On the weekends, I have really enjoyed going to Harvard square to go read some of their Harvard Business Review books. The typical audience for these books are meant for people in business, and while I have no particular interest in being one at this time, I have found these books to be fascinating reads. With the Ivy league schools wanting to produce some of the leaders of tomorrow, I find it to be extremely engaging on how this school empowers their audience. They have a series of books called the Harvard Business Review Essential Reads, and this weekend I stumbled across the Managing youself Vol. 2 version. This book briefly talks about finding purpose in your work, and how important it is to find what you are passionate about while properly impacting the people around you. They begin the book with a powerful quote from Mark Twain: The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. In its introduction chapter, they have this exercise to set off some of the themes and I thought this week would be an interesting time to participate in this activity. Therefore the structure of this weeks blog is Q&A where I answer some of the prompts from this book.
As a child I loved building legos. And while that hints at possibly becoming an engineer of some sort, that is not entirely at all what I loved about them. As a child I was always obedient and disciplined so I tended to follow instructions very well. Legos, I think really allowed me to personify my youger selfs personality because the instructions were so clear. Every step by step was written clearly and I enjoyed the journey it took to build the final product. While I really enjoyed that portion of my childhood, I came to my own realization that creativity and thinking for your own were highly praised. Leadership was a big thing throughout my whole life, and I didn’t really grow into one until this past summer. While I still love legos, this activity was very misrepresenting of how the world functioned. So I struggled in many ways to think on my own early on, and when I did they were all thoughts that were too abstract.
Another activity was drawing. Since a lot of my ideas were abstract at the time, I loved to let my mind loose and draw as much as possible. It honestly was more than a hobby for me. I remember each year I would compete in my local library’s bookmark designing contest and I believe I ended up winning like 4 out of 5 contests throughout grade school. That art side never really left me and I think it is a totally underappreciated side of what I currently do. Pretty visualization, and abstract thinking is sometimes needed to solve some of the hardest problems. Therefore this was like a characteristic I don’t want to lose. I was recently had a revival of my artistic side and I have slowly been working on a second iteration of a video game that I will build from scratch. I was inspired by one of my favorite game designers Toby Fox, and I would now like to share my creative side in the video game medium. From storytelling, to character development, music, design, and animation, I want to build it all for the next few years in the future.
One of the most challenging moments of my life was being diagnosed with Rheumatic Fever, an autoimmune condition. I was already a quiet kid growing up and this made my introvert tendencies amplify exponentially. At just 10 years old, I had no idea what or why this happened to me. My doctors weren’t totally sure about why this disease occurred and for preventitive measures, I was asked to take 2 Penicillin pills every day or an injection every 4 weeks for the next 11 years. 11 years was a long time and I actually just got off Penicillin this past July. But what I think destroyed my ego was when my doctor told me I couldn’t exercise EVER AGAIN. At the time of diagnosis, this disease had messed up my heart valves synchronization and it had affected my body pretty bad. Since the valves weren’t in sync, blood would leak and it was a scary situation to be in. So sitting on the benches while all my friends ran around was an image I still haven’t really gotten over. For some time, my body was also too agile to even walk on my own and I was on a wheelchair. But worst of all were the 3 or 4 other medications I was on simultaneouly. All I could think at that time was that this was my life line. These were the only things really helping me get better and it was a tough realization. As a result of some side effects, I became fatter and it was all really a downward spiral.
Years later into the future, I am happy to say that things turned around for the better. I did end up being better thanks to modern medicine and I was lucky that I was able to begin physical activities once more. Being compromised at such an early age was such a degrading feeling but it only allowed me to go in one direction, which was up. Every accomplishment for me since that day has been a notable feat and I am just happy to have grown out of the sheer negativity I faced at just 10. I am much more confident in who I am, quite the athlete, but most of all healthy and enjoying the limitless freedom that life brings. Time most definitely heals wounds and that was an important long term lesson I learned after the 11 year battle of penicillin treatment. And while my life is no where near over, it was my first marathon that I ever completed.
The second most challenging life experience was trying to figure out who I was in Covid. Covid was an introspective time for everyone, but I felt this on such a drastic level. Once again my freedom was deprived and I had no idea how to cope with the sheer fact that I was alone. The friends I had made in college to that point were not totally the people I wanted to surround myself with, but I also felt really unaccomplished. I didn’t think at the time I was trending in the right direction and I felt really stuck. But the worst thing to happen to me was my ability to talk to people. That year although I was still able to live in Santa Cruz, I had no outlet, and kept everything to myself in an environment that was already challenging. I felt really alone and that year was probably the most I ever cried as an adult. The lack of results from how hard I worked, and with very difficult social circumstances, I didn’t know what to do. Luckily I made it through but that was yet another extremely dark time in my life.
It’s funny because when I speak about Covid, I usually bring up the fact that I did really well academically. And I did. But I think there are always two sides to every story and while I found success in school, I was definitely lacking in all other areas. But since Covid ended, I was fortunate to make a good group of friends, meet so many amazing people, travel the world, but most of all be happy. I used to work so hard to get a nice job and hopefully make a lot of money, but if theres anything I learned, keeping your mind healthy and happy is the most important thing in life. All the other things will come because I know I work extremely hard, but I think it is important to prioritize your mental health. Since Covid, I have really lived the best life I possibly can and I don’t think I would have been this way without such an extreme situation to really look myself in the mirror and try to fix myself. So I am grateful for Covid because it was a soft reset in my life and I have not looked back since.
Since Covid, I have found my happiness. I now want everyone around me to do the same. Helping people has always been an important aspect of my life and I want to be able to help in a noninvasive way. I think the biggest epidemic amongst young people is that they are holding back from chasing what they truly love and are passionate about and sometimes I do not know why. I therefore want to provide a greater good to the people I encounter in my life and help them chase whatever makes them tick. I’ve talked to so many personalities this year and hearing what they are passionate about always makes me equally as passionate. And while I don’t do it for the thank you’s, hearing one occasionally helps reassure that I want to remain this way and help anyone I possibly can. Its an awesome feeling to be happy about who you are and be able to help those hit those same marks. I encoruage all those to therefore put your happiness ahead of things that don’t give you that same feeling. The void of the unknown is scary but you will never know until you try. Thanks for reading again this week and I hope to see you around for the next!