I have been 20 for almost three months.
In the past three months, I have experienced some magical moments, some sentimental moments, intense joy, intense stress, deep conversations about friendships and what to do with life, and thoughts about why each day is 24 hours instead of 25. With all the options at Cornell and beyond, I have to make more decisions on what to prioritize because my time during college, at a place with the freedom of pursuing anything I wish, is running out.
How do I prioritize my time? I don’t know the best way. But I know one strategy that does not work: prioritizing the thing that gives me the most utility at that given moment. This is called procrastination, and it might lead to a mental breakdown in the future. To combat all the burnout, I have learned to find joy in all the work I do, like savoring the schoolwork I have to do and appreciating my ability to overcome challenges. Sometimes we are just going through the motions, but life is so much more fulfilling when you notice the love and support around you: friends giving you a genuine compliment or even if they are just laughing with you. ~Glad they are not laughing at you.
Last week I met a lot of cool and successful Cornell alumni. One of the most memorable ones was Tim from the food science advisory council lunch. I asked him how did you figure out what you wanted to do. He asked me, “what are you passionate about?” And then he hit me with the three whys. Something like “Why do you want to go into that industry? Why are you passionate about this particular thing? Why is that important to you?”
Suddenly, I started questioning if I am doing the right things. Is my major and what I’m doing currently truly related to the goal I want to achieve in life? Or am I doing it simply because I envision it will help me in the long run? Am I wasting my time? Did I do enough background research, analyze enough trends, and thoroughly test my hypothesis before diving into the solution? Or should I just go with the flow and see what opportunities I encounter? What should I do to maximize my utility in the now as well as my chances of success in the future?
I have to be honest. I don’t know the right answers to my questions. However, I do know one thing that is right for me to do at this moment–piano. This week I finally caught up with Sean again. Sean is one of the smartest people I know. We are similar in that we are both honest with ourselves, reflective, and want to find someone entrepreneurial and have goals in life. But he is not talking about making a lot of money. He is talking about doing cool things and practicing “becoming.” It can be playing piano, fishing, running, painting, graphing random shapes on Desmos, winning a drunk spelling bee even. These cool things transcend words and work, fulfilling the soul.
I decided to give the piano a second try. I have a love-and-hate relationship with the piano. It’s something my parents paid a lot of money to force me to practice when I was little. I get easily stressed when I can’t match the notes with both hands. But I decided to willingly give it a try. It was hard to make it sound pretty; I pieced together something far from perfect. However, I experienced a sense of joy and accomplishment. I had just practiced “becoming.” I think many people around me prioritize doing things that are structured and can be recognized by other people; for example, writing for the school newspaper or doing a fellowship. I agree. These things are important on the resume since I, like many others, still need to find a job to feed myself. But there is so much value in slowing down and enjoying life and yourself just a tad bit more.
What’s the next right thing to do? Reflecting on my life, I can say I have grown to be less afraid of uncertainties and became more optimistic. Newt Scamander from the Fantastic Beasts movie says “worrying makes you suffer twice” (thanks Emily for the quote). If worrying only brings unnecessary stress and doesn’t improve your situation, why worry? Everything I do can teach me something and can build my character. This does not mean I have given up on optimizing my decisions. Instead, I seek to make peace with my worrying. I will find the work and people that fulfill my life as I continue to trudge through life, navigate my challenging chemical engineering classes, meet new friends, and grow my soul.
My main takeaway is that you can always read the best advice in a book, listen to someone's experience on a podcast, or ask your friends about their opinions. But your experience, doing things yourself, and facing situations head-on (why I love entrepreneurship so much), these things that you can feel and reflect on, will etch indelible lessons in your brain and your heart. I don’t exactly know what lessons I will learn, nor the experiences I will be deciding to have. But I know one thing. Your learnings from your own doing are the takeaways that words from someone else, no matter how wise, cannot fully endow.
Thank you for reading my reflections in this newsletter, and I will see you again in the next month or two. Remember that it’s okay, you don’t have to have everything figured out in life.
Hope you can take something away from my thoughts and practice “becoming” with me :) What are you doing to grow your soul?
Enjoy some life update pictures requested by Hung Huynh
