My year "off"

This year has been my year "off". Yes, I'm referring to the period of time most people associate with unemployment and unproductiveness. But in my perspective, life continues whether you are employed or not. Rather than seeing this year as the year where the trajectory of my career took a dip or placed on pause, I saw it as an opportunity to learn and experience other aspects of life that may eventually help shape my future. As I've mentioned in a previous post, I believe that everyone is an intermediate version of their final selves. We are constantly influenced by the people we surround ourselves with, experiences, and perspective; thus, making us malleable, organic, and (more importantly) unique pieces of artwork. This year, especially, has definitely provided insights that have made me a different person than from the one I was almost a year ago.

One dominant influence that has shaped me this year was my work. I had the incredible opportunity to work with AANCART and C4-SPA4 coalitions to discuss with community leaders, physicians, and academics about the growing rates of late-stage cancer in the SPA4 district (downtown / Koreatown) of Los Angeles. We also came up with initiatives that we could develop collaboratively with the community in order to instill a sustainable solution to halt the growing cancer rates by providing greater healthcare resources and education. During my spare time from public health, I also tutored high school students in math and science for the academic year. Both experiences gave me opportunities to directly shape and mold other people's lives. That feeling when I see a student finally understanding a difficult concept, or when I see an elderly Hispanic woman's eyes looking relieved to find a cancer survivorship group that we formed, is the best feeling in the world. It was so easy for me to get lost in the theory and concepts behind textbooks / research, that I hardly ever felt what it was like to influence other people's lives. If you think about it, everyone's profession in one way or another affects someone else's. For me, I enjoy the idea of shaping someone's future potential. Being able to experience the moments when you directly see the results of your efforts is a feeling I will always remember, and use to motivate me in the future.

On a more personal level, I also took this extra time to work on my relationships. I recently realized that I have been rather selfish on my end of relationships. I, of course, support and care for God, family, and friends, but I have not been very good at it for several years. I would be there at times, and absent many other times in order to pursue my goals. My absence would, at times, lead to falling out, or not being there for the other person when he/she needed me. Consequently, I too felt extremely alone and not grounded. As a person who values the quality of a relationship over quantity, I wanted to rectify this issue immediately. I have reconnected with some old friends, and made a few new ones as well. I started to give more than I expected, and try to support the other person to the best of my abilities. Through this, I have so many great experiences to remember, and I have also discovered the people who would take the time out of their day to support me or lift my spirits / confidence no matter how busy they are.  Surrounding yourself with people who will lift you higher is very comforting and special, and I am so glad that I had the opportunity to work on my relationships and find a genuine support network of friends!

Being able to engage with old and new friends also transformed my idea of success. As someone who has gotten whatever I wanted (after putting in hard work of course), I thought that someone's trajectory of success was very linear- once you start making the right decisions, you are in an even better position to have successful outcomes. However, after meeting a diverse number of people and listening to their stories, I realized that my initial idea was not entirely applicable for everyone. I have met successful bankers, academics, and artists who have told me that they have failed many times in order to get to where they are today. I guess what makes a successful person stand out is their ability to persist. To me, this was the most important life-lesson that I got out of this year. I used to be (and still kind of am) a person who is afraid to make mistakes. I wanted to be perfect all the time, every time. But now, I shall embrace my mistakes / failures since learning from them will allow me to become even better at what I do. The success that follows after persistence will be even sweeter :)

I realize that this post is very general and almost aphoristic in tone (which usually isn't my style), but I really wanted to summarize some important key takeaways I got out of this year for myself. Hopefully some of you can relate to some or all of them!