Travel

First day alone-alone

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Jaybird flew away yesterday to Krabi-land. Today he landed in Singapore. It’s the first time I’ve been truly alone since Bali in July. The past three weeks have been a bubble with me and Jay getting to know each other in an intense and accelerated way. Travel bubble style. It reminds me of the experience of making friends at camp.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been slowly getting off the social train. There was the intense experience in Jeju, Korea with a community of 35 other digital nomads. A subset of us ended up in Seoul for a few weeks. And then to Ko Phangan – just Jay and myself settling in to thaw, relax, and detox during rainy season.

At some point, I realized I needed to take the next step and just be alone. And so began the truly spiritual component of my stay here in magical Ko Phangan.
Continue reading First day alone-alone →

Anti-Stress, Life, Travel

Our life is the creation of our mind

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The other day, I was on Google Hangouts with one of my closest friends. He and I met in the elevator on the way to orientation at the hedge fund I worked at. In spite of the fact that we’re seemingly very different, we instantly became close friends. He’s an Indian genius programmer with a PhD who wrote his dissertation on blackbox systems (or something, whatever). I’m a scattered and uselessly overly educated Asian-American New Yorker…I don’t even know how else to describe myself.

I consider him a great philosopher, and many of our conversations over California Pizza Kitchen or dosas or comedy or hiking trips have meandered over the topic of self-development. Many of my greatest life tips have come from him. For example, to feel presence, just pay attention to your feet and how they’re pressing into the earth. Or, focus on one goal or habit at a time until it is ingrained. I know few people who read as voraciously as he does about philosophy, good living, and the spiritual aspects of life. I also kind of feel like he’s memorized the entire YouTube corpus…or maybe the internet at large.

In this particular conversation, I was staring out a some beach and he had just arrived in India. “The mind…it keeps yapping at you, no matter what,” he said. No matter how much we can gain control of our external world, the struggle to gain control of our internal world can be beyond elusive. Continue reading Our life is the creation of our mind →

Anti-Stress, Life, Travel

Sunset side of the island

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Time, place, and people have been restructuring me.

After staying for 10 days in a 5-bedroom penthouse villa on a beautiful hill overlooking the turquoise ocean and nested hamlet of Thong Na Pan Noi beach, we moved one beach over on the northwest side of the island to Thong Na Pan Yai and stayed a week at another comfortable house right on the beach. It was an extension of the Longtail Beach Resort. That was pure relaxation.
Continue reading Sunset side of the island →

Life, Travel

The supermoon, a break from the past

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Last night, the moon started to come up, big in the horizon, the biggest moon we’ve seen on earth since 1948. It coincided with a few other both solemn and spiritual events.

It was the last day of the 30-day mourning period for King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the beloved king and ruler of Thailand for 70 years. It was the end of an era. And of course, at some point, we all need to move forward with the day-to-day.

The other big occasion is the annual festival of Loy Krathang, a festival paying homage to the water goddess at the end of the main rice season and harvest season. People gather at water sources with elaborate offerings adorned with lit up candles and incense and allow these ornamented pieces to float away. There is a beautiful cutting energy around letting go of past misfortunes and letting all the anger and grudges you have held onto float away down these canals. It marks the start of a year of good luck.

Meanwhile, in Chiang Mai, the Lantern Festival
Meanwhile, in Chiang Mai, the Lantern Festival

Continue reading The supermoon, a break from the past →

Life, Politics

Race rhetoric and blame in America

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Race is a hard thing to talk openly about in America. There is always the sense of treading carefully, making sure not to offend, and speaking while trying to see things from another side’s perspective that you couldn’t possibly understand.

I woke up this morning and opened Facebook. “Asian American Are Now Being Targeted for Harassment After Donald Trump’s Victory.” The rhetoric around Trump’s ascendance is becoming unproductive. Hellooooo, we’ve been targeted for a long time. Those same people did not become racists overnight. This is not the first time they’ve told someone to go back to their country. Now they’re just adding the tagline, “Trump is president now” to validate it. They were racists before. That is the problem. Trump is not to blame for their racism. This us-against-them polarizing rhetoric is not the way to make progress in our country. There are more structural issues at play that needs to be addressed, not through lobbying barbs and calling each other stupid and hateful. With the exception of some of the socio- and psychopaths among us (whatever the clinical distinction is among them), I do believe people have the best intentions but maybe lack the perspective. That perspective – articulating it in a way the other side can not only understand, but feel. Continue reading Race rhetoric and blame in America →

Anti-Stress, Life, Travel, Work

Word-constructing meditation on stress

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I don’t know when the burnout started. I can’t pinpoint a moment. Achievement orientation seemed encoded into my being from an early age. Was I programmed for burnout?

It may have started in high school with the nights I chased a NoDoz with Green Mountain coffee at 11pm so I could cram all night for a test the next day. It could have been the years of working 100+-hour weeks. In my life, I had always felt that whatever shortcomings I had – and I felt I had many – I could overcome through sheer dedication and work ethic. I felt that if I could put in an additional 40 hours of studying to get a 99 (A) on a test vs. a 92 (A-), I felt that it was worth it to squeeze out that remaining X%. That I should push for perfection. And it worked for a while. It better than just “worked.”

During one of my interviews at an NYC-based hedge fund, I was proud when I proclaimed that I was working these kind of hours. Rick from the recruiting department seemed horrified, disbelieving, and fascinated at the same time. Continue reading Word-constructing meditation on stress →

Travel

What is real life?

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I’ve felt like a castaway for the past 11 days. From the wintry morning start in Seoul, I flew and transferred to monsooning Ko Samui before another transfer brought me to the spiritual-cum-party island of Ko Phangan in Thailand. The heart of rainy season. It seemed fitting. The world was telling me to slow down for a second, or a week…maybe forever?

sunset

I met Jay during my time at HP in Jeju in Korea. The first blurry yet distinct memory I have of him may have been at a 24-hour cafe. It was a Friday night, the first Friday of our program. I was motivated to work and had a 4-hour board meeting starting at midnight. As soon as I arrived, surprised to see so many people gathered together and working so late on a Friday evening, they dispersed, off to dinner. Jay was among the last to pack up. He was curious about the bulgogi pretzels. I felt some degree of social anxiety. When you’re two people, you sort of have to talk and engage, and I was more in the mood to fade into the background. I was still in London mode, hermetic and monastic in my approach to the world. Continue reading What is real life? →

Life

Insomnia

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I tend to think of insomnia as a form of fairly severe mental disturbance. I’ve been getting up earlier and earlier. Today was 2am.

These early morning hours were spent talking to people in London and the U.S., thinking, playing guitar, trying to upload photos (that failed to upload), interspersed with music.

One chapter ended with us leaving Suan Sawan Villa on Thong Nai Pan Noi and moving to Thong Nai Pan Yai beach.

I’m bleary and affected. Something is telling me I’m not following myself.img_2788

Life

Election Day!

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Another sunrise in my villa. I’m truly lucky to be staring out into an expanse that has probably looked more or less the same since basically forever. The lush green vegetation, the trees, the silence. A palm tree sways to the left of me. Hello! I can wave back because no one sees me.

And yet, it’s surreal to me that back home, 8,500 miles away, people are still streaming to the polls in one of the most historic elections of our lifetime. We’ve had a few of those.

It’s not an excuse, but I’m disappointed in myself for not being engaged enough in this election or in politics. There is always the question of whether an individual’s level of engagement can affect an outcome. Possibly no, when you’re talking about me right now. But if you apply that as a rule across a population, the resulting apathy is just sad. It’s great to see the level of engagement in this election, and I’m going to turn on the telly here in Thailand soon so I can follow along!

(Please be good news.)

Life, Work

Freedom is an ice cream cake: Happy 6-month anniversary!

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For the 6-month anniversary of me + freedom, I am giving us a present – the next level of freedom! On May 7, 2016, I embarked on a strange and beautiful journey. After a lifetime of workaholism, I voluntarily left my job to figure out what I really want to do with my life. I have no idea if I will find that perfect calling, but I am determined to give it my best shot…and to be patient with myself along the way.

Reflecting back on the arc of my journey to today, it’s pretty remarkable what has been required to shed the layers of expectation and habitual thinking around what I needed to do in my life to be considered a success in my own eyes and in the eyes of the world. My first week of unemployment was ebullient and frenetic. I threw myself a party, complete with a drunken “Happy Birthday” screech (um, it’s not my birthday! I quit my job…) delivered and serenaded by a friend as I was presented with a Hello Kitty cake. I had so many meetings that week – I considered jumping into other industries and jobs. I felt like I needed to be even more invincible, perhaps to make up for some insecurity around venturing into unknown jobless territory. Not having a job in NYC…you might as well not exist.

I traveled to CO, SF, NYC, SF, Japan, Bali, NYC, London, Germany, Sicily, London, Jeju, Seoul, and now Thailand. I started a consulting practice and worked with several startups and on London Fashion Week. Continue reading Freedom is an ice cream cake: Happy 6-month anniversary! →

Travel

Magic island time

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It’s quiet this morning, as it is every morning here. I woke up at 4am thinking about my 9:30am call. 3 hours of sleep. The water flow from the infinity pool hasn’t turned on yet. The birds are chirping, and out from the open air living room area of my villa, the sun’s coming up slowly.

Sunrise Ko Phangan

This has been my home for the past 10 days, looking out into this view from here, my 5-bedroom duplex villa.

ko-pha-ngan-villa-suan-sawan

The mornings and breakfast bleed into a walk to the beach and a slow meandering lunch. Sitting in silence, I’ll find myself fading into the distance thinking. Then Jay and I will tell each other stories about life, prattle on about UI design options, or just sit in silence. Yesterday, I cried in front of him. A week ago, he was still a stranger. (More on that later.) Often, he’s wrapped in a red towel on the couch as I hang off the L piece of the sectional. The conversation moves from dating to family to our self-realizations and then to the seesaw between doing something and doing nothing. Dinner. Sleep. Repeat. Continue reading Magic island time →

Travel

Reflecting back on Korea

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We arrived in silence, went through our bedtime ritual, and laid down like statues in bed. The atmosphere was tense, and I waited for dawn to arrive. I couldn’t wait to board my flight and be away from complications, cities, and bad juju.

The hours ticked to the right. 2am, 3am, 4am, and then it was time to wake up. Meanwhile, I was wide awake, readying myself to run, mentally clutching my suitcase and tracing the outline of my shoes (and the act of putting them on) with my mind. I’ve noticed that this can be a pattern, this sine wave of experience in a place and in a situation. Things build up, and I’m super happy. Then they fall apart, and I enter the trough of disillusionment. Then I quickly bolt. Lately, bolting has taken the form of a last-minute one-way ticket (not bad!). If I keep running faster, then it’s hard for things to catch up, I guess. Now, I’m in Thailand doing nothing, and my hope is that some of this processing time will be helpful for me. Maybe I can “catch up” with myself instead of continually running and experiencing new things to outpace the hammer of “reality,” if such a thing even exists.

Korea, Korea, Korea. Jeju. Seoul. Cheonan. DMZ. New friends. Family. Work possibilities. Vacation. Future home? Identity. Continue reading Reflecting back on Korea →

Travel

My DMZ visit

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One of the most common questions I’m asked when I tell people I’m Korean is, “Are you North Korean or South Korean?” No matter how many times I’m asked this question, I am surprised and caught off guard every time I’m asked. I can’t help but return a look of bewilderment before responding that I’m South Korean.

There are a number of reasons for this reaction. First of all, North Korea is so locked down that the likelihood of me being North Korean is pretty low. Secondly, if I were North Korean, I probably would not admit it. Thirdly, Koreans just don’t really think that way. We are Korean. Yes, we had a devastating war 60 years ago that divided our country in two, but as a nation, we are still one in some ways. It is getting more distant, but it is still the recent enough past that our parents remember a time when Korea was one. Continue reading My DMZ visit →