know what my higher calling was. I had not realized my purpose. But when I found out what it was, it was the most liberating feeling in the world. It turns out everything was within grasp. Everything was right there, laid out in front of me. I was already equipped with all the tools that I needed. But I didn’t know it.

I didn’t know it because I lacked self-awareness. I didn’t know it because I didn’t spend much time reflecting. My eyes were tinted by the shade of negativity. My woe is me attitude did me no favors. My sense of despair became an unbearable burden, building up over the course of many years. I didn’t let go of my hurt feelings; I didn’t let go of my anger. As a result, dark thoughts clouded my judgment. My mistakes were compounded with more mistakes and more excuses, leaving me in constant neutrality. Two steps forward, two steps back. Never progressing, never improving, never excelling. I was stuck in a cycle of mediocrity. Or so I thought. Turns out it was just a mindset. I had conditioned myself to have a negative outlook, to be pessimistic, to look on things with skepticism. I didn’t take responsibility for my situation, I didn’t hold myself accountable, and I was held back by fear.

This isn’t a unique outlook. Far from it. Many young folk nowadays lack self-awareness. Many people are bogged down by fear. Neither of these is inherently bad. But don’t let either thing control you. Know that these are areas that can use improvement. Being in tune with your vulnerabilities allows for proper growth. The more you know about yourself, the more capable you are of tackling all of life’s challenges. When you don’t acknowledge your weaknesses or don’t accept that you’re capable of making mistakes you’re doing yourself a disservice. One of the best things you can do for yourself is to be realistic. You don’t want delusion to creep in. EVER. Know that we’ll never be perfect versions of ourselves, we’ll never meet our ideal, and that’s ok. Thinking otherwise is expecting the impossible. But that doesn’t mean we don’t still try.

The biggest project in our lives is ourselves. Since nobody is ever a finished product, we have no choice but to keep tinkering and improving. The only other option you have is complacency, which inevitably leads to failure. And nobody wants that. Rot, mold, being stuck in the mire. Work on yourself, otherwise you risk seeing your world fall apart. I dunno about you, but I’d rather not find out what that looks like (again). I’ll take option 1, thank you very much. I’ve seen my world fall apart before. I’ve seen what I had thought to be the lowest low. But know that even at your worst, there could be worse… But there could also be better. Much better. Life isn’t just about improvement and growth, it’s about finding healing. Finding serenity. Finding inner peace. Finding ways to make it through each day while also keeping your cool. Finding ways to not sweat the little things.

And let’s be honest, in the grand scheme of things most everything is small and inconsequential. So sweating the small stuff is wasted energy. Don’t let them affect you too much. Now don’t get me wrong, there are times when anger, rage, or bitterness are justified. But it doesn’t have to be all the time. In fact, it shouldn’t be all the time, or even most of the time. The mark of being mature is keeping your emotions in check. Being calm, cool, and collected. Only children throw tantrums when they don’t get what they want. Only babies scream and shout when they don’t get their way. Being quick to anger is a puerile response in a grown-up world. I know it doesn’t always seem that way; not everyone seems to understand this. There are people much older than us who still act up, who are prone to lashing out, who reign with fear, I know and understand that. It appears that they just never grew up. Never let go of their entitlement, never got over their “me first” attitude. But we don’t have to stoop to their level. We can reject toxicity. Not force others to walk on eggshells around us. Not act in arrogance, whether intentional or unintentional. We aren’t destined to repeat the errors and mistakes of our fathers and forefathers. We have a choice.

We can choose to be different. Choose to be great. Choose to walk on a higher plane. Your life is a series of choices: good, bad or indifferent. You’re not stuck. Just because you’ve chosen one route to your destination doesn’t mean you can’t change directions and try a different approach. No one is stopping you, aside from fear and expectation. Your own worst enemy is yourself. Your greatest barrier is you. So why wait? Sometimes all you need is a swift kick in the behind or a knock on the head. Something to motivate you to aspire for more, aspire for better, aspire for greater. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we’re on a path towards greatness. Nothing can get in our way, nothing can stop us. But we won’t get further if we don’t get started.

Things have to start from somewhere. That’s how it works. Every action or event has an origin. You don’t just become great or make great things out of the blue. There are steps to it. It starts as a seed in your mind. It starts with finding your strengths and your passions. It starts with a decision. A decision to be better than what you’ve been, and to continue to be a better version of yourself each and every day. That allows you to do great things, to keep creating. Every profession, every vocation either creates something or fixes something. Think about it. Artists, musicians, authors all create content. Plumbers or electricians fix housing issues. Chefs and cooks create meals. Psychologists and therapists fix people. Salesmen create sales. Customer service support fixes problems. It doesn’t matter what it is. As long as you’re good at it, have a passion for it or both; keep creating, keep fixing, keep excelling. The alternative is mediocrity. And mediocrity breeds contempt.

Strive for better. Strive for greater. Why wait? I’ve done enough waiting in my life. Made enough excuses. At some point in your life, you have to stop talking, and start doing. Talking about things is progress in a way, but it’s also inaction in another sense. It’s a different form of excuse making. It’s a different way of waiting. You just have to do it. Don’t keep putting things off for later. Later may never come. You might already have the tools necessary for you to pursue greatness, for you to succeed. You might not. Either way, the seed that you’ve grown requires you to water it and foster it. You won’t get better at something unless you do it and do it and do it. Habits are formed through repetitive action. Skills are refined through constant practice. People don’t usually make masterpieces on their first attempts. It takes time and effort. You won’t become a celebrity overnight. Musicians didn’t just come out of the blue to hit the billboards. We can’t always see the effort they put in, but believe me, it didn’t just happen. It took years and years of hard work. In a day and age where instant gratification is expected or preferred, toil & effort seems unnecessary or illogical. But know this: if you want to create great things you have plenty of work to do.

Don’t wait, just create!

Writing. Plain, simple, unadulterated. I am a storyteller, an essayist, a poet, a writer, a thinker, a mental health advocate, a regular real life human being

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Writing. Plain, simple, unadulterated. I am a storyteller, an essayist, a poet, a writer, a thinker, a mental health advocate, a regular real life human being