Life is so fragile. There have been sad news of people I know every week. Two weeks ago, my ex-roommate’s 17-month-old son passed away. Last week, my co-worker’s 33-year old friend whom she was going to visit for the last time passed away, so the last visiting trip this weekend turned into a funeral trip. Instead of seeing her friend, she will be babysitting two of her friend’s babies, while everyone is preparing for her funeral. This morning I woke up and learned that my friend in Thailand was hit and run by a car and is now in an ICU.
What would do you today if you know you would die soon? I think I would travel to see the world, take beautiful pictures, and write my blog – all of which I will be doing today. I only wish my family, all my dear friends, and Christian were here doing all those things with me today.
Whatever you do today, I hope it is something that is special, meaningful, and memorable to you and/or your loved ones.
Several years ago, I discovered my happy routines and have been practicing them regularly since then.
My first happy routine is to make my bed every morning. In my bed, I have a fluffy blanket with matching duvet cover and shams in my favorite color – silky grayish blue. There are four pillows, one for sleeping, one for hugging, and two for decoration. And until last year, I used to have over twenty stuff animals sitting on my bed. So the process of making my bed looks pretty took about three to five minutes. To save myself some time in the morning, I put my adorable kids (stuff animals) away in a vacuum bag, so I don’t have to worry about them. Making my bed looks neat and pretty makes me happy and feel like my life is organized (even though the rest of my room looks like a war zone with stuff lying around on the floor). Making my bed looks nice is symbolic for me. Psychologically, it also feels relaxing to come back home, open my bedroom door and see a pretty bed, ready for me to jump into.
My second happy routine is to have hot chocolate and pastry between 9-11 am. I went to France for the first time five years ago. Every morning on that trip, I started the day with hot chocolate and croissants. When I came back from vacation, I decided to continue my vacation habits. Having hot chocolate and pastry in the morning always gives me a nostalgic moment of my vacation in France. Plus, eating breakfast is good for my body. Although in my mind, it is more a “happy meal” than breakfast.
A happy routine can be, but don’t need to be an activity that is logically good or a task that you “should” do or “have to” do, like eating three meals a day, taking vitamins, exercising, or calling your parents. It should be an activity that you just feel happy when you do it.
Small happy routines can make a big different in your everyday life. Each day, there are big and small issues for us to deal with: traffic jams, work problems, kids getting sick, customer complaints, forgetting an umbrella when it rains, etc. And we don’t always have easy control over those big and small problems. Having small, easy-to-execute, happy routines that don’t harm others ensures that you will have at least one happy thing in your life that you have control of...every single day.
A mind contains many feelings and emotions, both happy and sad, like a box that contains both gems and rocks.When there are rocks in the box, we recognize them and accept their presence. Then we take them out of the box. They still exist, but they are now outside of the box. If they come back inside the box again, we can recognize them, accept them, and take them out of the box again.
We can deal with feelings and emotions on our minds the same way we deal with the rocks in the box.It is okay to feel extremely sad and to feel like the world is falling apart. We have to recognize our pain, accept that our pain exists, and allow our pain to exist.We don’t need to get rid of our pain, but we can put it aside. At the same time, while accepting our feelings and emotions, we don’t need to create a sad story about them, just like we don’t need to create a negative story for the rocks as we recognize them, accept them, and put them aside. Adding the story of the unjust world will only enlarge the size of the rocks and expand the magnitude of our sad feelings.
Sometimes life is so hard on us. The rocks are so big and heavy, and we are in so much pain that we start to doubt whether the pain will ever go away. But we have to have faith and remind ourselves that it will go away. Like anything and everything else in this world, nothing lasts, whether it’s happiness or sorrow. It always comes again and again. And it will eventually go away, again and again. The most important thing is to remember that we always have "an option" to act, to remove the heavy rocks out of the box, "an option" to feel light and happy again, even though the rocks still exist...outside of the box.
This is a letter to my very dear girl friend, whose real name is disguised. I think it is a good reminder for anyone.
My dear Amanda,
The other day you said to me that you think you are not good enough, not pretty enough, and not courageous enough to be a happy person and friend. The first thing that came into my mind was that I think you misunderstood a very important truth.
You should realize that you are already enough and more than enough of a wonderful person and friend without your beautiful face, clothes and make-ups, without giving gifts to all your friends, and without being brave all the time. If I strip everything that is external off you, what I can see and feel is a person with a beautiful soul, a person who is loving, caring, genuine, true, unpretentious, and cheerful, a person that I invited to my home and opened myself to. You could not have been more beautiful, smarter, braver, or give me more gifts to be enough to be my friend because you are already more than enough at the core of who you are. And if anyone demands that you need to be more beautiful, smarter, braver or possess more of anything to be their friend or girlfriend, you should run!
You are not the only one that feels like you are not enough. A lot of people feel this way at some points in their lives, particularly when things are not going as planned, when they run into challenges in life such as getting laid off or going through a divorce, when they don’t have certain things that seem to be the so called “norm” of the society such as a nice car, a big house, a good job, kids, a family, a husband, a wife, a boyfriend or a girlfriend. What people often forget is that those things are external. The only element inside us that demands those external things in order to feel enough is our ego. Ego needs a lot of attentions and a lot of external things to make it feel enough. If you can separate your core self from your ego, you may realized that your core self is enough on its own. It does not need anything to make it looks good. It’s already good. Whether you have or don’t have money, beauty, cars, house, jobs, kids, husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, your core self is still there and unchanged. Those external things don’t define you and don’t define your core self. Having money, beauty, cars, house, jobs, kids, husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend do not add to your core self or your soul. And vice versa, not having them does not diminish your core self, your soul or who you are.
If you can separate your enough self from the never-enough ego inside you and recognize when your ego is trying to talk to you to make you feel not enough, you will be able to get rid or at least reduce the size and the influence of the ego. Without ego, there is nothing there to get crushed with external things that do not matter to your core self and soul. Then you will experience the stage that I called “low or no ego, but high self esteem”. You can dress in ugly clothes with no make-ups, drive an old car, work on the most unglamorous job, and go through life without a boyfriend or a husband, while feeling content, at peace, and happy. A lot of people like to think that they will be happy when certain things happen, such as finishing a degree, getting married, moving to a different place, getting a promotion, having kids, earning more money and so on. In fact, the moment of happiness and peace is not when you have or achieve certain things or milestones. The moment of happiness and peace is now. And you can achieve that by separating your core self from your ego and not fighting with the present. When you feel content, happy and at peace, you will be able to focus your energy to do many things that you might not have imagined you could. And I am here to support you.
Businessman: “Dear angel, please tell me how much time I have left in this world?”
Angel: “Why do you want to know?”
Businessman: “If I knew I would die in a short period of time, I would travel the world and see the magic that this world has to offer, I would spend my time doing nothing, anything, and everything with people I love and love me, and I would seek every opportunity to tell them and show them how much I love them.
If I knew I would live forever, I would learn a new language and a musical instrument, get another degree just for the sake of learning and not for career advancement, and start a new career or a new business that I had no experience, but that is my passion.
But since I don’t know how much time I have left, I end up doing none of those.
All I do is working long hours every day for the job that is not my passion and spending time building relationships with people who could not care less about me, as it would be good for the career that I have no passion for.”
Angel: “Why are you so constrained by time? Why do you create for yourself a barrier that prevents you to do things that you want to do? Why don’t you just live as if tomorrow would be your last day and learn and create for the future as if you would live forever?”
Businessman: “That is easier said than done, Angel. My company needs me so I can’t take vacation more than three weeks. I also have so many obligations – a family to support, a large mortgage for my big nice house to pay off, and a glamorous social status to maintain. I don’t have enough time to do all those things.”
Angel: “Those are just more excuses. You can start doing something now, if not everything. You have to recognize that you are creating these imaginary obstacles for yourself; therefore you are the only one who can get rid of them. Just remember, after you die, you will no longer have any opportunity to do things you want to do. And if you don’t do things that you want to do now, you are just living like a dead man. So do not ask me when you will die when you act as if you are already dead. Good luck.”
I recently went to Turkey, Greece, and Italy. Everyone that knows me knows that Europe has always been my dream travel destination. I spent weeks researching and planning for the trip. While on the 3-week trip, I took about three to four thousand pictures. And when I came back, I spent over a hundred hours just to select and edit my pictures. I also spent countless time looking at those pictures over and over, reliving my happy moments again and again and again. Yes, I am obsessive.
I am obsessive with and overly emotionally impacted by what makes me happy. Looking up at the bright blue sky positively changes my moods. Watching the light green leaves waving in the air, contrasting with the sunny blue sky brightens me up. Hearing the sound of waves crashing the shores and gazing into the stillness of water in a pond bring me peace. Listening to Edith Piaf and Cannon in D makes my heart beats stronger and transports me to another world. Looking at white snow and sparkling city lights at night through my apartment window while listening to Christmas songs made me overwhelmingly happy that I needed to release and express my feelings in a poem. And having a cup of rich hot chocolate always makes me excited every single time, as if I were sipping that cup of hot chocolate in a Parisian cafe rather than in my kitchen. My mind tends to respond to small things that make me happy, as if they were the long-awaiting, exciting, Europe trips.
On the other hand, I am rarely impacted by what doesn’t make me happy (notice that I didn’t say what makes me unhappy.) I treat activities and situations that don’t make me happy as doing laundry. When I do laundry, I don’t really feel happy or unhappy about it – just a neutral feeling.
The day before my recent surgery, my friends thoughtfully asked how I felt and whether I was afraid of the surgery. And as I was lying on the surgical bed in the operating room, my anesthesiologists and nurses also asked me those same questions. I said “I’m fine”. My heart beat at a normal pace. I wasn’t at all nervous. I looked around the operating room, observing the medical equipment with curiosity. In fact, I wanted to answer them with a question “Well, what do you feel when you have to brush your teeth in the morning?” That was how I felt toward the surgery. To me, that surgery was just one of many activities that I had to do on that day. It was on my Google Calendar, just like my other activities. It was an activity - that’s all. People normally associate surgeries with fear. In fact, it is the human’s thinking that says “Surgeries are scary, so one should be afraid of them”. The truth is that a surgery by itself is just an activity, just like any other activities.
I didn’t always feel this way about surgeries. I remembered that long time ago, when I was still a teenager, I felt bad about my first surgery. I thought “Why me? Why me? Why me? Why was I so unlucky? Why was I not normal like other people?” I didn’t notice when those negative thinking disappeared. Maybe it evaporated over time because I had so many surgeries that I was very familiar with the process and knew what to expect: the pain when I woke up from the anesthesia, the difficulty of living a normal life from a few weeks to several months after the surgeries, the scars, and eventually the ability to live a normal life again after some time. Just like anything and everything in our lives. Things happen in our lives. Then those same things disappear from our lives. I knew that the pains I felt wouldn’t last forever. The difficulties of living everyday life also wouldn’t last forever. The scars would last. But, so what? All the scars on my body haven’t diminished who I am a bit. On the contrary, I think they have added to who I have become.
Another possible reason that made my negative thoughts disappeared maybe because my logical brain which prefers happiness over unhappiness has chosen to stop thinking negatively about surgeries. Like some people said “You can’t control what happened to you, but you can control how you react to it.” But how can you control your reaction? My answer would be to use “logical thinking” or “common sense”. I hope it is as obvious to you as it is to me that hell is just not as desirable as laundry (at least my clothes will be clean afterward). So why would I perceive what doesn’t make happy as “hell” rather than as “laundry”? Unhappiness is not as sexy as happiness, so why would I not choose the latter? It is a simple logic, isn’t it?
A few weeks ago, taking a break from my job search, Lewis and I went to see a basketball game between Stanford and UW. We were discreetly cheering and clapping our hands for the Cardinal among hundreds of the Husky fans in the stadium. The scores were very close throughout the entire game. My heart beat faster and stronger, as the game was approaching the end.
In the last 10 seconds of the game, Stanford was a few points behind UW. I was very impressed that, although there was almost no time left, those college kids were still playing aggressively and passionately. They were still focused and still gave it their best shots in the last 10 seconds. Eventually, UW won. But I was so proud of those Stanford kids.
I walked out of the stadium telling myself that “From now on, I am going to approach my job search like a college basketball – persistently fighting with strong will to win, even in the last 10 seconds”. I had 6 weeks left before Jan 29 to look for a new job before I would have been deported back to Thailand. It was 6 weeks during the holiday when people were on vacation, at end of the year when companies hadn’t yet planned their headcounts for the next year, and in a very bad economy. But those 6 weeks was wayyyyy longer than 10 seconds! In the last 10 seconds of the game, some audience was getting up and leaving the stadium. Maybe they gave up and thought that 10 seconds won’t make any difference, or maybe they didn’t care. And that too was like my job search. Some people doubted that I would be able to find a new job so quickly in such environment. But like those college basketball players, I couldn’t just walk out of the game, and I couldn’t give up on myself.
I ended up got a job offer on Jan 27, two days before the deadline. I even had plenty of time to gather inputs from friends and negotiated on the offer before I signed the contract.
So here’s the lesson learned for me… “If you have more than 10 seconds to do anything, don’t give up. You’ll be surprised by what your persistent effort and “I will win” attitude in that last 10 seconds can bring.”
When I was younger, I struggled trying to put myself into one of the adjective buckets, hoping to belong to some categories: the extrovert or the introvert, the conservative or the liberal, the adventurous or the simple, the shy or the outgoing. There’s no adjective for someone that is both extrovert and introvert, someone that is both conservative and liberal, someone that is both adventurous and simple, and someone that is both shy and outgoing…someone as strange as me.
Not until I was in my early 30s working for a FORTUNE 500 company that I realized that I wasn’t the only one that could not decide which personality buckets I should be in. At one point, I had two bosses; one said I needed to be more aggressive; the other one said I was too aggressive (imagine when they discussed my career development). Then I started to hear people that were close to me said “You need too much adventure and life stimulation” and “That’s great that you enjoy simple things” and “You are very picky and particular” and “You are very easy going” and “You are reserved” and “ You are outgoing” and “You need a lot of personal space” and “You like to go out and be with people” and “You always stay home” and “You are a party girl”. The list continued. Does this sound like a confusing personality? To others, maybe. To me, no – not any more. I’ve heard people said women in their 30s are more attractive than in their 20s. They understand who they are and are comfortable being themselves – I couldn’t agree more.
Somewhere somehow, our society has trained people to label themselves and other people, from the adjectives like the introvert and extrovert to the letters like ESTJ or ISTJ of the well-known Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. At Kellogg, I recalled that my classmates randomly asked one another “I’m ENTJ. What are you?”. When I thought about it, it seemed a little too much that people need labels so badly that we need a scientific method for it. My third boss realized that my first two bosses labeled me with the opposite personality descriptions and figured that there was a much better way for him to understand his employee. So he asked me for my Myers-Briggs results. Yeah..gotta find a label somehow!
While I am comfortable with who I am these days, other people may not feel the same way. In general, having a label psychologically makes people feel comfortable, feel like they know who they are, feel like they know who another person is, feel like they belong to a certain group, and feel like another person is one of their kinds. And not being able to put someone into a bucket can cause frustration and misunderstanding to those that are used to labels and buckets.
With inveterate habit of labeling and bucketing, we seem to forget that each individual is too complex to be described by only a few adjectives or sets of letters. While bucketing people may, on the surface, seem to be an easy way to describe people, it might not result in accurate understanding of people. Inaccuracy inevitably creates misunderstanding and frustration. Luckily, there is a simple, alternative approach that doesn't distort the reality of human complexity. That is to just experience each individual without labeling and bucketing them. Just experience the true person behind it. It's that simple.
The other day after I had finished working out, I walked into the gym’s locker room as usual. As I was opening my locker, two older ladies were chatting. I didn’t catch the entire conversation, but the last sentence that one of the ladies said was “God gave us everything we need to live happily in this world. Some have money, some have beauty, and some have good health.” Then she turned to me asking for support. “Don’t you agree?” I smiled at her as a response without saying a word, grabbed my gym bag, and left the locker room.
As I was walking out of the gym, I asked myself “What did God give me so that I can live happily in this world?”. It took me about 30 seconds before I gave myself the answer. “God gave me the positive attitudes to take any setbacks with good spirits and the wisdom to see and solve the problems and obstacles I have had in life.” Yes, I think that is God’s greatest gift for me. It is not the good family I was born into, not the brain, not the physical appearance and strength. Well, those are gifts from God too. But they are not the greatest gift. The good things are easy to be happy about. The bad things are harder to make rainbows out of it. So it is the ability to be happy and at peace when bad things happened that I call “the greatest gift”.
Having this greatest gift from God doesn’t mean that I can just sit back, relax, do nothing, and all of the sudden, feel happy when bad things happen. It takes some work. The positive attitudes need regular exercises. And the wisdom to solve problems requires that I need to use it to explore and learn different problem solving methods, and to take actions to solve problems and get rid of the unhappiness in life.
For me the easiest part is to exercise the positive attitudes. I think it’s like what the book “Outliers” said that if you practice something over and over for 10,000 hours, you’ll be excellent at it. I’m not sure whether the 10,000-hour rule only applies to activities, or it also applies to attitudes. But you get the point. Practice makes perfect. There is no specific set of rules of positive attitudes that would work for everyone in every situation. So I’m not going to force my way of thinking onto anyone by giving you “10 things you should do to be positive”. You too will have to do some work. You have to find your own positive triggers and exercise them regularly.
The problem solving method part is pretty straightforward and can be taught to anyone. Since I was 7 years old, I was taught that whenever I felt unhappy, first I needed to understand what I was unhappy about. Second, I needed to identify the causes of my unhappiness. Third, I needed to figure out what I needed to do to get rid of the unhappiness. Fourth, I needed to find out how I can execute on it. If you studied Buddhism, this teaching will probably be very familiar to you. Or if you studied business, this framework might be familiar to you as well: Understand the problems, identify the causes, come up with strategies to solve problems, and execute on the strategies. They are all the same logical problem solving framework whether it is solving business cases or solving life and mind cases.
Although this 4-step method seems pretty simple, it might not be easy for a person to answer each question correctly. Some people don’t know what they are unhappy about. Some people misunderstood the causes of their unhappiness. If that is the case, then they will also misunderstand the “what to do” and the “how to do” parts. Some people understand the causes of their unhappiness, but don’t know what to do and/or how to make their pains disappear.
Therefore, one needs to learn and practice to come up with the right answers to these four basic questions, just like a successful CEO needs to learn (from formal education, books, trainings, work, mentors, advisors, consultants, career coaches, and other kind of coaches) and builds skills, knowledge and experience, to be able to answer the four questions, make good decisions and make the company successful. The same is true when it comes to happy living. Everyone needs to learn and build skills, knowledge, and experience to be able to use the problem solving framework effectively and successfully in life. And if we think solving life and mind problems and feeling happy and at peace are at least as important as solving our business problems, maybe it deserves at least as much efforts as we put into our careers.
For me, the most difficult part is to take actions once I understand what I’m unhappy about, what caused the unhappiness, what I need to do and how I need to do to be happy. There are many hindrances to taking actions. Sometimes, it is the fears: fear of the consequences, fear of making other people unhappy, fear of the unknowns. Sometimes, it is the naivety, hoping that things we don’t have control of will change in a better way. Sometimes, it is the indecisiveness. And sometimes, it is the laziness. This is the part that I need a “reminder” for myself, that if I’m unhappy about something, after I analyze it and know what to do about it and how to execute on it, then I need to take actions to make my happiness happen too. If I don’t take actions, there’s really no one else to blame. After all, God already gave me everything I need to be happy. I already have “the greatest gift from God”.
Yesterday, it was cloudy in San Francisco again. I was kinda annoyed that it had been cloudy and cold in San Francisco lately (50s-60s degree in late May!!!). As usual, I took a cable car packed with tourists to go to work. As I was standing inside the cable car, looking for an empty seat, a very cheerful voice stood out from the crowd of tourists and caught my attention. I have been on the cable car more than 100 times in the past 3 months and got used to hearing tourists who were enjoying their vacations, but this one was ecstatic. Without looking at the source of the voice, I sat down in an empty seat across from her. Then I looked up at her and realized…that she was blind. She kept talking with her companion, expressing her curiosity about the bell, having fun guessing whether the cable car was going uphill or downhill, admiring San Francisco, and talking about her afternoon plan to Alcatraz. She brightened the gloomy San Francisco with her big smiles and sparkling eyes. Yes, those blinded eyes were sparkling!!! I was stunned.
A few minutes later, I got off the cable car and proceeded to Powell Muni station. While I was waiting for the Muni, I kept thinking about the young blind lady on the cable car. I had been complaining about cloudy San Francisco while she was admiring it. Of course, she hadn't seen that it was cloudy. Had she seen that it was cloudy, maybe she wouldn’t have been that happy. Or maybe she would have. Maybe she would have been able to overlook the cloudiness and seen the beauty of San Francisco, like she overlooked her blindness and sensed the beauty of San Francisco. If she can overlook her blindness and enjoy the sightseeing, I’m sure she can also overlook the cloud and enjoy the sightseeing. Maybe I can do that too. If I just overlook the cloud, maybe I’ll be as excited about the cloudy San Francisco as she was.
As my N train was arriving at the platform, I looked at the people on the train. Some were looking down at the floor, some were looking away pointlessly, and some were looking at their books or newspapers. None of about 40 people on the train had a slight smile. Gosh…what a contrast from the blind lady on the cable car! What was wrong with these good-eyed people? Couldn't they see that there were so many things worth smiling about? I knew they were not on vacation like the tourists. They were on their way to work. And that might not have been very exciting. But maybe they could overlook that going to work was not exciting, so that they could see that it was Friday!!! And Friday is just so fantastic that anyone ought to smile.
I walked inside the Muni, sat down, and smiled. I smiled to Friday. I thought a few people around me might have thought that I was crazy, smiling for no reason. But maybe, if they overlooked those negative thoughts, they would see that I was just smiling to a lovely Friday in San Francisco.
Thanks to the blind lady on the cable car. While she was in the dark, she had brightened my day.
“What do you see yourself in the next 5, 10, 15 year?” – I can’t remember how many times I heard this question from job interviews, business school applications, or even chit chatting with friends. The answers range from get married, have kids, finish a master degree/Ph.D., move back to the Bay area, get promoted, travel, retire, and save the world. Somewhere, somehow, someone initiated the idea of short (2-5 years) and long term (10+ years) life planning.
I began my short and long term life planning since I was 12 years old. Back then, my English skills was an embarrassment. I was the only one in my English class that wrote “She are..” and “They was..”. Mrs. May, my 7th grade English teacher from Scotland, made me write the correct sentences 200 times every time I made a mistake. My closest friend once laughed at me when I told her that I want to study abroad. For 5 years, I worked hard to improve my English skills, one step at a time, from taking classes after school and on the weekend and reading books in English, to seeking opportunity to speak English through a 6-week exchange program in Australia. After taking big and small actions for 5 years, I came to study in the US for the first time in 12th grade through a one-year student exchange program.
My short and long term life plannings have served me well. A Kellogg MBA and working and living in the US are parts of my life planning many years back. I’m sure this is also true for many people. Short and long term life planning can helps everyone achieves what they want.
Recently, I came to the realization that short and long term life planning might not always be useful. As we grow up, life gets more complex. People don’t always have a complete control to make their short and long term goals happen. The short and long term life planning comes with frustration when the plans are not achieved; the 5 years reunion is approaching, and the promotion that one has been pursuing still has not happened, and the hope to retire early vanished with the stock market crashed and WaMu stocks are worth nothing. In addition to uncontrollable factors, there are also many uncertainties in the period of 2-5 years or even in a period of 6-12 months. For me, when Chase acquired WaMu late September 2008, the level of uncertainty for me was high. My life scenarios ranged from taking an offer with Chase in Columbus, Ohio (which I dreaded it), getting deported back to Thailand, getting married, getting a new job in Seattle but not getting married, getting married but no job, going back to Thailand and trying to apply for jobs from there, or moving to San Francisco to work for a pre-funding start-up. It was impossible for me to even do a 6-month life planning - forget about the 2-5 year life planning. I felt shaky when I couldn’t see where my life was going. It was like walking in a hot and dry desert without knowing where I was heading toward and when I would get to somewhere. It was uncomfortable and frustrating.
So I decided that I would do a super short, 3-month life planning. I don’t need to know where I’m heading to in the next few days in the desert. All I need to plan for is that in the next 30 minutes, I will keep moving my two feet, so that I would reach the fifth cactus on the right. I didn’t need to know where my life was going in the next 6-12 months or to plan for it “that long”. My life planning from November 2008 to January 2009 was networking with people, applying for job, and interviewing. My life planning from February to April 2009 was living in San Francisco and working for a start-up. I have very much enjoyed living in San Francisco. I look at the sunny sky and smile to myself everyday (that it’s sunny), I love hanging out with Janette, Kellogg friends and new friends. Working at the start-up is refreshing. Going to work feels like going to school with the combination of working, playing, and joking around. Everyday has been like a vacation to me. There has been almost no uncertainty in my 3-month life planning, and I have 100% control to make my life plan happen..3 months at a time. Now I’m doing my life planning for May to July 2009, which will likely be working for the start-up, networking with people, applying for jobs, and interviewing…again. Life is wonderful.
Thursday January 22, 2009 - I flew on an airplane above the cloud many many times. But this time, on my flight from San Francisco back to the cloudy Seattle, it hit me for the first time…that this gorgeous brilliant blue sky with endless white fluffy cotton ball carpet is “the other side of the cloud”.
So this is what I told myself...
When your day gets cloudy (ironically, there are plenty of cloudy days in Seattle)
Remember … that that there’s the other side of the cloud that is bright and sunny.
It is always there, although you cannot see it, and all you can see is the gray, gloomy, overcast day.
All you need to do is getting on the plane, “going through the cloud”, and you’ll be on the other side - the bright blue sky.
Thursday, January 15, 2009 - It’s my 33rd birthday today. I had 3.5 hours of sleeping last night and woke up at 6:30 am to catch a flight. Then I spent 7 hours on the plane and at O’Hare airport, travelling from Seattle to Pittsburgh for interviews the next day. When I transited in Chicago, I checked my voice message and found out that I would have three interviews tonight from 9-11 pm instead of the next day, as I was originally expected. The connecting flight from Chicago to Pittsburgh was delayed and I ended up having 30 minutes to get out of the hoodie, jeans, sneakers, pony tail, and glasses, wash my hair, iron my shirt, and look professional in suit and make-up. I thought to myself - this must be my worst birthday ever!
As I was on the plane from Chicago to Pittsburgh, I was thinking about my T-mobile job opportunity that I declined about a week before WaMu got acquired by JPMorgan Chase in September. Had I took that offer, I would be spending my birthday in Seattle, maybe getting ready to go out for dinner instead of having interviews. Instead of looking for a job, I might be planning on a London-Paris-Dublin trip with Lewis or Austria-Hungary trip with my mom. That would have been much more fun than looking for a job in the worst economy, amid the holiday season, at the ending-beginning of year, when the business doesn’t know their FTE plan for 2009 yet, and with time pressure due to my H1B visa status.
Then my thoughts went on… in addition to a lot of helps and supports from best friend, Janette Su, her husband, Bow Su, and my boyfriend Lewis, I received a lot of helps, supports, and advices from many people. So what would I have missed if I pursued that T-Mobile opportunity?
I would have missed meeting and knowing interesting people along my job search journey, like Ed Eng (whom I’ve known for 3 years, but just got to really know him), Ken Pawlak, Steve Muran, David Hijirida, Ben Walter, Brad Williamson, Geeta McCormack, and Ian McKerlich.
I would have missed knowing how fortunate I have to have mentors and friends like Jennifer Myhre, Scott Strand, Simon Griffiths, Katie Liao, Peter Beeson, Allan Young, Scott Chow, Young Pham, P’ Jeab – Patama Chantarak, and Hsin-yee Chiu. Even in my last interview on my birthday that ended at 12:40 am (CST)!!, I was inspired by Zia Chishti, a successful, intelligent, young entrepreneur who created Invisalign and TRG and whose ultimate dream is to build a free school in the north of Pakistan for the most genius kids. Then, on the coming Tuesday, I’m meeting with Mark Goldstein, a serial entrepreneur who built and sold 5 start-ups to companies including Microsoft, K-Mart, and Reuters.
Would l trade a smoother path to an ideal job with finding friendships among my friends and meeting interesting people that inspired me and that I enjoy their companies? No. I wouldn’t. I am so glad that I took a risker but more rewarding path.
Like P’Jeab said to me repeatedly, things happen for reasons. Even with a lot of pressure and stress, my 33rd year of life is still blessed.
This winter, Seattle had a lot of snow during Christmas. People couldn't get out of the house, and Seattle authority decided not to use salt to remove the snow, as it would harm the environment.
I wrote this on December 23, 2008. As I was enjoying the white Christmas in Seattle, I had an overwhelmingly happy emotions that I had to express it out in a poem.
Enjoy!
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My heart is warmed with the spirit of Christmas time. The radio plays "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire" rhymes.
I don't have pine-scented, colorfully decorated Christmas tree. But downtown buildings with sparkling lights is a magical sight to me.
I feel as if I were surrounded by millions of shining stars. With different shades, shapes, sizes, near and far.
Roof tops and tree branches are covered with snow. I snug tightly under warm soft silky throw.
I listen to music, I write poem, and I read. This is a truly lovely moment indeed!
This is a Toastmasters speech I gave in March this year...
To have someone who believe in you is a true blessing in life. It prevents you from falling, and it can push you so far ahead than you could ever imagine.
There were many times in my life when I was discouraged by others, when I was afraid to do things that I wanted to do, and when I felt bad about myself. Every time, there was always someone who believed in me, protecting me from discouragement of others, helped me to overcome my fears, and made me feel good about myself again.
Speaking of getting discouraged by others, it seems to happen to me on every important decision I made for my life. When I decided that I want to get out of my comfort zone and live and study abroad as an exchange student; my closest friend laughed at me and said to my face “You? Want to be an exchange student abroad? With your mediocre English skill and shyness, I don’t think so”. With the sound of her condescending laughs in my head, I worked hard to improve my English skills and was selected to participate in three exchange students program in three countries during high school and college. When I was applying to business school, my ex-boyfriend said “Who do you think you are? There are so many people that are smarter and better than you. You are so arrogant that you think you will get into a top school”. With his discouraging voice in my head, I managed to get into a top school and, of course, I also managed to get rid of him afterward!
Speaking of fears, there were so many times when I challenged myself to do something new or something outside of my comfort zone, I got really scared and nervous. One of those fears was, of course, public speaking. Three years ago, I organized a conference with over 400 attendees. As the conference leader, I need to give a few speeches to speakers and conference attendees. My first speech was a short welcome speech to 20 speakers at the dinner before the day of the conference. I was so nervous. My hands were shaking, my face was pale, and my speaking turned into babbling. I was so embarrassed and disappointed in myself. I spent 9 months to prepare for the conference. But I was too nervous to speak for just 2 minutes about it. Speaking in front of 20 people was already a nerve-wrecking experience. On the next day, I had to give a speech to 400 attendees, thanking them and my team for the success of the conference. As I was standing in front of audience, waiting for my time to speak, my fear was about to hit me again. It was the moment of truth of me. I could screw up twice or I could use that moment to recover myself from the embarrassment on the day before. It was the moment of truth for me, after all dedication I put into the conference, whether I believe I was important enough for people to pay attention and listen. As the guest speaker finished his last sentence, the audience started getting up to leave. I grabbed the microphone and said “Hello everyone, I am the organizer of the conference. I would like to ask everyone to sit down, as I have something to say”. All of the sudden, people who were getting to leave the auditorium sat back down. I got their full attention to listen to what I wanted to say, and I spoke confidently this time.
I have overcome those discouragements, fears, and negative feeling toward myself because I believe in myself. As I reflect upon my past situations, I ask myself how I started to believe in my capabilities. The answer was that I have always had someone who believes in me. It began at home. The first person who made me believe in myself was my mother. No matter how impossible my dreams may seem. When I look back, I don’t remember a single time that she has doubt in what I want to accomplish. When I struggled, she said “Keep trying. My daughter is capable.” Then, she would stay up late with me, making me hot chocolate while I worked hard to get what I want. When I succeeded, she said “I knew you can do it. My daughter is competent.” Then she kissed me. I can’t give enough credit to my mother for blessing my life by believing in me. Her believing in me makes me believe in myself and protects me from the disbelieving of others.
Outside of family, I have been fortunate to have one or two friends who believe in me.
When I scared to death and embarrassed myself speaking in public, my best friend said “You worked so hard to make this conference happened. If there is someone most deserved to speak at this conference you've created, it is you.” His belief in me that I can speak confidently in front of 400 people, despite the fact that he saw me embarrassed myself speaking in front of 20 people made me overcome my fear of public speaking.
It’s true that you can succeed by believing in yourself. But it’s easier to believe in yourself when someone believes it with you. When you go back home today to your spouse and kids, I hope you keep in mind that there is a small thing you can do – a small thing that is very important and easier to do than you might have thought. Do believe in them, believe that people around you want to do well and can do well, even though they made mistakes and disappointed you, and believe that people will achieve their stretched goal in the future, even though you cannot see it today. I know you can do it. I believe in you.
It's been a while since my last posting, acknowledging that I sometimes felt intimidated and how I tried to overcome it. In the past few months, I found a new approach that truely got rid of me feeling intimidated and actually changed my personality to be more assertive at work.
Early this year, I was assigned a project that requires me to work in the environment that I usually feel intimidated. My business partners are much more experienced in the subject, aggressive, opinionated, and love to do the talking. In the past 30 years, when I was around people like this, I became speechless.
My breakthrough came as I was focusing all my thoughts and energy to accomplish my goal - to develop a strategy for the subject that I was not familiar with, align more experienced, opinionated business partners toward the same strategy and goal and drive the execution.
Within a few months, I got rid of 30 years of my wrong attitude. I focused on achieving my goal and on trying to make my points across so much that I forgot to think about myself and how other people think of me. And that was the end of me feeling intimidated.
By being really passionate about the subject and focus on the subject rather than myself (who cares about me anyway), I was able to overcome the intimidated feeling. I am a happier person these days. I feel more confident, energetic and effective. My business partner said "Everytime I talked with you, you get me all pumped-up!" I love working with aggressive, opinionated people these days. They helped me grow tremendously ;)
I had always felt intimidated by mean people and people with bad attitudes. I hate it when I feel intimidated. It makes me self-conscious and unable to think and communicate confidently.
The other day Lewis gave me a tip, which is so far working for me.
He said people misinterpret each other all the time. Sometimes, you might feel like people are mean to you, while in fact they feel normal toward you. And when you misinterpret that people are mean to you, it impacts your reaction to them. You might be mean to them back. You might not listen to the well-intentioned feedback from them. Or you might feel intimidated, like me. Then when another person senses the negative feelings from you, they might be mean to you for real. It's a vicious cycle of negative feelings. When you think negatively about someone, you might be wrong. Then, all you do is just creating imagination that hurts yourself. Therefore, to avoid the adverse impact of false negative, you will just need to always be positive.
These days, I always tell myself that everybody loves me, everybody means well, and everybody wants to be nice to me (although sometimes they don't act nicely). Since I have been telling myself this, I notice that I no longer feel intimidated by people with attitude...because I ignore their bad attitudes and forgive their mean actions. Am I being naive? No! Of course not. I know that people can be mean. In fact, in the past few years, I have pretty good sense about people, particularly mean people. What I am doing is creating a gimmick for myself to feel confident and cheerful, not getting impacted by mean people.
People cannot give you what you don't take. People cannot give you craps, if you don't take it. You can choose what you want or don't want to take. I don't take attitude. I only take joy.
Do you sometimes feel too busy? Do you wish to have more time and be able to enjoy life more? I do. Then I realize that my busy life is unlikely to change. I plan to have the busy job for long term. I plan to continue to juggle between work, family, and relationship because they are all important to me. And I will continue to have 24 hours per day. Therefore, since my busy life is not going to change, I am changing the way I look at my busy life instead. I am actively looking for the small happiness – the small things in every day life that make me happy.
A few weeks ago, I bought a hanging pug calendar. It has pictures of these cute little pugs in different posing. Some were lying on the floor, pouting to the camera. One was sitting in a hat making innocent face, and some were dressed up in adorable costumes with hats and wings. I ended up getting it with reluctant because although it is cute, I don’t really need a calendar. Since I didn’t need it, it was sitting on the table for a few weeks before I decided to put it on my cubicle wall at work, just so that I don’t waste it.
Ever since I have the pug calendar at my desk, I found that this unnecessary object did more than I expected. It makes me smile through out the day, every time I look at this cute little pug staring back at me. My heart beats like I was on a first date. My mind is relaxed as if I were at home for a few seconds. My tension decreased. I found out that the pictures of pugs make me happy.
I still haven’t use the calendar on it. I actually no longer see it as a calendar. Now I see it as my small happiness.
Sometimes, people overlook small things in their lives and take things for grant instead of consciously looking at them and appreciating them. When people think about things that make them happy, they tend to think about a bigger happiness such as a vacation in Europe, a job promotion, or a nice big house. However, these big happiness items take longer time to happen or we can not do them often. We can not get promoted every month, go on vacation in Europe every weekend, or might not be able to move into a nicer bigger house tomorrow. At the same time, life can be difficult from time to time. Work might be stressful, kids do not behave, or spouse disappoints you. Since the big happiness is unlikely to happen every time and anytime we want, we need to have the small happiness to keep us cheerful, so that we have energy to go through the ups and downs of our lives. In order to have small happiness, we need to be able to “consciously do” and “appreciated” small things in every day life. Instead of drinking a cup of coffee while typing and staring at your computer screen, you can pause, smell it, and enjoy the taste of it. If you usually go home after dark, take a break for 5 minutes to see the sun gradually disappears into the water leaving behind the colorful sky with red, orange, yellow, blue and purple colors.
Life can often be busy and uneasy like a bumpy, muddy road. It is your choice. You can just pass through it as you hurry to get to your destination of big happiness, or you can pause, enjoy the small things along the way and get the small happiness to brighten your journey.
Romantic comedies Novels Finding nice clothes and shoes that fit Listening to music Blue sky The sky when the sun is setting Eating chocolate Eating delicious cuisine Blue berry muffin/croissant and creamy hot chocolate Look pretty Scenic views Talk with good friends Compliments Nice boss Get work done Get promoted Being productive Knowing that I make someone happy Travel to see new things Not sick Do something new or never thought I could do Feel loved Make a lot of money so that I can afford what make me happy above
All these are what make me happy. They can be categorized into three types of happiness: the happiness at the moment, short-term happiness, and long-term happiness.
When you have been in this world for 30 years, you should have enough experience and knowledge about yourself -- you should know what makes you happy. If you are a human with a brain, you should also know "how" to get what makes you happy. Once you know "how", if you are a reasonable human being, you should already be executing on the "how", so that you can get "what makes you happy".
For example, I know that buying nice clothes that fit makes me happy, instead of cutting back on my shopping (and my happiness), what I need to do is to make more money, so that I can buy more of nicer clothes (and more happiness). I know that being productive and getting work done make me happy. Therefore, I keep working even though I don't feel like doing it. Because I don't need passion or feeling to get work done and be productive. I just need my brain to think and my hands to do the work. Sometimes, I was wondering why I am all energetic and happy working at 2 am. You might think that I am a workaholic. But for me, I'm not a workaholic. I am just trying to give myself all three types of happiness. I am happy to get my work done (happiness at the moment) and maybe get compliments from my nice boss (short-term happiness), and eventually get a promotion (long-term happiness), just like I am happy when I watch romantic comedies and buy nice clothes. Watching romantic comedies, shopping for 8 hours straight, getting work done at 2 am are all lead to the same thing to me --my happiness.
In my list of what makes me happy, some are for the happiness at the moment, some are for short-term happiness, and some are for long-term happiness. You need to know all three types of happiness and should consciously doing them or doing things that lead to them. If you do only things that are for happiness at the moment (eating, shopping, watching TV), it is unlikely that you will ever get things that are your short-and long-term happiness. If you do only things that are for long-term happiness, then you'll be miserable because the long-term happiness will take longer time to happen. You need to be able to "do" and "appreciate" things that are happiness at the moment (eating good food, smelling flowers, watching the kids playing, watching sunset, drinking hot chocolate with extra extra chocolate and half-half, etc.), so that you can be happy along the up and down journey to your long-term happiness. I emphasized "do" and "appreciate" because many people take things that are for happiness at the moment for grant and sometimes even call it "procrastination". For me, I don't call "my happiness" at the moment "procrastination". For me, procrastination is when I do things that don't make me happy at the moment or don't lead to my long-term happiness. And I do procrastinate, which make me unhappy because procrastinating means unproductive (one of what makes me happy). To try not to procrastinate, I consciously ask myself what makes me happy and whether what I am doing is happiness at the moment or leading to my long-term happiness. An example was my views on cable TV vs. DVD. I recently bought a new 32" LCD TV because I want to watch big screen TV. Then I cancelled my cable 3 days after I installed the TV. Then I subscribe to NetFlix. For me, browsing to hundreds of channels from the cable was procrastination, because I just watched whatever is on, not what made me really happy. On the other hand, I search and seek to find the movies and TV shows that I know will make me happy. Therefore, watching NetFlix is my happiness at the moment, not procrastination.
What about you? Do you know what are your happiness at the moment, your short-term happiness and long-term happiness? Are you doing things that will lead to your short-term and long-term happiness? Are you doing and appreciating your happiness at the moment?
On the past weekend, I went to Lake Tahoe with Lewis, Janette, Bow, Jeanette, Paul, Thomas, Juliette, Ho and Jack. We rent a very nice cabin and had a great time skiing, making crepes, playing wii, Jenga, watch movie, and celebrating my birthday. (Lewis got me yummy ice-cream cake) I also went skiing for the first time. Janette, Jeanette, and I took classes and also went on the Green slope. Although I wish I have a more skiing talent, I was pretty proud of myself that I had the courage to do something I never thought I could, to take risk, to not give up when I fell, and to laugh at myself when I fell and still wanted to try again. I’m glad that as I turned 31, I still have the spirit that I have always had.
