Hustle and Flow

It's only been a brief two weeks since I've been back in the flow of, vibe of, feel of the work pace of life in NYC and it's a pretty stark contrast to the relatively lackadaisical days I've been having for the last three months. This isn't to say, of course, that the change hasn't been welcome, just that there is such a distinct difference between residing in New York and really living here.

Summer was filled with sun-lit afternoons pounding the pavement, lounging in parks, being drawn into the beat and pulse of living in a -- pardon the trite phrase -- urban jungle. Given the number of tourists who flock to the city, cameras and maps in tow, trying to haphazardly match their footsteps to those of the stiletto-heeled women around them, it's no wonder that the buzz of the city was particularly pronounced in the summertime. But more than that, the crowds that positively melted into place in parks, at cafes and on subways were somehow more vibrant than the standard monochromatic workweek fare.

The only responsibilities I had during the week were to myself; my appointments were my own. I operated on my own daily schedule, and any deadlines I set and met (or didn't) would be of my own volition. Study for the GREs, search for jobs, work on freelance assignments, develop my knowledge and skills by reading everything I could lay my hands (fingertips?) on and by writing constantly. There may never be a time again in my life where I have the luxury of only worrying about, well, myself.

Now the weather is cooling down, summer "lasts" are plentiful, and the reality of bracing for another go at the NYC work life is rearing its daunting head. But though I will miss summer and all the mental acumen it provided, I'm equally excited by the prospects of a new season and its consequent shift of energy.

Autumn is soothing because it marks the do-over, restart phase of the year, a grounding calmness with a running stream of conversation underneath. It's the perfect kind of weather for a little hustle, a little flow. So it begins again.

On wealth

Original posting found here.

Wealth is what happens when luck meets opportunity. Or is that success? Or was it that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity? The infinite combinations and equations that make up these cross-concept building blocks ultimately all point to the same thing: in our society, wealth, or something like it, is attainable by anybody. Hard labor, combined with the right dose of perceptiveness, charisma and yes, luck, have proven to be enough to promote any citizen from one tax bracket to the next. This is, at least, the promise of America, a land where opportunities are here for the taking.

Having grown up with parents who immigrated to the States in their mid-20s, I am always acutely aware of this perception, and the consequent implications. The idea of social mobility is something that isn’t as encouraged in Taiwan — whatever “class” you are born into tends to be where you stay, even in the advancements of your career. And hence, the draw of a country like the U.S. where “anything is possible” is pretty hefty. If it is true that wealth springs from luck and opportunity, and luck itself is composed of preparation and opportunity, then, in the immigrant generation’s mind, hard work (preparation) is the only part they’ll need to contribute, now that the other controllable variable (opportunity) is present.

And hence the immigrant mentality stands: work hard, and you can succeed. And by success, I mean of course in monetary and materialistic terms. I’ve always looked to this model as part of the reason why children of immigrant parents tend to place a different emphasis on the value of wealth (read: money) than either their parents or their American counterparts. To second generation Americans (those born in the States, but whose parents immigrated from another country), there is a balance to be made.

Their immigrant parents insist that attaining wealth — working hard and forfeiting enjoyment in many cases — is the justifiable ends to a life of just getting by. Because the opportunities are here, it is unwise to throw them away — and for immigrants, all opportunities point toward monetary stability and development.

American society itself is filled with contradictions, but the overarching theme at present seems to be that money can’t buy you happiness, and it is therefore almost insulting to the Constitution to “sell out” and do things just for the money. (At the same time, of course, we observe the lives of the rich and famous and aspire to reach that level of social acceptance and wealth. Oh, the irony).

Somehow consolidating the two viewpoints into one coherent view on wealth is near-impossible, but it’s somewhere in the struggle that the third piece of the equation falls into place. Luck. Because even with a rigid mindset regarding the value and definition of wealth, we always find success (however we define it) at just the right time, don’t we? And if that can’t be attributed to luck, then what can?

Self-promotion

Part of my "job," if you will, for this next month and a half, is to really rediscover my voice as a writer. Easier said than done, right? I've been sorting through old clips and pieces in order to compile them into one easy-access site for future reference, and I think doing this has brought about several conclusions.

First, I have a long way to go to get to the point I want to be at (story of life, right?). And the first step on this unpredictable path toward voice is practice. I'm going to try to push myself to write and produce more than I have before, take a more active role in the process.

Second, the reason why finding my voice is so important is so that I can better communicate my ideas; what good are thoughts if you can't share them and bounce them off others? What use is a concept that isn't brought into fruition? A thought is a thought is a thought if you never do anything about it.

Third, and perhaps most important of all -- this break in the past month has caused me to reevaluate a lot of things, chief among them, what skill set I can bring to the table. I admire so much people who've created for themselves an entire library of "Things I can do" and am just now starting to realize that I've spent too much time on the bookshelves and not enough time on the books themselves. I'm preparing but not doing, and while luck favors the prepared mind, I want to be sure I can take that next step once luck comes a-courtin'.

All this to say -- I'll be updating a lot more regularly from now on, and keeping my word too. Count on it!

P.S. -- If you can spare a moment, several of my pieces for The Avocado Jungle. Thoughts, in ordered format.

Sepiatone loving

I've been spending a good part of my three-month work hiatus at home in LA with family, and more recently, in Taiwan with the extended family. Even through college, getting to spend this much time with fam was such a rarity, and what I was mostly able to salvage through those years were only bits and pieces of a larger picture. So I've considered these last few weeks a real treat in terms of quality down-time with the people who know me best.

Admittedly, being out in New York and away from my immediate family hasn't always been the easiest thing. On the surface, I embrace the independence and freedom that the city has to offer -- but it's both a blessing and a curse to be so easily accessible to everyone and everything in the vicinity. I'm lucky to even be able to experience life on a different coast, I know, to pursue my passions at a time when practicality might seem the better path.

But realistically, the pace of life can be pretty dang draining. I put myself on a two-week communication silence while I was in Taiwan, and I feel like I learned so much more and used my time so much more efficiently not being bound to the tether of technology. No email, no Internet, no Facebook, no phone. I spent more time living in the real "now" than in the demands of a contrived "now" made up of updates and Tweets and email counters. I wasn't running to catch up all the time; I could set my own pace.

Rather than living vicariously through other people in other time zones, I was actually taking part in my own life and really getting to see beyond the distraction of the Crackberry screen.

It was refreshing.

I've always said that health and family are the only two things that anybody needs. Everything else is extraneous and will fall into place somehow. My entire family made this trip back to Taiwan because my grandfather recently passed away, and in those two weeks, nothing else really mattered. I knew the job hunt would still be here when I got back. The emails, they would pile up. But nobody needed to get to me so urgently that it couldn't wait two weeks while I spent time with family.

My grandfather was 100 years old when he passed. He'd gone from living in the countryside to training to be a physician to being a surgeon to being a husband, father and grandfather. That's a lot of years of life. That's a lot of life in his years. But I don't think he ever would have (nor would anyone in his life) defined himself by just any one of those labels. He was human, and therefore multifaceted, and I think being there at the funeral really caused me to think a lot about mortality and death and, truth be told, life.

I titled this blog "quarter-life musings of a life in transition," and taken literally, that means I'm already (almost) a quarter of the way through with this thing called life. It's pretty terrifying, really. It's not that this means I have the sudden urge to grow up, necessarily, only that I'm more conscious of my thoughts and actions now, and how it'll all make for a projected "later."

The crazy thing is that the people that I've surrounded myself with now are the ones who'll be able to help piece together the bits of my life later on down the line. They're the ones I'll be reminiscing with and sharing memories with and the ones who'll become characters and names in the story I call my life. And these things I'm doing now, they're all leading to a big unexpected place called "the future," and as unpredictable as that place might be, I've got to pay better attention to the now in order to trace back my deliberate steps to wherever I end up.

Hearing so many stories about my grandfather, learning about the intricacies of the family -- politics and history and all that -- is inspiring. I don't think I'm alone when I say that I want to live a life worth telling about. And so I begin. Now.

Mind over matter, matter over mind

The last two weeks have been a little bit chaotic, to say the least. In the span of less than a month, I've learned so much about myself, what makes me tick and perhaps most importantly, that the sludge that had built up to prevent said ticking was a congealed result of...me. I had let my thoughts, and my perception of how others might interpret my thoughts, take over. Rather than being confident in my abilities and constructive about my shortcomings, I was slowly filling with doubt and unease, two things I have worked so hard to avoid.

But avoid no more. Doubt and unease are two things that make us all human, and by trying to suppress them, I was essentially trying to fill an always-bottomless cup. Denying the existence of the two is, basically, going against nature and really only fooling myself. As such, I've figured out, life is more about embracing those thoughts briefly and letting them go rather than ignoring them altogether.

Two weekends ago, I ran my first half marathon. Thirteen point one miles. I'd been training for it for a month and a half, and lo and behold, it couldn't have come at a better time. Riding the subway deeper into Queens early that Saturday was such a heartening experience, with other racers casting sideway grins at each other with their telltale orange tags flashing from their shoes. It was like a secret sign, a kind of signal we were all giving each other, an acknowledgment that we were all bracing for impact. Thirteen point one miles. I think, had I been in a different mindset, I would have been more doubtful of my ability to pull it off.

But in the end, it was mind over matter. My one goal (aside from finishing, of course) was to never stop running. And this was all fine until mile 10, when everyone around me started to slow down to a jog and then a walk. I felt a fleeting moment of discouragement. Well, if everyone else is giving themselves a break, why push myself so hard?

But as luck would have it, there came a sign. A young-ish guy, maybe around 30, jogged past me, clearly exhausted and panting, but with his feet bounding off the pavement. What energy! I was encouraged. Then I looked down and noticed that he was hitting the ground at an uneven rhythm. He had a prosthetic leg. Really? Really. How was I thinking of slowing down when this guy was just picking up speed? I sped up.

And I finished all 13.1 miles, no stopping, no walking, just pure adrenaline. And it felt so good, to know that my mind had overcome my body's weaknesses, that I had succeeded in my own race, at my own pace.

Then last week, I embarked on a very different personal journey, to upstate New York for a three day silent meditation retreat. No reading, writing, email, phones or talking. And it was glorious. One would think that a retreat like this would be all about the mind, but in fact, it was more about the body. Matter over mind. The focus was on the body, on being aware of breath and footsteps and small subtle movements that we take for granted. And by focusing in on the tangible, the intangible, the mind, started to clear.

In the silence of the retreat, I heard my own thoughts louder than I had ever imagined them to be. There was so much noise, so many stray thoughts, no focus. And no distractions. So I sat and I meditated and I learned about connecting my breath with my mind and stilling my thoughts not with force and suppression but with gentleness and calm. And I was soothed.

These past few weeks have been a little chaotic. But I wouldn't have had it any other way, else I wouldn't have learned to feel so deeply, hurt so openly, or think so freely. The thing about lessons, though, is that they should always be followed by change. So I'm working to change the patterns of my life to make way for an existence that fuses matter and mind, taking care to pay attention to both. It's the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end.

Stop this train

Proof vs. faith

Seeing is believing. Believing is seeing.

You know the idea of proof? The concept that in order to fully buy into a thing, a person or a feeling, you'd have to find some way to substantiate its very existence? These past few weeks have shown me that, in fact, needing proof -- alongside being realistic -- are perhaps the two biggest roadblocks to creativity and self-contentment. I know it sounds a little far-fetched, naive even, but two very important concepts came to my attention recently that made this revelation clear: the balance between knowledge and creativity and the balance between inner and outer validation.

Seeing is believing.

The saying refers to the idea that one must be doubtful of a claim until there is some form of tangible, visual, or audio validation that it is, in fact, true. We can't trust that it's raining until we step outside and feel it on our eyelids or hear the pitter patter on our rooftops; the weatherman never knows what he's talking about. She can't possibly be pregnant unless we see it with our own two eyes; anything otherwise is heresay. And we can't know that we're making the right decisions unless we are reassured enough or have seen people succeed traveling down the same path.

But even that's not a guarantee.

That's the past. That's history. Doing things in a conventional way won't bring us new, innovative results; that's just illogical. Doing things in a conventional way does, however, serve as a way to reaffirm what we already knew would happen; that's knowledge. When we speak of someone who is very knowledgeable, we're usually referring to his or her stash of facts, his or her ability to recite proven facts. And while knowledge is something undeniably necessary in becoming a better (insert noun here), it shouldn't be the only thing. It's a foundation, not the whole creation.

That's where creativity steps in. When we have a solid grasp of the past (knowledge), only then are we able to reinvent and push boundaries and really learn. We learn by mistakes, by chances and by blind faith. Seeing shouldn't be necessary to believe.

Believing is seeing.

Rearrange the phrase and you would, upon initial glance, just get an alternate reading of the same concept. But look again. Believing is seeing. Once we begin to trust our own creativity and believe in our visions, sans precursors or safety nets, we start to really open up and see. Having faith in our own abilities is what makes for the best results. Were we to constantly worry about what other people thought of our progress or, heaven forbid, us, then we would be too afraid to try different things.

Inner validation is about trust. It's about having a solid basis of knowledge and from that, constructing a creation that hasn't been attempted before despite whether or not it garners others' approval. That's what sets those who love life and carve their own paths apart from those who mildly enjoy the pre-trodden roads -- neither is a bad place to be, but wouldn't it be better to be in a great place?

Faith > Fear

Energy, much?

I've gotten way too complacent. Being comfortable means I'm not pushing myself enough, so looks like I'll have to haul some major you-know-what. To be young and in the City doesn't mean a thing if I'm okay with being just that: young and, well, here.

I need to shake things up. Winter's over and hibernation just isn't an option anymore.

Big things are going to happen in 2010, I can feel it.

Plans, A-Zed

Having a Plan B is more harmful than helpful in the long run. True or false? I've been thinking a bit about this, and about whether my conclusions to this query are even valid given that I'm coming from a (largely) unrealistic mindset, one wherein I have the privilege of having a "rich man's troubles."

By this, I mean that having the option to pursue something I want to do in life is a luxury. I realize this all too well. Not everyone is blessed with the opportunity of choice. For most of the world, it's sink or swim. If you don't like what you're doing, tough noogies because someone has to make money to support the household, and your happiness comes secondary after security.

But in the grand scope of things, does having a back-up plan actually harm you, regardless of whether or not it's practical? Having a back-up to anything is like subconsciously telling yourself that the first option won't work out. Why would you need a second choice if the first one is the right one?

Choice, I think, can seriously hinder our ability to adapt (and I can't tell yet if this is a good or bad thing...am currently trying to think through it). Our Plan A is always going to be that dream, that almost-out-of-reach goal that we strive to attain. It's our Plan A because it's what we would want in a perfect world, be it a career, a relationship, or a life path, and moreover, it's that thrill of the chase that makes it a Plan A. Our Plan B is always something that we're willing to settle for, that we agree upon with a "Well, that wouldn't be so bad."

And not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing, but realistically speaking (ha!), this is like saying that you didn't have the persistence, the passion or the patience to see Plan A all the way through. You opted to take an easier path and will likely spend your energy justifying it to yourself. Having options means never having to change and adapt, and if life isn't about changing or adapting, then what is it about?

Learning is never supposed to happen in comfort. Plan B represents stability, safety and sometimes...stagnation. Growing up and being in your 20s is about pursuing Plan A. I remember that line from "Up in the Air," when Clooney's Ryan Bingham told his firee (guy he was firing, I'm sure that's a word somehow...) that the reason why kids admire athletes so much is because they followed their dreams. There's a dignity and a drama to that.

When people tell me to be "realistic" or ask about whether or not my job is "real," I never know how to respond. I am being realistic. So were and are all the people who have been able to create their own definitions of reality. If you don't like something, change it. And to me, having a "real" job is not tied to the definition of clocking in and clocking out as per "standard." A "real" job doesn't have to be one that you're miserable at -- I think the idea that someone would actually like going into work is counterintuitive to most; it was also considered abnormal to "like" homework, wasn't it?

But in moving to New York, I meet people who love their work just as often as I meet those who detest it. And to me, I know which group I want to fall into. The goal was never to settle into something comfortable. The goal was always to learn and live fully every day. Maybe this is naive, but that's my Plan A.

And I don't know or really care to have a Plan B past that.

I don't wanna grow up...

Corrective vision

One of the simplest, but most poignant questions I've ever had posed to me was this:

"How do you SEE the world?"

At the time, I was sitting in an auditorium full of admitted students in SGM at USC, all 17 and 18-year-old seniors looking to leave the constraints of high school and eagerly tromping ahead into the next big chapter of their lives.

"How do you SEE the world?"

At that point in our (still-young) maturation, sight had everything to do with what you saw and not how you interpreted it. I remember thinking, when the professor at the front of the room planted this kernel of thought in my brain, that I didn't understand. I SAW what was set before me. Isn't that what sight is all about? From a young age, you learn to see and appreciate the details of the things you come across -- ask any high school graduate to describe for you a wintry scene, write a paragraph about the intricacies of the human heart, or dissect the strokes of a Monet painting, and (with much grumbling) it can be done.

But ask that same student to tell you HOW they see the world, whether it be in pockets of patterns, numbers and figures, or abstract concepts, and he wouldn't be able to tell you. Until I heard that question thrust so casually into the air, I hadn't ever stopped to think about my own frame of vision.

"HOW do you see the world?"

The significance of this question was, of course, many-fold, but perhaps the most important reason she posed the question was for direction. In answering, or attempting to answer, that question, we would each gain insight into our talents, our expectations, our future; what made us tick.

Those who see the world in terms of numbers and figures -- measuring days in minutes, achievements in points -- would be well-suited for careers in engineering, accounting, finance, something wherein their measure of success can be determined by a given point system.

Those who see the world in patterns, series of events, would probably fare best in history or literature, a profession wherein their contributions would come from a big-picture mentality.

And those who think in abstract concepts, pinpointing various elements of their everyday lives as significant and looping in philosophy and sociology -- those are the crazies, the revolutionaries.

So many paths, all beginning with a renewed definition of sight. I think about that question a lot these days, about how I SEE the world, because I know with each new experience I take one step closer to an as-yet fuzzy definition of sight. How I see the world will determine how I can contribute to it, though I can't truly see the world until I've become a part of it.

It's a paradox, that.

"How do you SEE the world?"

"HOW do you see the world?"

Excerpted: An 18-Year-Old Looks Back On Life

From Joyce Maynard's 1972 piece for the New York Times magazine:

"When my friends and I were little, we had big plans. I would be a famous actress and singer, dancing on the side. I would paint my own sets and compose my own music, writing the script and the lyrics and reviewing the performance for The New York Times. I would marry and have three children (they don't allow us dreams like that any more) and we would live, rich and famous (donating lots to charity, of course, and periodically adopting orphans), in a house we designed ourselves. When I was older I had visions of good works. I saw myself in South American rain forests and African deserts, feeding the hungry and healing the sick, with an obsessive selflessness, I see now, as selfish, in the end, as my original plans for stardom.

Now my goal is simpler. I want to be happy. And I want comfort -- nice clothes, a nice house, good music and good food, and hte feeling that I'm doing some little thing that matters. I'll vote and I'll give to charity, but I won't give myself. I feel a sudden desire to buy land -- not a lot, not as a business investment, but just a small plot of earth so that whatever they do to the country I'll have a place where I can go -- a kind of fallout shelter, I guess. As some people prepare for their old age, so I prepare for my 20's. A little house, a comfortable chair, peace and quiet -- retirement sounds tempting."

Time for some reflection and reassessing, no?

A purpose-driven life

There's a reason why we're not born colorblind. Life in black and white, and even shades of grey, would be undoubtedly dull. And yet, why is it that so many elements in our lives seem to be defined by just this - a lack of color, a seemingly resigned sense of dull monotony? Where's the vibrancy, the pop of hue that makes each day worth waking up to?

New York City is known for its corporate culture. Reading the paper on the subway, staring at a screen all day, eating nondescript sandwiches for lunch, vegging out on the subway ride home and passively watching TV before falling asleep to do it all over again. Not exactly the most impressive showcase of the romanticized City so many non-New Yorkers aspire toward, the one wherein each day is fresh and inspiring and different. It's easy to fall into the daily grind of working just to live, to make money, to save up, to be practical.

But I read a few of the "Most Emailed" headlines on the New York Times website today, and that got me thinking. The articles that have been circulated and shared the most are about retirement, old age, mental health and career changes. Clearly, there is a trend. People spend many of their waking hours worrying about their careers (how to get one, if they don't have one; or how to get out of one, if they do have one), thereby literally worrying themselves sick. Stress leads to a weakened immune system (and probably sleepless nights and accompanying pills), which leads to illness and disease and other stress-triggered problems.

This concern over what to do with life, how to apply our skills, never ends. That is, until it really does end, when we retire. At that point, according to the NYT headlines, we start to worry ourselves over what to do with all this free time now that we've just gotten into the groove of work-life balance. How will I while my time away, stuck in the house with a spouse, having been too busy during my work years to cultivate my interests and no longer young enough to enjoy some of the activies I used to? It's a legitimate concern.

It seems as though once one phase of life ends - the bustling 20s, the strategic 30s, the settling 40s, the midlife 50s and the retiring 60s - another begins; there is no overlap. Black. And. White. And a great portion of each phase is spent worrying about the next phase. Hence the monotomy for some semblance of "living in the present" while really panicking over the future and mulling over the past.

A few weeks back, I spoke with Jason Reitman, the director for Up in the Air. He was telling me about the inspiration behind the film, which follows Clooney's character around the country as he detachedly "eases" recently laid off employees into the "rebirth" process of job hunting. He told me that he went into the film with one goal in mind: to convey the importance of purpose by showing a general lack of it in the screenplay.

"My biggest fear isn't waking up one day and having no money," he said. "My biggest fear is waking up one day and having no purpose."

Because where's the motivation then? If you don't genuinely do the things you love, then life will fly by pretty quickly and if something comes a-trotting into your straight-and-narrow, black-and-white path, you'll be completely sidelined. You'll have a map and a place to go, but no reason to travel anywhere. And then you're really lost.

You. Are. Here.

And then you color outside the lines.

The Roaring 20s

The 20s aren't meant to be easy - but that fact gets buried fairly often. Nestled somewhere between the trying years of adolescence and the feared complacency of routine that characterize the teens and the 30s, respectively, the 20s are supposed to be "the best years of your life." Old enough to drink, young enough not to care about mortgages and "real" responsibilities. Idealistic enough to believe, pragmatic enough to execute.

Tacking on that label, however, can mean that those who aren't yet out of college, and those who are too far removed from the 20s, soon forget just what a weird and tumultuous time it is. Gone is the security of familiarity, with friends and family scattered throughout the state, country, world. Gone is the dependability of routine, of knowing that even the worst circumstances will come to an end coinciding with the end of a semester or school year. And most importantly, gone is the degree of certainty that there is a "correct" next step to take moving toward the next phase of life.

Being in your 20s means that, ultimately, for the first time in a long time, you really have to evaluate what it is you want, how you're going to get it, and why you want it. Prior to this vast slate known as "the real world," everything in life was comparatively neat.

Everything could be traced back to expectations. After elementary school, you moved on to junior high and high school. You worked hard in high school with the knowledge that your standardized test scores (ick) and grades would promise you success in the form of a college acceptance letter. You spend four years (or more or less) in college trying to solidify your beliefs, your thoughts, your goals as a genuinely active member of society. You expect that this, and all the things you have learned in and out of classes in your 20-something years of life, will also guarantee some form of social success. You have, after all, paid an arm and a leg for it. And then...you graduate.

Everything from there on out has absolutely nothing and everything to do with expectations. With the exception of going to grad school (this is still being in a system, in a more managed chaos), college grads are then really hit in the face with the question they should have been answering all those 20-something years ago: What do I want to do in life?

Short of hanging out with friends and exchanging woes and ideas about what it is that makes us happy, we are no longer armed with the leisurely time to really question things. There are no more classroom lessons, scheduled vacations, or discussion sections that will prompt us to think in these terms. Life after college can become pretty draining, pretty monotonous, pretty quickly.

But questioning...it's just something that needs to be done, else we toil mindlessly and just kind of drift into our 30s. And this is why the 20s are so tricky. Because the truth is, once you're out of a system, everything becomes a juggling act.

It's like piecing together a puzzle. All your years leading up to your 20s involved forming the pieces by means of learning about your likes, dislikes, interests and talents. Your 20s become, then, the years where you start to gather the disparate pieces and try to make out a discernable shape. You see what pieces you can use, which ones you can't, which ones are misshapen, and where they all fit together. But perhaps most importantly, you can, after attempting to mold all these bits together, see what is missing.

Living through the 20s is difficult because without the expectation that there is a correct route to take or a right way to piece together the puzzle, there is so much uncertainty. Life has given you enough experience and "wisdom" to recognize that you don't have all the answers and that you can't force things into place. But because the 20s involves honing and building and connecting, it's often difficult to take a step back and see that big picture.

And the missing pieces? They'll always be in the last place you look.

Musical chairs

Sometimes I feel like I'm playing musical chairs with my life. I made a comment to a friend the other day that my life is just one continuous stream of side notes. There's a continuous trek toward a somewhere and a something, but the vast majority of my experiences thus far have been detours, and part of me wonders when and if I'll be on a clear path anytime soon.

I mean, I'm fine either way if I will or if I won't, but some days I just wish I knew. Because it would be a lot more convenient that way.

I say musical chairs because at present, I'm balancing a few things simultaneously, and my efforts and attention seem to move pretty consistently through each project, though they can never cover all bases simultaneously. I'm still working at People (thank goodness), but am job-hunting and freelancing on the side, as well as editing for an online publication and studying for the GRE. I'm working on starting a magazine (which is a stop-and-go process), and trying to compile all my clips into a comprehensive personal site and business card.

Needless to say, days are long but weeks are fast.

It's like this immense, weighty guessing game. Round and round and round I go, where I'll stop, nobody knows. I'm trying to prepare for every possible situation at once and have a foot semi-firmly planted in different options should the opportunities arise, but it's pretty dang tiring.

Graduate school? I'd love to get a masters in education somewhere down the line, but don't know that I'm in the right mindset for that just now. The GRE is a preparation for it, though.

Working at People? It would be SUCH a fantastic opportunity, and I love working there so much, but I know that the way the economy and the industry is, I can't put all my eggs in one basket.

Freelancing? It's a tough lifestyle, and something I always saw as more of a supplement than a full-time investment. I've got ideas, but it's a hard sell getting publications to want and need them at just the right time.

Applying to other publications? Honing my skills at my present job means I focus all my attention on that, and am usually too tired to think about applications or interviews otherwise. It's a necessary thing, though, and so I'm working on it.

Creating a magazine? This is the ultimate dream, but because there aren't instant results, it's obviously slower to take flight. When there are so many other things that seem to take precedence over this "personal project," it's easy to lose site of the ultimate goal, which would be really creating something with all my heart.

There are so many paths to take, so many chairs to edge around. Because when the music stops, I want to be sure to get a seat - which one is irrelevant.

This might sound strange, but in this case, I just don't want to be left the last one standing.

Family & familiarity

This might sound really trite and dumb of me, but I hadn't realized how much I had underestimated the value of family until this past weekend. I spent the better part of yesterday out on Staten Island, visiting the extended family - people I haven't seen in nearly 10 years, all of whom still remember me in pigtails or jumpers or both.

My aunt and uncle (Aunt Jane and Uncle Paul, my closest relatives back in LA) flew out to New York for a weekend of reunions and meals and reminiscing. They're both just past 70, but are as active and social as ever (this is a common thread in my family, the longevity and the activeness). They've never had children and therefore take on any kids - that is to say, anyone in a generation past theirs - as their own.

My cousins and I all have fond memories of spending summers and weekends at their house, watching cartoons (theirs was the first house to get cable, and later, the first to have AOL back in the dial-up days), eating lots of candy and essentially having free reign over our days. They were the aunt and uncle who would say "yes" to extended bedtimes and "no" to homework, and we loved them for it.

What we didn't realize was that, along the way, they were building the kind of trust and bond between their generation and ours that would prove essential as we all began to grow up.

I got a phone call from my uncle on Thursday when he and my aunt landed in the City, and he insisted that I make the trek out to Staten Island with them yesterday, that it was important that I reacquaint myself with that side of the family. They all want to see you, he said. You've grown up a lot since they last saw you.

So I went. My aunt (recovering from some pretty intense physical therapy post-surgery), my uncle (exclaiming every two seconds about how much New York has changed), my cousin (just about to start his senior year at NYU) and I boarded a ferry in the early afternoon. Destination: memory lane, Staten Island.

A ferry and train ride later, we were in the heart of Staten Island, surrounded by trees and homes with dusty white picket fences and cars that hummed down small tarred roads. The aunt and uncle we were visiting were actually old college friends of Aunt Jane and Uncle Paul, a wonderful couple that might as well have been family, if not by blood.

I hadn't seen either of them in ages, and sure enough, they made comments about how tall I've gotten, how much I've changed, how glad they were that I've decided to move out to the east coast (But don't tell your mother I said that). It was eye-opening to see the age in their eyes, the wrinkles that crept up around their smiles, the grey that shone in their hair at certain angles.

Clearly, we had all changed.

It wasn't until their daughters, Susan and Linda (my adopted cousins of sorts), joined us, that I really felt the weight of the change. I finally met Susan's 5-year-old son Michael, autistic and so charismatic (half-Chinese and half-Irish is a beautiful mix, his dad Kevin pointed out), and Linda's fiancé Chris (she had had a different boyfriend last time we met).

Knowing that these cousins had built a life for themselves in the interim between now and when I had last visited was an unexpected shock. Usually, visiting relatives means seeing physical signs of aging, but not complete lifestyle restructuring.

From their perspective, they couldn't believe that I had already shorn my pigtails and glasses, let alone graduated from college. It boggled their minds that I was old enough to drink, when the last time they had seen me I was still disgusted by the bitter taste of coffee.

We all went out to dinner, and I just couldn't wrap my mind around the generational shift that had taken place. Michael was calling me Auntie. Aunt Jane and Uncle Paul were now Grandma Jane and Grandpa Paul. My cousins, one nearing 30 and the other nearing 40, weren't the young, flighty girls I had remembered them to be. They had something solid, something established. They were creating their own sense of home and family.

But though the change was startling, it wasn't scary. Because honestly, seeing all the interactions at the dinner table - Linda dumping grape leaves on Susan's plate, Kevin talking football with Chris, a long-lost uncle catching up with Aunt Jane - made me see just how important those initial bonds still were.

In the middle of all the craziness of moving to New York and trying to find a foothold in the journalism industry, I had forgotten what it felt like just to spend an afternoon with family. And just...be.

I've always contended that if you have your family and your health, then nothing else really matters. Things fall into place, problems work themselves out, and the world keeps turning. This weekend confirmed that. At the end of the day, what I decide to do in the coming years and where I ultimately end up will be more than fine no matter what. I've been blessed with a loving family (and an intricate network of extended family), and that support is immeasurable.

Having that knowledge is invigorating, inspiring. From a solid base like that you can really go anywhere. Like I'd been taught by the great Sumi back at USC, roots before branches.

Roots before branches.

Why journalism?

Given the current economic climate and the state of the publishing industry, I feel like this question is being addressed in an increasingly urgent manner - by not only its consumers but also its creators. Why spend money on print material in the form of newspapers and magazines when you can just as readily (and more inexpensively) access the NYTimes online or surf your favorite specialty blog? What's the point of having a profession dedicated to a written report of the news when people are becoming their own news aggregators via Twitter and Facebook?

What's the big necessity of quality journalism these days anyways? Who cares?

I've been thinking a lot about this for a while (as I'm sure every recent J-school grad has been), and I hope I don't sound too naive or dramatic when I insist that journalists are as necessary to society as, say, politicians. Or doctors and lawyers. Or engineers and celebrities (yes, the latter are necessary too...usually).

These past few weeks, I've been working on several projects that require me to dig deep into the archives of People and unearth some articles of prominent American figures and other huge news events. And there's definitely something to be said about holding a hard copy of a 1979 magazine, poring over the pages in search of the one detail in the presidential interview that could make or break a major news story now.

There's such a sense of history and weightiness to having a solid product that just can't be replicated by shoveling through piles of e-magazines and archived digital files. When things are written for magazines or newspapers, they're out there for good. There's a sense of credibility to the words that writers use when they put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) that can't be undermined by a few strokes of the "delete" key and completely changed (or deleted) online.

And seriously, this is literally news in the making. It's a huge responsibility and a huge thrill to think that the decisions made around the table at each morning meeting - what will go on the cover, what stories and photos to run - these are the decisions that will help to shape a generation and a culture.

I realize that I'm not saving lives. Or creating energy-saving household goods. Or impacting society in a way that is deemed "heroic" - but at the end of the day, I spread knowledge, and that's the best way I know to contribute using what skills I've acquired over the years. And I know that writing, from an outsider's perspective, isn't really a "career path" to take; it's more of a hobby. But I've discovered in my four years at USC, and again now as a reporter for People, that honing the craft and being able to relate otherwise untouchable subjects in a clear, honest way to readers is something that's rewarding in and of itself, paycheck aside.

In questioning the future of journalism, and to a more selfish extent, my own future with journalism, I talked to a lot of seasoned editors and writers to get their take on starting out anew at this point in time. And the thing is that they were optimistic, encouraging about the possibilities I would come across in this ever-changing journalism landscape.

Being a part of the transition means helping to shape where journalism is going, and helping to shape journalism means helping to create the boundaries and safeguards that dictate where society flows down the line too.

Call it power-tripping or realistic revelation, but either way, it's a good way to go.

Another thing that journalism vets always emphasize is this:

There's no reason to do journalism and stick with it if not for the passion.

There's not a whole lot of money to be had, save for a select few who have paid their dues and worked their way up. The hours are insane - news doesn't sleep when normal people do. It's easy to fall victim to the workaholic syndrome because stories and reliance on other people can so inexplicably take precedence over your social life and family life. Really, if you take the genuine passion of conveying a human story, an emotion or a reaction out of the journalism equation, the picture looks pretty dang grim.

So when people ask me, "Why journalism?" I really take it to heart and think about why I'm investing so much in an industry that seems to return so little.

And the truth is that the same way completing a study or watching a class graduate is rewarding for scientists and teachers, respectively, being able to constantly learn and grow as a person "for a career" is more a return than I could have ever asked for.

Despite everything that's shifting and changing in society right now, none of it would matter if it weren't documented. And I don't mean in a quick Tweet or a few Facebook photo albums. I mean in publications that have continued to reinvent themselves and fight against critics who say that the new wave of "journalism" is all user-based and unmanageable. When you look back 20 , 30, 40 years from now and want to remember what happened when Obama won the presidency, you'll look to old Tweets and status updates and blogs to see individual reactions, sure.

But it's up to journalists to capture the mood of an entire nation and society at a specific moment in time.

...and that's why, journalism.

What next?

Graduation slipped into June slipped into July fit perfectly into August. And now, more than two months after walking across the stage and accepting my (fake) diploma on the lawn just behind Doheny, I'm looking at the next step. Now that summer internships are wrapping up and people are moving out of the City and back into the realm of "normal" life and routine, I'm left with a creeping feeling that this really does mean that I have to (and I hesitate to use the phrase) "grow up."

The more permanent aspects of life here in New York are finally starting to fall into place. I'll be moving into my apartment in Astoria, Queens in just a week's time. And though my internship should be up just one day prior to moving day, come the following Monday, I'll be starting my first stint as a full-time temp. Exciting? I think yes.

I went bed shopping today. It was pretty telling, I think, that I've never had the privilege (chore?) of shopping for a mattress - not for myself, at least. Growing up, a lot of decisions like that were never mine to make. At home, all the pieces of my house, save for the more personal (read: ridiculous) parts, like old craft projects or awesome-but-useless posters and pillows, were selected for me. In college, I never moved outside of university-owned housing because I didn't want to have to deal with furniture or finding people to sublease my place when I went abroad.

Now, all of a sudden, I'm building my room for scratch. And this time around, I don't know how long I'll be there. Everything else always had a time stamp. High school, six years (this was Whitney and we smooshed junior high and high school together). College, four years. London, one semester. Everything was set in manageable chunks. This...this is different.

It's exciting, don't get me wrong, to be able to construct in my head what I want my little piece of New York to look like, and even the most trivial things seem to be important, but it's also a daunting task. It's hard to prepare for something without a more definite end date in sight.

Without classes to return to in the fall or a projected date of return to California and "home," the things I decide to fill this room with will become my own little kind of home. The semi-permanence of it all is exhilarating, because after the more transient nature of summer in NYC, I'll finally get a chance to experience what it's like to live on another coast, with another kind of culture, in the company of other people who have decided to call this City home.

I've said from the start that I fell instantly in love with NYC, that it just felt right in a way that no other place had before. And while this is still true, looking at being in the City for the next few years or so seems like such a huge commitment that the best thing I know to do right now is just enjoy it in the present moment and not worry too much about things coming down the line. Otherwise I might just spazz a bit with the finality of it all.

Fitting, isn't it? The commitment-phobe who's afraid to commit to her own life.

I reached a point a few weeks ago where I let doubt venture into my vision of New York. My mind was pretty clouded, looking out at the people around me and starting to let suspicion encroach upon our relationships. The City can be very dog-eat-dog, after all, and I think listening to enough people tell you that you have to be strong and preemptively keep away from opportunists can make anyone a little bit paranoid. Then I took a breather and realized that spending my energy focusing on the negatives really wasn't getting me anywhere.

If things get tough, I've always been taught, then do something about it.

And if you're not doing anything to actively change your situation, then don't complain.

So I literally sat down and wrote out a list of things I want to accomplish in New York, ranging from the small (find the best rooftop bar) to the big (get published in the NYTimes) to the fantastic (train for next year's NYC marathon). And I realized that, open-ended though this jaunt is in the City, I just don't have enough time in the day to waste on negative emotions.

Being put in a different context and learning to adapt is something I've gotten used to over the years, and this New York experience is none too different. The key, regardless of situation or location, is to stay hungry and to stay humble. Everything else will follow. With so many things up in the air, though, I'll admit that it is comforting to know that I'll at least (as of next week) have a place to call home for the next few ______s.

And in looking toward the next step, that's all I can ask for, really.

The short of it.

And in the end, validation of this kind is so surreal that (and this is cheesy) my heart can't stop smiling.

Best nuggets of advice

...and yes, I just said "nuggets." So I'm reading this book:


and I'm finding lots of bits of inspiration in it, many quotable things, so I thought I would share:

"A number of people said they were simply in the right place at the right time. Many of our respondents, Don Hewitt among them, used the word lucky when describing the arc of their lives or careers. While they may have indeed been fortunate in different ways, we should take this as a sign that they're thankful for their success - that they understand the value of humility. Most people understand that chance favors the prepared. Hard work, risk taking, refusing to quite, and the will to get to the next waypoint no matter how formidable the obstacles appeared helped to define these people." ...as stated in the introduction.

"Stop working for a living and start designing a life." ...as stated by Tony Robbins.

"The important thing to know is that one thing that was really beneficial to me was my naivete ... Those who need certainty don't do anything, because nothing is ever certain." ...as stated by Survivor creator Mark Burnett.

"The key to achieving success in business is passion. Don't approach the business with a formula or just expecting to make a quick buck. You must have a desire. A vision. And then go at it hammer and tongs." ...as stated by Steve Forbes.


...and I'm just four chapters in.