Category Archives: Knowledge

Depression, Doubt, Dreaming, Growth, Knowledge, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Reflections, Wellness, Writing

Just a Little Self-Awareness

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The past few years have given me plenty of time to reflect. No surprise there, considering my circumstances. But it’s revealed some hard truths that I’m having trouble reconciling. For a while now I feel like I’ve had a good understanding of who I am as a person. I’m the first person to admit that for most of my life I was severely lacking in the self-awareness department. But that changed once I started therapy. So much so that I feel like I was able to turn one of my greatest weaknesses into one of my greatest strengths. 

It seemed pretty cut and dry, so wasn’t something I questioned much… Until now. I’ve always been someone who spends a lot of time alone. As you would imagine for someone who’s as introverted as I am, much of the day is spent inside my head. Like many things in life, it’s a double-edged sword. When I lacked self-awareness and confidence it was a dark and dangerous place to reside. Negative thoughts circulated through my head without any sort of constructive release, which only made the rough moments even rougher. I was hard on myself and didn’t show myself any grace or give myself credit (I still don’t do enough of either, if I’m being honest). There was a lot of moping around and feeling sorry for myself. You know the story, I’ve been over it a number of times.

Therapy taught me how to use the time spent thinking in more productive ways. Which was extremely important. It would’ve been unreasonable to expect that I’d be able to stop myself from thinking so much, so best then to reframe my mindset instead. Rather than brooding and sulking, I began reflecting. This helped me develop the self-awareness that I had so severely lacked. Which in turn, allowed me to methodically evaluate each scenario and come up with a plan on how to move forward and improve. I believe that the self-awareness that I gained from that helped kickstart my mental health journey. 

This coupled with therapy allowed me to finally process past events in my life. Helped me let go of various traumas I was holding onto and move on from them. I was able to revisit past experiences and learn the lessons I was supposed to learn. Which surprised me at first—you wouldn’t think there’d be anything left to learn from something that had happened years or decades prior. But that’s not really true. If you keep ignoring your problems or keep running from adversity you’re only delaying the inevitable. There is only one realistic outcome for you with this approach: you doom yourself to repeating past mistakes and you give your issues room to fester and get worse. Until you learn your lesson, nothing is going to truly change or get better. So, at some point you will have to deal with the adversity head-on. It’ll hurt in the short-term, but you’ll be better off in the end. 

Unfortunately, for most of us, dealing with adversity directly is the harder thing to do. It’s actually relatively easy to take the “out of sight, out of mind” approach. It’s easy to pretend like things aren’t as bad as they are. It’s easy to lie to ourselves. To delude ourselves into believing that our issues aren’t so bad or don’t actually exist. It’s easy to just ignore everything that you don’t want to deal with. It might give us short-term relief, but these things will always come back to haunt us eventually—ignoring them didn’t magically make them disappear. So, the longer you delay, the more you’ll have to unpack. But instead of being able to deal with each small issue separately, in bite-sized pieces, it might hit you all at once like a ton of bricks. Not a fun time, to say the least. But there’s no one to blame but yourself. You have to live with the consequences of your actions (or inactions). Pointing the finger at others won’t do you any good. It might feel satisfying in the moment, but until there’s meaningful change within yourself there isn’t going to be any tangible progress or improvement. 

One sign of maturity is learning how to hold yourself accountable. It starts with owning up to your mistakes and having the awareness and humility to admit when you’re wrong. When I was a youngster I was a rather naughty kid. I wasn’t a bad egg per se, but my curiosity often got the better of me, and I liked testing boundaries and limits. On top of that, I wasn’t particularly sneaky nor was I a good liar. No surprise then that I often got caught. But more often than not, instead of owning up to it when my mom questioned me, I would either lie about it or feign ignorance. The last thing I wanted to do was take accountability. The most common phrases that came out of my mouth were, “I didn’t do it,” or “It was an accident.” She never believed me—and for good reason—so I always ended up with a worse punishment than if I had just told the truth. But did I learn my lesson? No I did not. The pattern repeated over and over and over again. It didn’t end until I was ten- or eleven-years-old when I decided to leave my naughty phase behind me once and for all. When I finally got tired of getting spanked. 

That was the first time in my life that I said, “enough is enough.” The first time I tried to make a conscious effort to change my behavior. And it worked for a while, but looking back on it now, I don’t think I had the right takeaway from all this. My motivation in doing this wasn’t centered around doing the right thing per se, but rather on avoiding punishment. The end result may have been the same, but the thought process was very different. Obviously, I was too young to understand the nuance, so this much only became clear to me in hindsight. If I had known the difference, would I have handled things differently? Maybe, maybe not. It’s not the most productive use of my time to speculate on this type of hypothetical situation. All I know is that this approach worked at first, and let me move onto the next phase of my life. It wasn’t until much later that maintaining this approach started to become a detriment. 

Either way, I didn’t learn how to truly hold myself accountable until much much later. My teenage years were filled with a lot of blame shifting, pity parties, and general anger at the world. I just didn’t have the awareness, willpower, or confidence to drill down to the root and find legitimate solutions for my issues. It was easier to play the victim than it was to be critical of myself or my behavior. This young version of me did not have the mental fortitude that I have now. I wasn’t a problem solver back then. I gave up too easily, and I kicked myself when I was down. I was already in a bad enough place psychologically that I probably wouldn’t have been able to handle any amount of self-evaluation even if I knew how to do it. No surprise then that all of this stunted my development. But I didn’t know any better. You live and you learn. 

Everything changed once I developed even an ounce of self-awareness. Obviously, therapy helped with that. But it’s not a magic cure-all. Whether you meet weekly or bi-weekly, there is still plenty of work that needs to be done on your own. Your therapist won’t be there to hold your hand throughout the week. They can’t help you if you’re not willing to help yourself. At first, you may not have the tools necessary to do this on your own. They will develop over time. But you have to use them regularly to keep them sharp. All of this is done with your mental health in mind. Nothing is impossible as long as your mind is healthy. The going is much rougher when it’s not. Again, this is where having some self-awareness will come in handy. 

Things will get better from there. You just need to have faith, self-belief, and determination. Developing self-awareness should lead you down a natural progression in your mental health journey. And I guarantee you’ll learn plenty of things about yourself along the way. You’re stronger than you think you are. Not as broken. You’re more skilled and capable than you think you are. Not as helpless. You’re more knowledgable than you think you are. Not as inept. Once you learn how to show yourself grace, start cutting yourself some slack, you’ll quickly see how much you’ve grown and matured. You’ve become more put together than you even realized. It might feel sudden, but it didn’t happen overnight. 

Your experiences change and mold you whether or not you make a conscious effort to do so. I think deep down your mind, body, and soul know what you need, and will guide you in the right direction. I guess that’s what intuition and human instinct are. The seeds are there, we just need to grow and develop them. We need to learn how to listen to our inner voice—it’s wiser than we give it credit for. And that’s where reflection comes in. Once you become more self-aware, once you learn how to be accountable, once you humble yourself, you’ll be able to evaluate yourself in a more objective way. You want to be hopeful but you also have to be realistic. In order to do that you have to be honest with yourself and know where you stand. If your opinion of yourself is too low you’re at risk of undervaluing your worth, not giving yourself the credit you deserve. This can have dire consequences for your self-confidence. If you’re too high on yourself you risk setting yourself up for disappointment, because there’s a higher chance of you setting unreasonable and/or unreachable expectations (amongst other things). It’s imperative then that you try to find a middle ground. 

Spending time reflecting will help with that. You’ll become more in tune with who you are. You’ll have a better understanding of what you need. And it’ll show you a clearer picture of how you fit in with society. Which all connects back to the self-awareness thing. Ultimately, all of this ends up being a great way of holding yourself accountable—a desirable trait. Generally, we want others to think of us as having high moral character. What this consists of varies based on who you ask, but for the most part we tend to gravitate towards people that are dependable, loyal, and kind. We like people that have integrity, are honest, and are respectful. Some of these traits are already ingrained in us. Maybe they were a natural part of our core personality. Maybe they were taught to us by our parents or our teachers. Maybe they came about due to some other reason. But even if you possess some or all of these traits it doesn’t mean you can’t keep improving in that area. If you’re a kind person you can be even kinder. If you’re honest you can be more honest. If you’re dependable you can be more dependable. 

There is no upper limit. That means that self-improvement is a never-ending climb. But that’s what we do it for, isn’t it? We’re trying to be the best version of ourselves each and every day. It sounds daunting but it’s rewarding seeing how much you’ve grown since the last week/month/year. Every so often you’ll want to stop and smell the roses. You’ll want to enjoy the view during your climb. But at some point you have to continue on your journey—there’s so much more for you to see. And I think maybe we lose sight of that. We bask in the glory so much that we forget what we’re doing it for. I sure as hell have forgotten. When I started writing it was because I had stories I wanted to tell, insight I wanted to give. I wanted to help people the best way I knew how—through my writing. But in order to do that I needed to make incremental improvements both in my craft and in my psyche. I needed to work towards becoming a better human day by day. At some point, I forgot to do that. 

At some point I started smelling myself so much that I forgot how much farther along I needed to go. I forgot that there was still so much that I didn’t know and so much more for me to learn. I forgot that there was still so much more room for growth. I saw the improvements that I had made in my writing and I thought that that was enough. But it wasn’t. Yes it filled me with confidence, and justifiably so. But the improvements I had made were only in one area of my life. I had hyper-focused on one domain to the detriment of other domains. Becoming a better writer didn’t help me become a better human, friend, son, boyfriend, etc. It didn’t make me a more qualified job candidate. It didn’t make me a better worker. It didn’t help me earn an income. Writing was and is a hobby that brings me joy, fulfillment, and satisfaction. But it’s nothing more, nothing less. I wish I would’ve realized this sooner. 

That way I wouldn’t have set everything aside to pursue a dream that’s not yet realistically attainable. Yes I still believe that I have the skill and talent to get to where I want to go—that self-belief does not waver. But at the end of the day, whether or not I get published isn’t totally within my control. I might be good enough, but I might not be lucky enough to get my big break. That’s just the reality of things. The odds are not in my favor. Intellectually, that’s something I’ve always known. But it wasn’t something that I wanted to accept. Instead, I had let my ego get the better of me. Confidence in one thing ballooned into confidence in all things. I took a concept that was nuanced and I made it black and white. 

What was meant to be two pursuits I had made into one—it was always supposed to be pursuit of a hobby and pursuit of a career. What was meant to be my side job I had made into my main one. What was meant to be my main one ended up being tossed aside. While I valued and appreciated the time off at first, it’s gone on for far too long. Whether or not I wanted to admit it, this was never going to be sustainable. If the goal of this sabbatical was to give me time to finish writing a book then I’ve failed miserably. If the goal was to give me space to raise the quality of my writing to an acceptable level then I accomplished that a long time ago. Either way, it’s run its course. I’m ready for my sabbatical to end, although I didn’t see it as a sabbatical at first. 

My one regret is that I did not react quicker. I refused to budge from the path that I had taken. I refused to open my eyes to my delusions. I should’ve started looking for a job a long time ago. Having a steady income would’ve better helped me navigate the ups and downs of my writing journey. I would’ve had something to fall back on if things didn’t go my way. I would’ve had a more solid foundation to build my confidence upon rather than depending on the ebbs and flows of my writing. But I’ve always been rigid and hard-headed. Even when I pivot I often pivot too late. If only reflection had shown me this. But the truth of the matter is, I wasn’t honest with myself. I wasn’t honest with my expectations. So reflection could only reveal so much… And now it feels late. It’s not too late, but it’s still late. Better late than never I guess. 

Changing, Discovery, Growth, Knowledge, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Self-Care, Self-Love, Wellness

It’s Not That Simple

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“Are you a good person?” I’m sure everyone’s been asked that a number of times. If you asked a younger version of me, my answer would be fairly straightforward. I’d unequivocally say yes, and that would be the end of the discussion. If you asked me now, I would tell you, “it’s not that simple.” It’s not a yes or no question—it’s much more nuanced than that. The older I get, the more I realize that there aren’t really any absolutes in life. Not that many things are actually black and white. Most things require a much more discerning eye than simply sorting things into this or that. Everything requires a delicate balance, and life is akin to walking a tightrope. It’s more of a sliding scale than multiple choice. I know that now, but I didn’t always.

I grew up in a triple C home—Conservative, Christian, and Chinese. One of these things has changed entirely, one of them looks different than it did back then, and one of these things can’t be changed no matter how hard I try. I’m sure you can probably figure out which is which. Regardless, this resulted in me being raised in a way that sheltered me from the outside world. I was led to believe that all things could be looked at through a black and white lens. It was good versus evil. Either people were for you or they were against you. You were either righteous or a sinner. It was implied that there was no in between. And for the longest time I believed that. I didn’t know any better.

It wasn’t until college that I started to understand how the world really worked—which is to say that it doesn’t work the way that I thought it did, not even close. Coming out from under my parents’ protective umbrella worked wonders for opening my eyes. My whole life up til then had been oversimplified. I learned (perhaps the hard way) that there is in fact an in between! You’re generally given more than two options in life. Shades of gray exist everywhere despite what I was told. That’s what makes a lot of these hot button political issues so difficult to parse. Take illegal immigration for example, it’s nothing so simple as, “for it or against it.” There’s also a, “yes, but…” and a, “no, but…” amongst other answers. The question itself is far too complex for you to reply with a simple one. There’s more context needed. And you need to ask questions such as is legal immigration easier or harder for certain countries? Can prospective immigrants afford to acquire all the legal documents? Is legally migrating even feasible for certain individuals? Like I said, life is nuanced. But let’s not drift too far into that tangent, let me rein it back in here.

Something I pride myself on nowadays is my adaptability. Yes, I’m stubborn in certain ways, and I work better with a schedule and a plan. But I’m not rigid, not like how I used to be. My worldview and ethos change as I learn new things and gather more information. My perspective is constantly evolving, because that’s how you grow and improve. The one thing it can’t be is static, because that often leads to close-mindedness.   I’ve been through that before, and it’s not a great place to be to say the least. As I’ve said, the main goal is always to be a better person today than you were yesterday—in order to do that, you need to be flexible in thought and in action. Everything else is secondary. Yes, you want to be kind to those around you. Yes, you want to make an impact or a difference. Yes, you want to progress in your career or in your love life or what have you. But at the end of the day, none of this is possible if you haven’t worked on yourself first. If you’re not seeking to be a better version of yourself each and every day what are you doing it for? What “better” entails depends on the person and the day. I guarantee you that it won’t always be the same thing. And it won’t be easy.

But like I always say, everything is a learning experience. You take the good and the bad and you get better from it. It doesn’t matter if you succeed or if you fail, as long as you’ve learned something. You don’t want to be making the same mistakes over and over. You don’t want life to attempt to teach you the same lessons. Life is finite, so you want to make good use of your time. You learn and you grow and you move on. And your perspective continues to evolve. If you can do that then you’re on a path of continual progress, you keep moving onwards and upwards. I’d be remiss not to mention that there is no end to the journey of enlightenment—there will always be more to learn. But that’s not the point. You’re not doing it for a perfect ending. All you’re focused on is improving incrementally. It could be 1% a day or 10% a day, the number itself doesn’t matter, as long as you’re striving for better, and putting in some level of effort.

It took me quite a while to fully understand this, but everything that I’ve been through has brought me to this point. So although I regret wasting my time for so long, I don’t regret any of my past experiences. Especially not the adversity I went through, which helped shape me. I wouldn’t be the man I am today without having gone through all of that. And I wouldn’t want it any other way. Everything happened for very specific reasons. Not all of which are clear to me just yet, but will be with time. 

One thing that has become clear to me is that even though I have since distanced myself from the way my parents raised me, I still believe that they were well-intentioned in their approach. They did what they thought was right, so I can’t fault them for that. However, things didn’t really work out the way that they intended. There were many unintended byproducts of their parenting philosophy, some of which were beneficial and some of which were harmful. But you live and you learn. There was no way for them to know how things would turn out without trying it first. This ended up being more of a lesson for me than it was for them. 

The way my parents raised me has taught me certain facts of life that I want to pass on when I have kids of my own, but it has also taught me certain tactics that I want to stay far away from. They taught me how to be polite and generous. How to be respectful and compassionate. How to be smart and resourceful. But in certain ways they didn’t push me hard enough. They didn’t stress to me the importance of putting in effort or being a driven individual. They didn’t necessarily support me enough in my passions early on, which didn’t give me the confidence and mental fortitude to survive out there in the world. They didn’t provide me with the tools that I needed to set realistic expectations. And they didn’t give me the individual care that I needed. But I’m not going to lay all the blame on them for the way things turned out, because it’s not their fault. It takes nature and nurture and sheer dumb luck to mold our childhood selves into who we become when we get older. 

In this day and age it feels like we’re too often looking for cause and effect. Too often looking for people or things to blame for our luck or misfortune. But that’s just it… Luck and fortune/misfortune are dictated by fate (and/or God, depending on what you believe). Life is random, and sometimes shit just happens. Not everything needs an explanation, and not everything can be so easily summed up. Not everything has a party at fault. Sometimes both parties are at fault, sometimes neither is. And more often than not it lies somewhere in between. 

In many ways that scares us, but it shouldn’t. Life is nuanced and complicated. And answers are only simple at a quick glance. If you drill down deeper you will see that everything is quite complex. Such is life. If you’re looking for a simple or easy life you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Such a thing does not exist if you’re on the path to enlightenment. Such a thing does not exist if you’re continually seeking knowledge. Such a thing does not exist if you’re trying to move onwards and upwards. If you want to be better today than you were yesterday, then you better believe that the going will be challenging. But challenges keep you motivated. Are you up for the challenge?

Brokenness, Changing, Discovery, Dreaming, Greatness, Growth, Knowledge, Mindfulness, Reflections, Self-Care, Self-Love, Wellness

Ignorance is Ignorance

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When I walk in, heads turn… Or at least that’s what happens in my dreams. Sometimes. More often than not, I find myself waking up in the middle of the night to a school dream. I’m thirty-one years old, this shouldn’t be happening but it does. It’s been eight years since I graduated college, twelve since high school. But my subconscious still seems to believe that I have more homework to do, more tests to take, more projects to work on. The human psyche is a strange place. Not easily understood. 

If it were, we wouldn’t have such studies as psychology, sociology, and anthropology. I’ve said before that I studied business because I thought it was what was expected of me, but I studied sociology because I was interested in learning about people. I needed to know why people were the way that they were. I needed to know the motive behind every action. I needed to know why serial killers turned out the way that they did. Most of the time, fucked-up people aren’t born fucked-up people. I’d like to believe that we start with a clean slate, and are shaped by nature, nurture, and trauma. Something steers deviants down the untrodden path. They wouldn’t just veer off on their own. 

But this much is still not understood. Some cope with trauma well—use adversity as their stepping stone. Others wilt under pressure. Some are liable to follow in the footsteps of their forefathers: repeating mistakes, using the same crutches, abusing the same vices. Others see the error in their ways, using it as a deterrent. What makes one sibling resign themself to the fact that, “my father is an alcoholic so I will be one too,” but the other believe that, “my father is an alcoholic so I refuse to be one”? I went to college asking questions such as these, seeking knowledge. I came away with a few answers, but many more questions.

Growing up I was taught not to question things. My parents were older than me, therefore they had the answers. My teachers and pastors were more educated, therefore they knew what was right. But this discounts the fact that people are people, even if they are your elders. Your parents and teachers are not superheroes. They are not angels. They are not beings incapable of wrongdoing. They are fallible just as you are. They can lie, they can cheat. They can hurt you, they can do fucked up things. When we’re young, it’s hard for us to understand that our parents are just other people. It doesn’t register in our still-developing brain, and that’s fine for a time. Ideally, there should be no greater role model in your life than your parents. However, things don’t always work out that way. Your parents can be selfish. They can be misguided. They can think that they’re doing what’s right, but doing more harm than good. We’re all figuring things out as we go along—it’s no different with them.

One sign of becoming more mature is developing a better understanding of the world. You start realizing that your parents do not in fact have all the answers, but you also realize after the fact that they did know better than you did at the time because they had more life experience. There comes a time in your life when your parents’ commands become suggestions. Their advice is still valuable to you, but you no longer take it at face value. You listen, you interpret, and you determine. What they say might work for you, it might not. Regardless, they are no longer in control of your life. You find that every last decision rests on your shoulders. You live the life that you want to live, and with that comes true happiness. You start doing what satisfies you rather than doing things to check a box. 

For twenty-seven years I did things to check a box. I did what I was told. I did what I thought was expected. I did what I was good at. But I didn’t do what I wanted. I didn’t follow my passion. I didn’t do what would make the greatest impact on those around me. Maybe this is just my cynicism at play, but I’m convinced that nearly every company tells you the same lies. They feed your ego: telling you that you’re such a great employee, how much you mean to the company, and that you have a real future. There is some semblance of truth to their statements, but I don’t buy that their intentions are always pure. When it comes down to it, companies are looking for someone to do their work for them. Sometimes this aligns with your skillset and your values, but oftentimes it does not. I was told for years that I would be great at customer service (which I was) and that sales was where the money was at (I did not in fact get paid more as promised). When the time came, I was given more responsibility and a title change, but not paid what I was worth. For many years I accepted it—I didn’t know any better. I let fear dictate my life. I allowed outside circumstances to direct me. I thought my life was outside of my control so I didn’t even bother, and I suffered for it.

At some point it started to click, but it took being lied to and tricked over and over. I stopped letting fear influence my decision making. I said, “no more.” I began to embrace the unknown, because I finally accepted that what I did know wasn’t working. I needed to try something new, to start taking risks. Otherwise, I was destined to be just another deadbeat stuck at a dead end job. There’s already enough of those in the world, we didn’t need another. Saying no to my fear was the most freeing experience in my life. But in order to do that, I had to get out of my comfort zone. I could no longer be satisfied with my okay life. I could no longer let myself be walked all over. I could no longer keep checking boxes on a career path that I wasn’t built for. Selling products that people don’t need was not it. I’m not a salesperson. I’m not a market analyst. I’m not a customer service rep. None of that was me. I was never meant to climb the corporate ladder. I’m not cutthroat enough for that nor do I have that type of ambition. I’m a writer first and foremost, and a knowledge seeker second. Someone who provides inspiration and spreads hope. That’s what I was meant for: helping people in my own way, by using my words. Being encouraging, being thoughtful, contributing positivity to the world—that’s what drives me.

In order to do that, I have to keep asking questions. It doesn’t matter how many answers I find, it’s a never-ending quest for more knowledge. The more informed I am, the better equipped I am to figure out what exactly it is that I believe. Growing up, we were told that asking questions showed our doubt, but doubt is not always the negative emotion that we perceive it to be. You can’t have a dichotomy without both the good and the bad. You can’t have happiness without anger or sadness. You can’t have success without failure. You can’t have belief without doubt. Doubt helps you to strengthen your faith (regardless of what religion you follow). You need to graduate from blindly believing everything that you’re taught, to formulating your own world view.

This much is imperative. You are not a clone of your parents. You are not your cousin. You are not your sibling. You are your own person, and as such, you need to know where you stand. You’re not going to agree with your family on everything, that’s just not realistic. Your parents raise you the way that they think is right, but sometimes good intentions are nothing more than that. Your parents will disappoint you, you will disappoint your parents, that’s inevitable. The way you live your life is not contingent on the way that they live theirs. Growing up, you are subject to their worldview because you haven’t experienced anything different. Your parents instill in you certain values, but over time, they may change. Once you become an adult, it’s time to find out for yourself. Time to form your own opinions. 

But you can’t do that without asking questions. When you stop asking questions is when you settle. When you accept what is told without fact-checking, you allow yourself to be brainwashed and manipulated. You lose sight of what you believe, and instead believe what you’re told to believe. Of course, there needs to be a balance between finding your own truth and trusting wholly in others. Too much of either isn’t healthy. If you lack trust in others you become fueled by paranoia. If you blindly trust what others tell you then you lose your sense of self. It’s hard for me to say which is worse, but I’ve seen how destructive either one can be. All I know is that your ignorance is not bliss… Your ignorance is ignorance. You need to distance yourself from that. If you have the opportunity to learn more about society as a whole and where you fit in, why wouldn’t you take it? Your worldview is not a static entity. It should change based on what you know and feel. Unfortunately, the world is a fucked-up place, and discouragement often comes easy. But just because many people are driven by greed and self-interest doesn’t mean that you can’t make a difference. You have good that you can impart. You have something to offer. Never forget that.

It may not be evident to you now what it is that you can offer, but it will become evident over time. You just need to keep working on yourself, improving a bit at a time. Progress may be slow, it may be fast, but it requires persistence. Lay down the groundwork so that you have a good foundation. If your foundation is strong then nothing can shake you. It starts with learning to become in-tune with yourself. Know who you are. Know what you stand for. Understand and accept your emotions. Listen to your mind, body, and soul. If something doesn’t feel right, ask yourself why. If your everyday life feels tedious, then find something that motivates you. Realize that all emotions, positive or negative, are necessary. If the situation calls for anger or sadness, embrace it, don’t shun it or suppress it. Let it run its course, but don’t let it stew. Allow yourself to react, then let it go. Not every situation or conversation needs to be manipulated for your purposes. Not everything needs to have a positive or negative outcome. Sometimes some things just are. Shit happens. 

Letting go isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Sometimes we feel the need to control everything. Things need to work out for us, otherwise why are we doing them? But that’s a fallacy. Every situation comes with a lesson, but it does not always come with a tangible result. Just because something is neither beneficial nor harmful doesn’t mean that it’s useless. Doing something positive that doesn’t garner praise or recognition doesn’t invalidate its worth. A kind gesture is a kind gesture. Lack of gratitude shouldn’t prevent you from acting out of love. 

However, sometimes we overthink things such as these. We build up walls and create facades. Sometimes this is due to us being afraid to commit, being wary about opening up. Other times it’s because we’re afraid to face hard truths. Putting in time and effort on maintaining these images often results in a feeling of emptiness. That’s because we aren’t being true to ourselves and to others. We wanted so badly for others to see us as nice, intelligent, beautiful, or unique. We were trying so hard, but it wasn’t needed. We just needed to be us. To be genuine. To be true to ourselves. To accept the things that make us us. Our strengths, our weaknesses, our passions, our interests, our personality. No one element is unique to anybody, but we are not the elements, we are the sum of the parts. The totality of it is what makes us unique. Embrace it. Live the life you want to live. Be the person that you want to be. Do what makes you happy. Stop giving a shit about what others think. Once you know your worth, the opinion that matters the most is your own.

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

Crossroads

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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.