acceptance and transition
learning French, closing some chapters and opening new ones [79]:
It’s a Friday night and I am all cozied up on the couch. After running around scouring shops, hanging decorations with my limited engineering abilities, I have finally had Christmas decor up in the new apartment. A quiet moment to myself prompted some self-reflection. It was going to a busy month. I was anticipating my first business trip and then a homecoming trip with my boyfriend. I am at the cusp of a lot of movements personally and professionally.
When cleaning out my laptop, I stumbled upon a piece I wrote in 2021. I had just finished my last college semester and was sitting at the airport when this was written. It’s intriguing reading it back, a piece on transition from three years ago. I thought it was interesting to share if you want some context around my life and personal growth journey:
When you become your own role model
Sitting next to my gate at SFO airport, I was anticipating the boarding of my long-awaited flight home. Just yesterday, I took my final exam of senior year and wrapped up my four and a half years of undergraduate education. Time flies by but also drags the past years. I actually had a sticky notes configuration countdown for today, my roommate would know very well.
Here I am, done with 16.5 years of formal education, school, standard learning that is expected of a young person: done, finished, gone. What comes next is to take on “adulthood”, the real life— working, earning money, being financially independent, finding a partner for life.
Throughout college, I rarely felt confident. Constantly comparing myself with peers: seniors who were a few years ahead, my old classmates, my college friends. I cannot sit still with my progress. Restless, scared, anxious, I frantically looked around to see what I should do to be “successful”. I feared falling behind, of not being good enough, constantly in a whirl of emotions and competition.
COVID hits and most wonderful of things happened. A time of stillness, of reflection, and internal pondering. I spent weeks in the confines of our family’s house, non-stop eating, cooking and blasting my Freakonomics podcasts in the shower. FOMO wasn’t a thing because there were no social events to be missed. I broke my reading record in 2020, thanks to the excessive free time of mandatory citywide lockdown. Coming out of that still period, a series of serendipitous events empowered by hard work and openness descended upon me.
It surprised me how the most beautiful opportunities and relationships blossomed when I was not looking or making them work for me. The me two years ago would be hard-pressed on making EVERY, and I mean everything to work according to how I want it, when I want it. If I put a lot of efforts into a job application, I should and have to get it. If I decided that a new acquaintance, I just met is interesting enough to be my friend, they have to be one of my close friends.
Life doesn’t really work that way, silly old me have finally accepted. In 2020, strangers who I reached out on a whim turned good friends, friends who I have not kept in touch for years were reconnected, jobs I did not force myself on getting came to me, and the relationships I didn’t think would work turn out to be strong connections.
2020 was the year of COVID to most of the world, but to me it’s a year of growth and transition. The year when I learned to “go with the flow”, patiently going through uncomfortable moments and grinning ear to ear when unexpected encounters turned memorable memories.
Soon, I will be moving to Austin, Texas, relishing the warmth after four years in America’s Antarctica (not Alaska), something I kept telling everyone I met, from my Uber driver, the nutritionist I talked with or the service rep at the bank. I got a big girl job, as an international woman, in America. Isn’t that a grand reason to celebrate?
I am in the position that my baby college self would only dream of. I am the person who I once admired and wanted to become. A tad crazy, on the edge of quarter life crisis me told a friend last month that if I were to die today, I wouldn’t regret anything. I am proud of myself, but more than anything, want to document this moment for the future me.
That I can and will be the person I want myself to grow into, the hardships and doubts and deafening noises of peer pressure will subside. To grow is to look inside one and ask herself, does this really matter and why does it matter to me? And then you just work hard, and let the rest to the universe.
My 20s continues to be an evolving journey and repeatedly again, hardly what I could have planned. Little of the vision I set out in 2021 materialized. I left my corporate job for one at a small business, got into a committed relationship, and shifted my outlook on career and life.
Recently, I enrolled in French lessons again and have enjoyed having a sandbox to practice it. There is no failure when you are learning a language. The more you practice and make mistakes, the better. I love witnessing a diverse group of people (me included) becoming more confident in learning and using a new set of communication rules. There is something deeply inspiring about being humble to take in a new language and accepting that
1. you know very little about the world and
2. going through the challenging beginner phase where everything feels hard.
With learning French, I am challenged and inspired like how I was with English many years ago. The world becomes more interesting when you have the key to unlock another room of literature, culture, and art.
In the past year, I learned a lot about “surrender” - to accept what I have and especially what I don’t. I found that my mental health is adversely affected when I compare my journey to that of others.
Another avenue that I explored recently with my best friend L. is that optionality can make you miserable. We discussed how we grew up in a place with limitations on our existence, especially as a woman: from the way we speak to dress, and behave.
Vietnam is far from being a first-world country but if you visit, you will see people quite hopeful and happy in their day-to-day life. They have tangible struggles as citizens of a developing nation but Vietnamese find enjoyment in the smallest of things (an afternoon coffee break, noodle soup for lunch with coworkers, a nap, beer after work - “bia hơi”, “trà đá vỉa hè” - sitting on the side of the road drinking green tea and chatting with strangers). I adore this about my home country and how I feel like people in general don’t hold grudges about how unlucky their life is, how they should have more, etc. People (have to) accept and work with what they have. Many of them have very little.
My tentative conclusion over our trans-Atlantic call: you accept what you have and that is the underrated secret to happiness. It offloads some mental capacity and for me personally, pins less responsibility on me to make a “dream life”. As I am expecting transition, that is a mantra I will carry with to get through the next stage of life.
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