I am at a juncture. I am at the end of my planned plans, one of my mental deadline of figuring things out. My original thought was to move to Seoul for a bit to work on my Korean. In the back of my mind, I wonder if this will lead to an eventual relocation.

Working in Korea sounds challenging. I wake up early, 5am early. Recently, it’s been 3am. Jeju-do is filled with tons of coffee shops. There are a few reasons for this, but the big one is that Koreans just don’t sleep. When I go to the coffee shop at 6am, I will see people in restaurants eating Korean BBQ and drinking soju! This has happened multiple times. There are a number of 24-hour coffee shops, and they are bumping. People work odd shifts. They study a lot. Overworking is a cultural phenomenon. Sadly, it’s a tough this to avoid when your life outcomes are so narrowly placed on tests and physical and other life attributes. The sense that you can just design your perfect life in a meandering way here is less prevalent than it is in the U.S. I feel extremely lucky in that regard. Continue reading Decisions →

I love being alone, but I have been a bit lonely the last few days. The irony is that sometimes the loneliest moments are those when you are among many people and yet missing some element of belonging.

The sun is shining, and it’s a beautiful day.

I’m finally thinking about work – partnerships, collaborations, solo work. Creative work. Business work. Projects.

When I was [some low numberish] old, I was ripped out of my NYC melting pot community and flung up the eastern seaboard into a Boston suburb. This is how innocence is lost.

I remember waking up to the sound of buzzing, crackling, and stomping on that fateful day. It was early (as it always was in my household), and as I stepped out of my bedroom, I saw that the house was nearly emptied. A few months earlier, I had similarly woken up to a residential transformation. New furnishings adorned all four levels. Beautiful artwork, plants, and matchy matchy furniture.

What a reversal. And equally unexplained. Continue reading A moving day, a culture shift →

…is good friends, good food, love, caring, simplicity, staying at home, appreciating the moment. London.

Home is taking that feeling with you everywhere you go.

I finally got my hair cut in London. I was sitting (shaking) in the hair hoping the chick wouldn’t shred my locks into wispy frays. I opened up immediately and started telling her about how I quit my job and have been traveling the world. After a few careful questions and a pregnant pause, she politely asked, “Would you say that you’re going through a sort of crisis?”

I laughed. “Um, yeah… Actually, no. I would really call it more of a renaissance.” I explained that I used to be extremely stressed by the workload, travel, and culture of my old job. I wore suits and formalwear every day and sit in boardrooms with gray-haired executives who were meant to be my peers. My impetus for leaving? I just didn’t feel like me anymore. I wanted to do something “creative.”

Why do we create a division in this world between creative and not creative? What is not creative? Activities that are rote or analytical? Even when working on an assembly line, it is possible to innovate or bring a different process to what you do. In laziness even, there is great creativity. I spend countless hours in bed envisioning scenarios or creating meaning out of my disparate thought processes.

When I was in a corporate role, I felt that almost everything I did was creative actually. My days were spent figuring out how to creatively deal with people, build good-ish products, find white space to create competitive differentiation, build teams that were a good balance of skills and personality. Sometimes I drew things on paper or PowerPoint. Other times, I sketched things out in my mind. I created publications and marketing materials, websites, and product interfaces. Was that creative?

Maybe creativity is more about a spirit you bring to your endeavors? Continue reading What does it mean to be creative? →

It’s been a heady day already. I woke up at 4am with my stomach turning.

Tonight is another full moon. I thought about what Smiling Buddha had said to me in Bali. One day before, during, and one day after the full moon, it’s hard to sleep. So far, this seems accurate.

The tranquility I thought I had created and the inner “okayness” I was feeling was foundational and yet momentary. I was very happy being in London, taking a pause.

Then I started working crazy hours in preparation for London Fashion Week. I started to feel the memories and imprint of burnout creeping my up on me. I needed to slow down.

Then I received a note from my management company trying to evict me for AirBNB’ing my apartment, though the language wasn’t quite clear. I took down the posting. Continue reading Everything catches up to you →

This period in London has been filled with silence, crazy work, and lots of personal lessons learned.

1. At the age of 34, I’m finally starting to understand how to understand and set boundaries rather than accepting the weight of the world on my shoulders. I am starting to learn how to put my own well-being first rather than last.
2. I’m learning about what I want and what’s truly important to me. I really don’t give a shit about having a good job in my own estimation and to the world.
3. I am no longer afraid to fail. Well, I am, but not nearly as much.
4. I am looking deeper into my essence and my childhood and dismantling the expectations I and others have put on me. For example, I’ve always loved music, art, creating. I’m doing more of that, and it is important to me to “achieve” anything other than my own happiness.
5. The key to happiness (at least for me) has been in simplifying. When you get to a point where you don’t even understand your assets, expenses, obligations, and schedule, it really gets to be too much.
6. I have started to understand how addiction to work is a form of emotional numbing.
7. Friends are family (fortunately and unfortunately) for me.

Altruism can be a very good quality and yet, sometimes, we need to ask ourselves what lies underneath all that goodwill.