A Buffet of Teenage Stupidity
Yeah, I’m 20 now, (almost 21 if anyone’s counting) and it’s time to rid all the stupid drafts I have on medium. There’s really no theme weaving through all of these snippets, but just snapshots of what I was contemplating in my most emo times in my teenage years. Here goes~
Sophomore Fall
Who Am I?
An avid reader striving for ikigai with a kindle; an adventurer writing my own stories through backpacking; a trailblazer who brings imaginative ideas into reality with self-initiated projects; a student who is beginning to experience some form of imposture syndrome at Berkeley.
But my everlasting introspective pursuit of “who am I” has boiled down to this: I love meditating and seeking discomfort. Two hobbies, two deeply-embedded aspects of myself. Meditating, the self-reflective side that always remembers to think about life’s most important questions every day. Seeking discomfort, the proactive side that has a hunger to seek new experiences. After all, I live “to see all the marvels of the world, and never forget the drops of oil in the spoon.” Whether the drops of oil mean ensuring the well-being of those I love, finding a decent career in the intersection of data science and business, or creating my own marvels in this world, I have yet to discover.
In truth, I yearn to better discover and expand this search in the upcoming years of my life. As an international student from Taiwan, the most significant challenge for me here at UC Berkeley has been living out the mental models I’ve developed and maintained within 18 years. Proceeding from a familiar environment I consider as a finite game into a new battlefield, a new country thousands of miles away, with classes in another language, people with exceedingly different backgrounds and values, peers who excel at everything they do — self-doubt has gradually taken a front seat.
How do I remain confident in myself? How do I focus on meaningful things in life instead of overly stressing upon that deadline? How do I strike a balance between financial stability and the search for meaningful work? How do I wake up every day prioritizing “between a desire to improve the world and a desire to savor the world”?
So who am I?
Talk to me and you’ll have your own opinion!
Nostalgia
I miss high school sometimes. Maybe not the most popular reasons but I miss seeing friends every single day, I miss having to go to class every single day, I miss the interactions I have with amazing humans and have realized I took that for granted.
Looking back
I was watching back on the English Dramas we did during high school. The music, the lights, the actors and actresses, the props, and the stories. So many hints of what high school meant for me, so much of the creative, inventive, imaginative side of me still lingers within each corner of the show.
A part of me feels relieved that I have progressed throughout the years, that I’ve grown in so many aspects ever since high school. But a part of me continues to feel timid, some parts of me still remain that I thought would’ve vanished years ago.
Worldviews
A recent discovery.
People have different worldviews. In fact, these thousands and thousands of worldviews shape us into who we are. The contents of such worldviews can be anything along the lines of: ghosts are real, stuffed animals bring me joy, good food is a necessity, AI would rule the world, or grades don’t define us…
Despite the literal connotation, worldviews affect not only the way we approach worldly ideas like the effects of technology, climate change, or poverty, but more often the little actions and decisions we make on a daily basis. As Seth Godin says, a worldview is a lens you put on to perceive the world, a lens that guides what you do and what you say.
What worldviews do we each have? And how do they affect us in the short and long term? I’ve been thinking about this, and one worldview that I have realized most people have is the worldview that “worldviews of people we admire are worthy of being adopted by us”. Sometimes it is because we admire those who have similar worldviews as ours, be it that celebrity, athlete, author, or president that we follow so dearly. Sometimes it’s because we admire them, we wish to share their view of the world and start doing things they do, embody the values they have.
And maybe, just maybe that is what makes life interesting. Maybe the limited biased views we have is how we differ from cutting edge technologies like ChatGPT, a master of knowledge, logic and even creativity. The blessing of limited worldviews that allows for the constant evolution of our beliefs, the rarity of shared values, and the encounters that spark resonation and belonging.
Following Others
Some random thought again. One huge huge blind spot I realized myself having this past year is the act of pursuing things, achievements that people around me crown as useful or important For instance, coming into college, I thought clubs were super important and joining a consulting club seemed to be a prestigious thing that every successful person should do Well in some ways, this might be true, but there are so many other ways to expand your network, find like-minded ppl, build projects of your own. And well this really apparent lesson took me two semesters, over 30 club rejections, and lots of self-doubt to learn But now, I’m really excited to go back and see the world around me with these new lens The lens of discovering what’s important and useful to me and my growth instead of what’s the world perceived as prestigious. This takes tremendous courage because it indicates not going with the flow but actually being pioneer on the path called “My Life” So yeah, I feel like talking to more ppl, getting involved with more projects, and reading books really expands your vision of the world and let you see things with more clarity
Freshman Summer
Summer, ending
I love writing, especially the part that traces my emotions, it makes me human.
I love traveling, especially the adventure aspect of it, it fulfills my undying thirst for new experiences.
I love partying on the dance floor, especially when I am not afraid of making a fool of myself, it frees me from the expectations and restrictions levied by society and the version of you existing in society.
I love summer, especially when it’s ending. Especially when the days come and go, come and go. With every trip, with every meet-up, with every bar hop, with every task done, it feels as if time is being converted into memory, transformed into something that only exists in the deepest parts of our hearts.
Promises to Myself for Sophomore Year
Coming back to Taiwan for three months this summer was a formative experience for me. The lessons I’ve learned can be boiled down into two main categories. One, people. Conversations from friends, family, mentors, colleagues, and everything. I’ve had over 50 meetups with people, some being 1on1s and others being group socials. Second, travel. Nothing crazy here, but a vacation to Penghu with college friends, a exhilirating expedition to Lanyu and Taidong with 2 close confidants, a meaningful visit to Hua Lien with new friends, and a trip to Tainan and Chiayi with family. All of which made me realize the art of travel.
So here are three promises to myself for sophomore year:
Meet Interesting people Seek my passions Build my assets
That’s pretty much it!
1 On 1s
I am extremely grateful for all the friends I’ve made in my life. And it is not till recently that I realized a crucial aspect of these friendships had gradually taken a back seat over the past year.
College has been such an exciting ride, but one thing it definitely lacks is the leisure, the time, and the willingness to have meaningful one-on-one conversations. Ironically, meaningful conversations don’t technically have to be “meaningful”. They don’t have to be about summer internships, life goals, or productivity systems, but they surely can be. They can be about anything really. As if a canvas ready to be painted, a symphony to be composed, or the back of a laptop ready to be decorated with all kinds of different stickers, one-on-one conversations represent the plainest yet the most creative side of humankind.
When your attention is fully in the present, when you notice and take in every word and every expression, you get a chance to dig deep into the other person’s world and vice versa. You start to pay attention to what has heart and meaning. You find mutual interests in things as random as a mutual childhood obsession with ss501, you talk about how our motivations to help others are wired by evolution, you discuss the the lessons learned from books, entrepreneurs, and TED talks. Alas, you resonate with the emotions, hardships, and life experiences you both had. You feel understood, heard, energized and grateful. I wonder if the fulfillment we get from meaningful conversations are deeply rooted in our psychology. Maybe it is the motivation of connecting with others and forming tight bonds that are. And deep talks are just one of my favorite medium of doing that.
So morale of the story, talk to me more ;)
Daily Habits
Happiness starts with building daily habits. Having always been a fan of self-improvement, I’ve watched several videos on how to build habits, become more productive, or be more proactive. Yet, I’ve never really gotten to apply them well in my daily life. One due to the long hours I had to stay at school in Taiwan, but also because of my own ability to implement the knowledge I have into my own personal life. It wasn’t until having a gruesome semester of studying and forming bad habits like sleeping after 2AM and eating unhealthily have I become determined to start implementing the action items in the Atomic Habits.
Even with the prior knowledge that habits can make a significant improvement in your daily lives, I was not convinced as to how substantial it is towards my mental health. I started simply with going to the gym. As easy as that, going to the gym every day except on Fridays (rest day), I’ve seen lots of improvements on myself, in fact, they were mostly internal. Despite the obvious outcome, I’ve gotten to realize the significance of trusting yourself and developing a system where you are proud of and can embed into your own identity. It is only when your proud of an identity of yourself that you will abide your actions by.
Seeing myself being able to at least accomplish something productive, meaningful and healthy for myself each days gives me the confidence and motivation to do better in other areas as well. I’m sure these things that I’ve gotten to know of from my experience is truly valuable to me and is not something I could easily communicate to another.
Freshman Year
9~5
Today (This Tuesday), I experienced something peculiar.
In my Reading and Writing class, we did an exercise where we’d draw up a timeline of our lives. The class gathered together to structure an example of a timeline together. Having not finished mine, I stayed put and listened to what everyone else had to say. Learned to walk at 1, go through elementary, middle, and high school, graduate from college in 2025, build our career or start a company in our 20s, get married in our 30s, build a family in our 40s, get retired at age 60, and then travel the world for the remaining of our lifetime. The timeline on the whiteboard seemed to be a social expectation set in stone in the minds of most people.
I wasn’t able to pay attention to the rest of the 1.5-hour class. I mean I’ve despised the concept of 9–5 jobs ever since high school and wanted to escape. Yet today felt drastically different from reading books and listening to podcasts. Hearing my peers say they wish to retire in their 60s, and travel the world after that struck me particularly hard.
Why would you be satisfied and expect to retire after most of your life has been lived?
Why on earth would you wanna start enjoying your life after becoming gray and old?
A fear of settling for a mediocre life, a terror of how my life trajectory is heading towards that pathway, a rare anxiousness that only materializes through experiences rather than words.
However, amid it all, I felt an ironic relief that I am not at ease with my current self. That I seek to fall forward instead of having something to fall back on. Maybe this creative tension is what motivates people to achieve great things. Please do remind me of that!
Self Growth: Freshman at UC Berkeley
- Simple Proactivity: Leverage the different aspects of proactivity, essentialism, weak ties
- Courageous Vulnerability: Courage, vulnerability, connections, support, coaching, strong ties, credibility partners, Become a novice again and again, “Fear of the unknown” from Bob Myers
- Learn by Living: siddartha, learn by doing but more, no teachers can truly teach, they can only inspire and guide, learn from you!
3 superpowers: Read, Deep work, Courage to chase ur dreams
Home
Well, after 1 year of not posting much of what I write on here, I thought I’d start again. Read it, don’t read it, skim it, it’s up to you, writing is simply my way of gathering my thoughts and emotions. So here goes.
Sometimes I just feel homesick. Or perhaps more precisely, I sometimes miss my life back in high school, back with family, back in Taiwan. I miss the food, I miss the cooked vegetables, I miss the ability to buy a meal for 3 bucks and travel anywhere with the MRT. But maybe more so, I miss spending time with family. When you think of it, we’ve all actually already spent more than 80% of the time we will ever spend with your parents. I’m definitely not ready for that. In fact, I’m not ready for most of the things life is about to throw at me right now. People always say, embrace the unknown, challenges are what make you grow. But how do we rewire our brain to notice the gifts instead of focusing on the obstacles? Gratitude journals? Well, I don’t have an answer yet to be honest. But maybe that’s fine, we don’t need to have all the answers to everything we encounter. No matter at what age and what stage in life we are in, I guess the uncertainty always remains.
What can we do other than be proud of where we are right now and cherish the memories we’ve created, the friendships we built, and the self-improvement we made for ourselves. “Only ever compare yourself to the person you were yesterday,” a professor told us recently. Although we all know this, this is hardly ever the case. With the rise of social media (and not to mention, LinkedIn posts) highlights of people’s lives are magnified on a huge scale. The more connected we are, the more important it is for us to focus on our own development and strive for what we want for ourselves. And how do we do that, well I guess expressing vulnerability instead of only showing life’s shiny moments on social media might be the first step for me~
Deep Work
Coming into college and having a more flexible schedule to myself to manage really has urged me to think more about how to train my focus. People often say that we live in a chaotic world full of distractions and that’s what strips our ability to focus for long periods of time. Yet, I personally believe this is only partially true.
What truly shortens our attention spans is really our brain’s desire to get distracted. In other words, it’s not the distractions that distract us, but rather the urge to seek distractions that is responsible.
This is called the “novelty bias”, our brains’ tendency to be hijacked by shinier, newer things than what we are paying attention to. I’ve seen more and more of this phenomenon present in my daily life. An urge to check Instagram to see if I have any story replies or messages, checking Gmail the first thing I open my laptop to see if there are any internship updates, or opening up LinkedIn with I don’t even know what reason at this point.
“The state of our attention is what determines the state of our lives.”
When you think of it in this day and age, with society filled with supernormal stimuli, our goal is not only to limit our cues for distractions but also to train our brain to not seek distractions. Exercises and challenges to solve this are ubiquitous. For instance, deleting social media, embracing boredom through an activity every day, or simply limiting time on your phone. Personally, I’m still figuring out what works for me, but I guess I will start with limiting my phone usage and my time on certain distracting websites.
Positive ratio
Ever since I learned about the positive ratio, I feel like I’ve looked at life from a different set of goggles. The positive ratio is a formula developed by Dr. Barbara Frederickson, a professor and researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It refers to how people living a fulfilling and meaningful life, has a ratio of 3:1 of positive to negative emotions and experiences.
The first thing to note, is the fact that 80% of Americans fail to achieve this number, and I honestly think the number might be higher for Taiwanese people. The other thing however, is that we don’t want to rid ourselves entirely of negative emotions. It’s like a sail boat, the sails (positive emotions) keeps us motivated and going, while the keel (negative emotions) gives you direction and prevents you from flying to close to the sun. But well, I’ve had enough negative emotions lately, and it’s also far more effective when you contribute than receive positive stuff. So I’ve decided to do this graceful exercise every night before I go to bed. 3 or more things I’m grateful for. Here goes: I’m grateful for getting to Denver safely, watching spider man no way home, seeing snow for the 2nd time in my life, and well for myself taking up writing again after so long. And I think I am just gonna call this the “Think. Learn. Do.” series.
Courage doesn’t roar. It is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying you’ll try again tomorrow.
Emotional Intelligence
EQ might be more important than IQ in a lot of circumstances. Having read a summary article about the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 recently, I’ve had the realization that EQ covers a lot of more ground than I thought.
A mutually exclusive and, I’d like to believe, collectively exhaustive categorization of EQ would be these four categories.
- Self Awareness
- Self Management
- Social Awareness
- Relationship Management
The first two are a measure of personal competence and the latter two are a measure of social competence. These four may be linked but you could definitely have a high score on one of them and a low score on another.
Self-awareness, for me, is the quality of your self-talk. How well do you know yourself and your emotions? What makes you excited or what makes you tick? How introspective you are and how often do you ask yourself questions like “What do you want to bring to the world?”, “How have I grown in the past year?”, “What habits should I form to better my wellbeing?”
The last three, I’m not an expert in but these are the definitions. Self-management is your ability to self-soothe. Social awareness is your skills in detecting others feelings. Relationship management is, well, your ability to manage relationships.
These last three are things I’m intentionally working on, do tell me any tips you have on improving any of them! I’ll thank you a ton.
Before College
我高中的故事
第五個人物專訪集的受訪者是Andrew莊承翰，我們今天邀請到的朋友是薇閣高中國際班的應屆畢業生，他創辦了學生組織 GenZ，還從零開始辦了一場TEDx，他也自發性的完成了很多舒適圈挑戰，其中一個包含為期4天3夜花不到500塊的浪人旅行，將來也即將到UC Berkeley就讀。
從進入薇閣後，與自己的期待產生很多落差，環境也給他很多的限制，但他依舊不放棄，一篇週記展開了他與學校對談的機會。他理解到體制的遞嬗也無法帶動學生的積極性，不管是家長、學生、老師都依舊被成績、規則綑綁，Andrew對於教育的期待就是希望能有一個學校以外的學校，他同意村上春樹的一句話: 我們在學校學到最重要的事就是知道最重要的事在學校裡學不到。透過創辦GenZ，他們希望傳達理念，鼓勵學生跳脫學習的框架，重新定義學生或是自己的價值。
他分享了無限賽局這本書，他同意作者的理念: 生命是場無限賽局，常常有你不知道的規則跟意外。他認為失敗不是成功之母，挑戰才是。因為生命中不會有徹底的失敗，只是過程當中會遇到很多障礙，想要克服就是最困難的一件事。
提到他帶領團隊主辦的TEDx，領導者或策展人的身分是最好發現自己問題的方式。他了解自己是一個細心的人，也是策展最重要的特質。談到自己透過做Comfort Zone Challenges讓自己變得更加外向，雖然身為內向者沒有不好，只是他希望擁有外向的特質，變成一個勇於嘗試的人，也因為這樣的舒適圈挑戰讓他明白，不需要因為他人的眼光而失去自己成長的機會。浪人旅行也是一個挑戰，他也在這集分享他們的所見所聞。背包客、旅行、浪人代表一個他很喜歡的詞「 a leap of faith」，你不知道自己準備好了沒，不知道現在是不是最好的時機，有時候是因著一股衝勁、莫名的自信、期待去做，但是他也相信馬克吐溫說的話 “Do what you fear and the fear will die immediately.” 不一定要很大的挑戰，只要一步步小小的慢慢累積，不把生活看得太定，把背包客的心態慢慢帶入生活中，有時候要說走就走，也時候要一時衝動、有時候就是要有一股信念。”Courage doesn’t always roar, sometimes it’s the little voice at the end of day telling you to try again tomorrow.”
他認為，影響力變大的關鍵就是不要忘記初衷跟熱情，慢慢的累積。他的Youth Power是一件事的價值，他覺得他有自己的義務，去傳達跟感染他人變成更積極主動的人，所以他會去說、會有動力。「知道到做到是世界上最長遠的路」，他說行動力是點亮世界的第一步。
我們很欣賞Andrew在談到理想，談到期望，談到未來，他總有一種很強大的能量，讓人不自覺會與他一起期待，一起嚮往。相信我們，這集是你必聽的一集，他給了我們很多不同挑度去看一件事情的可能性。
有的時候，改變自一瞬間開始，給自己一個機會，來聽聽Andrew的這集吧! 如果你在聽完之後，想要讓更多人聽到這樣的聲音，可以分享並追蹤我們!
這是DJ Questioner 找我一起錄製的一級人物訪談，以上是這集 Podcast 的Description，有興趣的話，趕緊去聽聽！
分享你當初創辦 GenZ 的初衷 ！
“你的週記，已經傳遍了整個學校，教務處、學務處、導師辦公室，甚至是校長室！你知道這意味著什麼嗎？”
“嗯！我知道。”
緊張卻很肯定，我對我的導師點了點頭。以我看來，這個週記不關於叛逆，它是我對改變的渴望，畢竟，是我在週記當中提出：學校對成績的執著，對學生的未來不是最有益的；是我說明：學校對我們課外活動的規則，限制了我們與其他學生、其他學校合作的機會；是我提議：我們學生應該與學校合作，一起重新調整教育的目標與意義…
一年半下來，一篇週記、一系列的文章、一場TEDx、一場場的合辦課程，到了第一場我們與政府機關合作辦理的大型工作坊。為了串連來自各地、來自不同背景的學生；為了創力一個得以連結學生與公司行號的平台；為了突破學習的框架，我們做的所有，無論有沒有跟著計畫進行，一直都秉持著同樣的理念：我們Z世代，要積極主動地重新定義自己身為學生的角色及價值！
你在今年二月時走了一趟「浪人旅行」，覺得自己在這趟旅行中做的最瘋狂的事情？
在這趟浪人旅行當中，我們在公車地板上冥想、在夜市裡打工換食、住在公園一晚、路邊招便車一路上從台中到台北。其實，我覺得最瘋狂的一件事其實不是這些，而是決定踏上這趟旅程的地一步。在沒有生顯的情況下，我們不讓恐懼妨礙我們的創意、行動及夢想。
有搞砸任何事過嗎？有「最喜歡的」搞砸經驗嗎？
我在撰寫我第一份簡歷之前，我就開始記錄我所有搞砸過的事情，我把它叫做 My Résumé of Failures，而且其實我犯過太多小錯誤了，兩次申請TEDx Lincens 被駁回、30封拉贊的信全部死沉大海、多次團隊一半的成員為了考試退出。而且不像大家常說的，我不認為失敗是好事，因為它真的會帶來很多長久的麻煩，再者，不是所有的時候我們都可以找出失敗的原因，然後從中學習。不過，與其在任何時候都設法找一個保險的選擇，去“fall back on”，我永遠都會選擇 fall forward，接受並擁抱我的錯誤，不會因懼怕自己失敗，而妨礙自己往前邁進的步伐。
