I really only wanted one thing at the beginning of 2022: to fall in love with life again.
At the end of 2021, I was treading water to keep my mental health afloat, dealing with the residual effects of severe burnout, and generally felt really, really lonely. Things that made me excited before felt bleak, and I wondered if I would ever be able to rekindle my fire again.
This year taught me a lot about how to love. I let myself fall in love with the niche passions that no one else around me seemed to care about. With people and communities that uplifted me. With cities. With reckonings of the past that made me tear apart my identity. I became unabashedly obsessed with the things that made me warm and energized. I stopped being overly analytical about decisions and plans, finding the courage to jump and fall and figure things out as they happen. Over time, trusting myself became easy—you feel invincible! Once you walk the mental tightrope once, you can probably do it again. But you have to start walking first. Then, you realize that this is sort of fun, like you’re the main avatar of a video game learning to dodge the obstacles better and faster each time, and you wouldn’t want it any other way—a game that is predictable and certain is too boring.
It turns out that this cocktail of obsession, courage, and patience was the secret elixir to curing my mental health struggles, too. I was so fixated on the things that mattered that all the noise that used to consume me had disappeared. My intuition became louder and stronger. A classmate asked me one day: “how are you so confident that you’ll have a better time spending the night alone at home than at the party?” To this day, I still don’t know how to answer that question—things just feel right to me. I know exactly what I want now, and I’m not letting anyone or anything derail me from getting it.
Life started shimmering. Sparkling. Then, almost overwhelmingly, beaming. So bright that I found myself in tears sometimes—how is all of this real? Am I in a dream? Apparently this happens when you choose to give, listen, understand, and explore all that you can while expecting nothing in return; when you accept that the world doesn’t owe you anything. When you consistently show up for yourself and others, and stop to notice the little things, like when you realize you no longer stumble upon your words when giving a presentation, or how you feel more at ease with opening up to others about things you’re struggling with. Wow, you’re growing! And glowing, too—with all the light and energy life has reflected back on you.
2022 was racing, exhilarating, and grueling at times, but it also felt slow and deliberate. Maybe it’s because I grip onto the feelings and observations of every moving experience and dump them in my journal so I can relive them again and again. Maybe I’m just a hoarder of memories in my attempt to process and find meaning in every little detail of my life. Either way, I’ve come out of this year with new light and many mental souvenirs, and I’ll share a few of my favourites here:
i. on humble passion
At the beginning of 2022, I told my friend J.Z. that I was tired of feeling the need to always be so “out there” to network and establish myself professionally. He said I didn’t have to, and told me about a French mathematician he met who was very mildly spoken and chose each of his words meticulously. Each time he spoke, everyone listened attentively and thought deeply about everything he said. His words, even in such a contained volume, were incredibly compelling.
I started to be more intentional about the space I took up, online and in the physical world. I immersed myself in work that I found exciting without seeking any external validation in return. I was fuelled by passion and curiosity alone, and that took me far. It helped me achieve a unique, unwavering focus as I explored and contributed to the worlds of molecular neuroscience, computational biology, biotechnology, machine learning, and applied math this past year.
As some of my friends would describe, I’m mysterious, but in a good way. People start asking: “how did she do that?” or “wow, I want to get to know her more”. They start wondering how they can get involved and join you. People start gathering around you, instead of you aimlessly going to them because you thought you needed direction, but you were actually striding on your own path all along. I call it humble passion.
ii. on bravery in relationships
I used to be under the impression that my capacity to love is finite, and that if I give too much to others, I’ll end up losing myself. I was pretty guarded with the trust and care I gave to other people, which I think stemmed from a fear of abandonment—the perception that most interactions are temporary, and once people leave, I will be left with nothing again. Distance and avoidance were how I protected myself from this. What I learned is that love doesn’t just disappear, it stays with you. When you’re brave enough to give, love teaches you about yourself. And in many cases, it makes you love and want to better yourself more. Love expands.
I also tried to control the love that I received and the love that lingered. The thing is you can’t really change the way people love you and the way they show up in their relationships. But one of the bravest things you can do is develop the courage to love them in ways that may seem foreign to them. To show them what beauty means to you, and to expand their notion of what love should be. The key is to not expect anything in return—leave it up to them to decide whether they want to reciprocate these forms of love. It may take some time, but more often than not, they do.
iii. on kaleidoscopes
Something that sucks about always being on the move is not having a stable, consistent social circle. I found it difficult to feel connected to everyone that I loved and cared about without having 10 text conversations going on simultaneously, constant calls, and being overly active on social media.
I found a lot of beauty in collecting gems and capsules of my favourite people and slowly folding them into my own life, like a kaleidoscope! Like how I became a tea person because my first-ever roommate J.C. would make me tea every morning. Like how I started using my cousin’s favourite glittery eyeshadow after she put some on me during our weekend trip together. Like how my music taste expanded after my friend M.T. bombarded me with playlists of many different genres.
Each time I notice these gems and capsules in my life, I’m reminded of the different people I’ve collected them from. I’m reminded of the colour and sparkle they’ve added to my life, where I can see aspects of them in myself no matter where I go. Sometimes I start thinking about stories, wondering what they would think and feel if they were living my present experiences with me.
I love my people, and this is my way of holding them close even when they are not. It is my way of feeling at home when home is no longer a physical place anymore.
iv. on cities
I’ve spent equal amounts of time this year in Vancouver, Waterloo, and Boston—and I found myself feeling and thinking differently in each city.
I grew up in Vancouver, but each time I go back to visit, I find myself wanting to be healthier, more laid back, and more deliberate. My free time is spent going on runs and bike rides in the forest, reading, and journalling. There’s a buzz of pure passion and warmth in people I’ve worked with there, the kind that makes you excited and want to be a better person. The city says: “be ambitious, but also don’t forget to slow down and enjoy the beautiful mountains around you!”
Waterloo feels intense but in a good way. There’s no other environment where I feel more motivated to do my morning workouts, cook good meals, and willingly stay up past midnight working on something cool. Really, it’s the community I’ve found here—people uplift you like your success is theirs, listen like they care, and will run 10k races and nerd out over psychology with you. Everyone here is working hard on something, but if you’re not careful you’ll get swep up in the same monotonous grind as everyone else. Waterloo teaches me to be headstrong, to know what I want, and that having the right people around you will help you get through anything.
Boston was the first city I ventured off to alone. Boston tells me to be smarter, to think deeper, and to be more intellectually curious. People ask me questions I never expect them to ask. People want to know more about your work even if they are in a completely different field. I launched this blog while in Boston because for some reason, it made me think better and clearer about my past. The city is filled with museums, theatres, colleges, and train ads about scientific research tools. Boston made me feel like I was supposed to be there, like I was part of the collective quest to understand and make the world better.
v. on disentangling the past
This year, I paid a lot of attention to my attachments and disattachments: what I tend to feel attracted to and what I tend to hide from. People often call these “vibes”—ways in which your mind subconsciously decides if something feels good or bad without you even knowing why. Understanding vibes is important, specifically the roots in which your tendencies stem from. Often, attachment is dictated by what you deeply desire in yourself and disattachment is influenced by past trauma, ways in which you were loved, and the environments in which you were brought up.
I feel a particular pull toward unconventionality, boldness, and inquisition. And I tend to run away from confrontation, deep trust, and anything that makes me feel out of control. I’m only beginning to understand these tendencies through the lenses of the family dynamics, childhood friendships, and relationships with mentor figures that I grew up with. I’ve grappled with questions about how I seek approval, what motivates me, and what determines ‘closeness’ and trust in a relationship. Moving around every couple of months helped—putting yourself in new environments allows you to be distant from what you know of yourself. You experience things differently than how you normally would, and you realize “oh, that’s why I do that”.
A big part of growing up is nurturing principles to which you’re attracted to in yourself and understanding where your anxieties stem from. It’s about figuring out how to cultivate away these attachments and disattachments so that you are no longer chasing, fighting, and hiding to maintain a state of peace within yourself.
2023
To be honest, there’s not a lot I’d like to change about how I lived my past year. I’d be lucky if I could even live another year with as much character development, unadulterated joy, and deliberateness. But the sky’s the limit, and maybe there’s more in store...
In 2023, I hope to feel and nurture a steady warmth that fuels deep focus, thoughtful creation, selflessness, and relentless discipline. I hope to also train for a half marathon, explore philosophy and classical literature, build programs and community to help undergrads in biotech (plugging Dojo), and rekindle my past loves for contemporary dance and basketball.
this was so inspiring❤️⭐️