A dear friend of mine who I was deeply in love with just cut ties with me. And I’m surprisingly calm.
Part of it is because I don’t think there is much left unsaid or anything I really regret about the whole friendship/relationship we had. I loved so many things about her. The way she made jokes, the sound of her voice, the patience and love she showed me at my worst. I will never forget that and I think she’s changed my life in ways she probably doesn’t even know.
I only wish she felt safe enough, trusted me enough, to tell me about how she truly felt. The worries, the emotions, the anger she was going through, I wish she trusted me enough to be open about it – so I could be as loving as she was for me and be closer today for it. In the end, she gave up on me – just like I had almost given up on her earlier in the friendship.
There are two things that still make me feel like someone is ripping apart my heart with a fork:
The fear that I wasn’t ever really special to her. That maybe she will turn around and say and do all of the things she said and did for me to the next person down the line. Maybe she has already found that next person. Maybe that is why she left. This hurts me somewhere so deep it’s hard for me to face fully.
The hope that she will come back. Hope is pure torture. I’m afraid it will drive me mad if I dwell on it too long.
There are more steps of grief, more growing I will need to do. But this is how I feel right now.
* I wrote this on Jan 15th…gonna leave it as a journal entry for now.
I feel unhappy right now. I feel like I can’t work on the things I want to work on. I feel stressed out that my relationship won’t work out. I don’t know what I’m doing here in France. I actually very much dislike the country. I am worried that coaching is not the thing that I actually want to do. I find it hard to find myself and feel myself in this relationship. I wonder if that is because of me not knowing myself, coaching not being the thing I want to do, or if this is the wrong place for me.
Right now I don’t feel like working on coaching or thinking about coaching.
I want to work on something that is purely interesting to me and something that is actually fun.
I think that thing right now is making a story creation bot in python using large language models.
In order to write a halfway decent story, I believe you need a couple of things:
Letting themselves come to the surface in new ways
Passion as unwavering supportiveness
Fantasy as easygoing humor and happiness
This poem is about realizing that sexual love can be beautiful, adventurous, and happy. It doesn’t need to be suppressed. Yet it also can feel the pain of trauma, and be expressed as deep caring and supportiveness. It’s a strange new place because I cannot wrap my head around how it works even though it feels right and true.
There are so many nice people I meet along the road if I’m just being myself and open to people.
When I was on the plane to Napa Valley I sat next to a couple. The girl got really excited when I wanted to draw with my fountain pen because her boyfriend said she loves that stuff and was an art major like me. I couldn’t get the ink of the pen and but got ink over my hands. She gave me her wet wipe in order to wipe ink off my hands. Her boyfriend lent me a pen when I asked for one to draw with. She braided her hair to show me how braids work because I wanted to draw a character with a huge braid. She offered me her chips when I said I was hungry. She was teasing me so much and was so friendly it actually got a bit awkward with her boyfriend who didn’t seem so pleased.
When I was hiking on Napa Valley, I told a couple that it was worth the view but I had to come back down because I didn’t bring any water. The girl asked me if I wanted any of her water, and asked me if I had to cup to pour it into. Then she and her boyfriend tried to help me find a water fountain.
Also when I was in Napa Valley, I forgot to bring a pen with me to draw with. I asked the girl at the front if I could borrow or buy one. She pulled out a packet of pens and just gave me one.
When I was in Austin looking at apartments, the girl who was showing me apartments told me about how Oracle was buying the apartment complex and that she wasn’t supposed to tell me. She told me I had a really nice vibe. I feel bad because I may have gotten her in trouble because when we got back to the office, I asked her about the Oracle acquisition REALLY loudly because I forgot and she put a finger to her lips and looked really nervous. I was mortified.
When I was in Houston taking photos on the rooftop, I was feeling awkward because everyone there was in their own groups talking and they are all from Citi bank but I was taking photos by myself with a tripod. When I got in the elevator, two girls were telling me how they saw me shooting photos. “You got some good shots right? We saw you,” they told me. One girl said she was calling me the other girl’s brother since she also takes pictures. She asked me whether I lived in the area, and I told her no that I was visiting from DC.
When I went to a Chinese restaurant in Houston and I was struggling to figure out what to order, the waiter came up and asked me what I wanted to order. He asked me if I was Chinese, and I responded in Chinese. He asked me if I was born in China or the US and I told him I was born in Denmark and he said it was a nice place. He said he was from Hong Kong. “I can make something Chinese style for you”, he said and made me a custom dish with eggplant, chicken and string beans. I asked him to take a picture with me, for the memories. He agreed and asked me mine name. He told me his name but I only remember his surname (Leung).
I think back to the guy who asked me yesterday whether or not I was a Youtuber and I think I was so busy being self-conscious and embarrassed, that I closed off the chance that he could have also been a nice person. Even after I told him I had 300 subs, he said to me to keep up the good work. I was just so embarrassed I got out of there as quickly as I could.
Ever since I left my house and went off to college, it has been increasingly hard to go to bed on time.
It’s killing me. I don’t recover from workouts, my mind is foggy, and my memory mists away. My moods feel erratic and neurotic. Energy during the day is a thing of the past.
And yet I cannot stop.
2 am, 3 am, 4 am, 5 am. I keep going to bed late. And sometimes later and later.
I tried so many times to go to be at a reasonable time. I try for a few days, and then I relapse. But we aren’t giving up. We are trying it one more time.
And I didn’t do it alone. My good friend Edgar gave me this kick in the butt:
So what is my gameplan this time? How am I going to succeed when I failed so many times before?
A couple of things:
I will not try to control how much sleep I get
I will not try to control my screen habits
I will not control anything but one single factor, which is my bedtime
At the same time, I will figure out what needs I am meeting by going to bed late and how to meet those needs earlier in the day
I will commit to this bedtime long enough to form a habit
I made a list of reasons why I love staying up late at night:
Completely alone
Lots of time – no rush
Sense of accomplishment (if I feel I haven’t accomplished anything yet it gives me more time to get things done)
Consume art
Nighttime magical vibes
Dread of the next day
More time to eat and digest
I realized that not sleeping is incredibly compelling to me. It is far more challenging for me to go to sleep on time than most people. So as a result, I need to keep it simple. Bedtime at 11 PM for the next 66 days, no exceptions. The challenge will end on December 12th. I am two days into this challenge already.
What does this mean?
I can eat right before bed
I can watch videos in my bed after 11
I can get back up, stretch if I cannot fall asleep, then go back to bed
I can toss and turn at 11
I can get up at 6 am if I have work that needs to be done but I don’t have the time to finish it
In the meantime, in an attempt to meet all my needs before bed:
I will silence notifications and try to find some alone time every day
I will work to identify a task that is feasible to do and will give me a strong sense of accomplishment every day
I will try to get this done early so that I will have larger open times during the day where I don’t feel rushed
I will pursue more art and magical vibes
I will try to leave gifts for myself the next day so I have positive anticipation(ex: a clean empty sink, plans for something fun)
I will try to eat at 8 pm at the latest so I have time to digest before 11
In terms of how to structure the next 66 days, I have not decided yet, but perhaps I will try to focus on each of the needs and strategies every week.
Some additional strategies/thoughts:
Turning off all the lights
Melatonin gummies
So far, finding a way to feel accomplished/ready for the next day has been a game-changer in wanting to go to sleep. Also, it is easier to go to sleep when bedtime is a hard boundary that is very strict and everything else is quite relaxed (I can still get less sleep and wake up super earlier if I feel I’m not prepared for the next day, I don’t have to go to sleep as long as I’m in bed). Nothing is tempting as a valid excuse/difficult decision anymore.
So tentatively I feel this time will be different. My hope is that after 66 days, I will no longer have to try to go to bed at 11, it will just be automatic, and I will start to cherish my sleep and life in general!
I think a lot of people have it wrong when they look to people for guidance. We look for the rich, the successful, the types of people who made a million dollars and are now flaunting it with expensive cars, watches, and parties, and beautiful women almost saying, “you want this? I can show you how to get it”.
But the truth is that no one wants that, even though they think they might want it. People want to know the truth of things. They want to know how to live, how to love, and how to lose. They want to learn how to see beauty, find joy and feel sadness. They want to find meaning, feel like they are special, and that they are exploring the world like we did when we were kids. There is nothing wrong with money, but it was once just a tool, and now it has become the goal.
The people who got the closest to the answer are not businessmen, but artists. Is it not the music of musicians, the books of authors, the paintings or painters, and the films of filmmakers that are often the most profound teachers of life?
This is why I’ve always sought creation, youtube, and art out much more than success. This is why creators like Mr. Beast (though more well meaning than some creators disgust me with their materialism).
I’ve decided that THIS is the job I want. I want the hard job of creating. Creating art, music, writing, and videos. Creating something that will help people reach the deep ideas in life, but also simplify things to the sensations we feel and guide us back to being kids in the present moment.
I’ve always felt like some things in life feel like a damn waste of time. I always wonder what work is worth doing for me, something that I feel I was meant to do, and what feels not worth it for me.
I always knew it was understanding life, working through my traumas and understanding how to make life magic. But I never was so clear on what the work was.
I want to serve as more than just an artist but a speaker, a coach, someone who can explain the art in logical and easily understandable ways. I don’t want to be studying to be a coach. I want to be studying life, living it, exploring it, touching it. I want my coaching to be a collaboration in the enterprise of spreading this practice of understanding deeper truths in life and finding true purpose. The kind of purpose you feel when you hear a song you love, the kind of clarity when you read something profound.
And when I get money. Lots of money. I will just continue to create. Organizations, experiences, works of art.
Elements of my enterprise:
Creating art coloring life (comics, paintings, writings, etc.)
Live streaming/videos on creation/techniques/challenges/stories
Discussing works of art that color life
Creating guides on how to live/succeed/understand
Speaking on practical topics/problems/challenges
Coaching on developing color in life
Creating events that color life
*When I say “color life”, I mean the feeling of deep conversations, connecting with childlike wonder, being in the moment and feeling the feelings, being spontaneous, taking risks, and finding silence and simplicity. But why explain it? Listen to it down below.