I was suddenly inspired one day to write this post because of some major revelations I had in terms of how to live my life. On the 18th of July I received an email saying that my Australian working holiday visa was approved. My reaction surprised me because I wasn’t as excited as I thought I would be. In reality, even though I had committed to going, I was afraid of the idea of failure and the judgment I might get from my family and friends (and if we’re being honest, from myself) for potentially “running away” from my problems.
The bottom line is that I wanted to stop feeling like shit for every decision I was making. Inspired by Michael Singer of The Surrender Experiment, I was going to let go of it all and treat my life like an experiment (in my own way, I’ll explain later).
Initially this post was like word vomit, detailing my whole journey to find myself including my challenges, my therapeutic journey and the books I’ve read along the way. It eventually turned into a list of the books that have helped me so much, intertwined with the story of finding myself. So apologizes in advance if the structure of this recommended book list is a bit hard to navigate, I couldn’t think of a better way.
This post is a life update and some musings on my existential crisis that is centered around the books I’ve read recently on my journey to find myself. I am attempting to monetize my blog so I am legally (and morally) required to inform you that I’ve included affiliate links in this post.
The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer
I recently finished The Surrender Experiment by Michael Alan Singer that ultimately inspired me to start my very own life experiment.
The book is about how Singer, living firmly by his Buddhist beliefs, decided to surrender completely to the flow of life by implementing a simple rule: not to make decisions based on personal preference. Little by little his lack of resistance to the opportunities presented to him snowballed into unbelievable success. Without even intending to he becomes a community college professor, starts a construction company, builds a large Buddhist temple complex, becomes the CEO of his own billion dollar software company and then author of multiple best selling books.
I imagine everyone’s first thought after finishing the book, including mine, is – how can I live my life like this too?
In the life I lead as it is, I’m not being presented with any life changing opportunities.
However, like Singer, I’ve turned to Buddhism to find answers for how to live a full life given the current circumstances.
What are my life’s current circumstances you might ask? I’m living at home with my parents in Texas working at a bubble tea shop. Is this where I want to be at this point of my life? The answer is a resounding no. So lately I’ve been thinking: how can I make a change?
The Art of Living by Thich Nhat Hanh
After reading The Art of Living by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, I’ve gathered that mindfulness is a sure path to a happy life. Master Hanh tells me to stop running away, that I already have everything I need in the present moment to be happy. Apparently I chase new things and places and people, thinking that they’ll make me happy but they never do, at least not in the long term. Especially because once I get what I want, I end up wanting the next thing.
The person I want to be, Master Hanh says, I already am.
So what is my “surrender experiment” I write of in this post?
I’m moving to Australia.
You might be wondering how the fuck does any of this relate to the readings of Singer and Master Hanh. Believe me, I’m conflicted too. Why am I even airing my personal conflict out on the internet?
Michael Singer’s story has inspired me to treat my life as some sort of experiment and share my story (it’s just beginning).
Where am I Now (Metaphysically)?
As I’ve gotten older and sadder I’m constantly forgetting that life should and can be fun and lighthearted. Life is a once-in-a-lifetime experience to enjoy rather than waste by worrying my days away, living with the fear of failure and ruled by crippling anxiety stemming from the inability to meet unrealistic expectations.
For real though, for the past few years, I’ve let my life be ruled by fear and shame.
This year I entered my late twenties and I don’t have a car or a rental contract for an apartment or a mortgage on a house or a romantic relationship or a pet or kids or a salaried job or very much savings. Unlike the grand majority of my friends and peers, I don’t have a career.
Throughout my childhood I was the perfect student and I graduated from a prestigious liberal arts college with a degree in biochemistry. I didn’t realize until after I graduated how little that would mean to me. In fact, up until that point in my life, I had never even considered what was actually important to me. I was just following the prescribed path.
I’m a little late to the game so I’m pretty much still figuring out who I want to be and what I want to do. But not to fret, at least I’ve given up my fear of feeling left behind recently through my therapeutic journey.
The point is I’ve been feeling stuck for a while. This conflict of mine between the need for stability but my stronger desire for meaning is so strong that it has paralyzed me from taking much action for years. In 2021, I quit my last salaried job with the intention of finding another career. Little did I know that instead of a career switch I would be faced with an identity crisis and the search for myself. Life is funny (I mean cruel).
It’s On Me by Sara Kuburic
It’s On Me by Sara Kuburic helped me by serving as an instruction manual for how to know my authentic self. This includes (possibly) tearing it down, starting from scratch and rebuilding it piece by piece. It wasn’t until I started therapy in 2022 that I realized I had never even thought about who I am. No wonder I was (and continue to be) so lost. It’s as if my body was on autopilot my whole life and my self eventually caught up to me at 25 years old and asked for the first time: wait, who are you and what are you doing?
While being authentically myself is a life-long active process, I can’t wait for the day that I trust myself completely, stop doubting my decisions and know exactly what I’m doing. I know all of this is available to me if I accept myself wholly and take responsibility for who I am including my actions.
A major step towards this is pulling the trig and allowing myself to go to Australia while keeping mindful of how I want to use this experience to explore and understand myself better.
Quarterlife by Satya Doyle Byock
The book Quarterlife: The Search for Self in Early Adulthood by Satya Doyle Byock helped me to understand why exactly I feel so at odds with society’s expectations. I’m someone who values meaning and thus struggles to function in a society whose capitalistic, heteronormative, patriarchal and white cis-gendered norms tell me I should aim for stability first before even considering questioning the meaning of life lest I become a social outcast, excluded from the benefits of participating in this (fucked up) society.
I have found it so hard, and at times impossible, to find my place in this world. Specifically I find it hard to submit to the rule of capitalism that dominates American society. I feel so disillusioned by meaningless work, evil corporations and hustle culture. Living in Spain for a few years absolutely opened my eyes to the consumerist dystopia fueled by relentless capitalism that is the US.
I thought I was crazy for such a long time because I felt so alone. I couldn’t figure out why everyone around me was having such a normal time following the path of college, career, and probably marriage and probably family. I found myself incapable of functioning in the society I was born into.
Permission to Come Home by Jenny Wang
My experiences of fear and shame throughout my journey to find myself is deeply colored by the fact that I am the child of Taiwanese immigrants in the US. Irrespective of American standards, success to my parents (based on their own sacrifices as immigrants) is defined exclusively as financial success. You can imagine their noncomprehension when I moved to Spain after college or tried out a career in public school education.
I started reading Permission to Come Home by Jenny Wang, also an American born child of Taiwanese immigrants. In the book she talks about how we might end the generational trauma passed on to us as children of immigrants by recognizing and reconciling with our emotions. Navigating mental health is definitely something I have had to undertake on my own, with no one in my family to help me. I don’t know anyone like me (a child of Asian immigrants) who has decided to forgo a stable life (i.e. good career) for one of adventure and fulfillment and I can tell you it’s a lonely path full of conflict and guilt.
New Happy by Stephanie Harrison
Finally, I was so relieved when I discovered Stephanie Harrison (@stephaniehson) who, during the course of me following her on Instagram, released a book called New Happy. Her ideas made me feel that I’m not crazy but that actually (like I suspected) society is fucking NUTS. She elaborates on the entrapments of outdated societal norms and measures of success in the US whose purpose is to make us possess a scarcity mindset built into the context that life is a competition in which you are on your own.
I understand now that success is something that I must define for myself (which, I know, is already a freaking cliché) but just imagine how difficult it really is not to compare yourself to others or measure success in the narrowly defined way that America has determined for us. Think about it, how do you define success and to which standards of success are you actually measuring your life against?
And in Conclusion…
What I’ve concluded (call me delusional) is that I’m not crazy but that everyone else is. I will admit that I’m privileged (or cursed) to have this awareness but in all seriousness I am privileged to a certain extent to have the option to not actively participate in furthering the capitalist agenda. Believe me though, it comes with its sacrifices (no savings, no health insurance, service industry job, etc.)
All this to say I decided to say fuck it and to live out my passion for travel by going to the other side of the world, Australia.
I decided it’s time to let go of everything that scares the shit out of me and triggers feelings of deep shame within me. Worrying about these aspects of my life prevented me from making any large step forward and kept me in the same spot of indecision for so long. So I’m saying enough’s enough to the following:
- The idea of financial stability
- The idea of a career
- What people think of me
This is my surrender experiment: letting go of the shackles of my self-imposed (TBH also societal-imposed) oppression!
How am I Making a Change to Live Authentically?
In order to get myself unstuck (or at least begin the process of doing so) I had to break out of my never ending cycle of shame. I had the persistent idea that finding a career, which in turn would lead to financial and supposedly social stability, was the only way out of “feeling lost”. This mounting pressure of a seemingly impossible goal that is at direct odds with my values paralyzed me for years. The best I could do for myself was get a service industry job while I told myself and others around me that “I was figuring it out”.
Let me tell you that lately I haven’t been taking serious steps to “figure it out”. I could elaborate as to why but for simplicity’s sake I’ll just say that the cycle of shame was hard at work in keeping me from making any moves. The real tipping point for me was when even my therapist, after two years together, started to show exasperation at my obstinance to depart from my self-imposed cycle of affliction despite my strong desire to get the fuck out of it.
The question I started to ask myself was: why am I so fixated on this goal that I know is not aligned with my values? Sure, having a career is important for financial stability and a finding purpose in life but I know for a fact that I never wanted a job to define me, especially since we live in a world where not only are there so many meaningless jobs and even for those who have meaningful jobs, overworking is the norm. (for what? for whom?)
In order to move on I made a major mind shift. Instead of fixating on the goal of a career (or in my case subconsciously avoiding it like the plague) as the solution to all my problems, why couldn’t the journey be the answer? I thought, why do I need to wait to have a plan? Why can’t the path be the plan itself?
I needed to take the leap and trust myself fully that I don’t need to know the answers now but maybe they’re waiting to be uncovered and I’ll find some along the way. At the very least I will be exploring a part of the world I’ve never been to but always wanted to go to. I’m putting my trust in myself and having faith that the universe will reward me for living my life authentically (The Alchemist, anyone?)
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
This book maybe needs no introduction but boy is it relevant to anyone wanting to feel inspired. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is about a shepherd boy named Santiago who learns to listen to his heart and realizes his “personal legend”. It’s really an allegory for learning to trust and listen to yourself to figure out what your dreams are and then to follow them with all your heart.
Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
While we’re at it I might as well mention Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. For such a long time I resisted reading the book because of how cheesy it sounded and all the overhyped media press around it. I eventually watched the movie and really liked it although the plot seemed so unrealistic.
After hearing me drone on and on about how lost I was feeling, my friend lent me her copy of the book. I absolutely loved it and was surprised at how accurately the movie depicted Elizabeth’s memoir and I won’t deny that she may have influenced me into exploring Buddhism.
Since this book deals self-exploration and living authentically through travel you can imagine how deeply this book touched me. Through language learning, cultural immersion and exploring her spirituality, in a year’s trip around the world, Elizabeth learned to enjoy her life, learn a new language, make lifelong friends, find inner peace, love herself and also find her life partner. Her story is almost unbelievable.
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
After reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir I was interested in reading more from her. Around when I started this blog I picked up her book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear which is basically an instruction manual on how to live creatively. The gist of the book is that everyone has creativity living inside of them, waiting to be discovered. I find this to be pretty groundbreaking because I’m sure that many of us (me included) think we’re not creative people but that’s not true. Capitalism stifles and suppresses our creativity, making us feel that creativity is not a worthwhile pursuit because it doesn’t often make money.
Gilbert argues that living a creative life makes life so much more worthwhile and I agree. Creativity requires living radically and shamelessly and expressing your authentic self. In order to be creative, she says, you can never give up and you can never let your fear of other people’s opinions of you stop you from expressing yourself. It’s inspiring and motivating to say the least.
So How Does it All Tie Together?
In an attempt to tie this mess of a post together, I found a theme common to all the books I’ve read: each author or protagonist found purpose and success in the exact remedy that allowed them to overcome their original crisis and are now able to pass that experience and knowledge to help others.
- Michael Singer, in The Surrender Experiment, turns to Zen Buddhism as a way to silence the pervasive and nagging voice of doubt and criticism that haunted his thoughts and after fully submitting to the flow of life, found himself wholly dedicated to service
- Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn who writes The Art of Living, due to a 40 year exile from his home country of Vietnam for his efforts in peace activism, founded Plum Village in France to become the West’s largest Buddhist monastery (among countless other achievements related to Buddhist peace activism)
- Satya Doyle Byock of Quarterlife discovers Jungian psychology as an antidote to her floundering in her 20s and sense of disillusionment after having successfully climbed the corporate ladder
- Jenny Wang of Permission to Come Home, dropped out of a prestigious masters in accounting program she had taken to please her immigrant Asian parents and followed her heart instead to pursue psychology and is now a major proponent for Asian American mental health, a topic considered taboo in Asian cultures
- Stephanie Harrison, of New Happy, after hitting rock bottom in her life turned to positive psychology and was courageous enough to question whether she was the reason for her own unhappiness or if the society she lived in had the wrong definition of happiness in the first place (she makes me feel so validated 🥲)
- Sara Kuburic who wrote It’s On Me, after experiencing the crushing moment of self-loss which included leaving her marriage and not recognizing herself in the mirror, became an existential psychotherapist
- Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love, finds herself, inner-peace and a the love of her life on a journey around the world after a messy divorce and a toxic relationship that prompts her to find herself (genuinely!) and share her story
- Santiago in The Alchemist goes on an adventure far from home to find hidden treasure but realizes at the end that the real treasure were the people he met and the wisdom he gained along his journey
And Where do I Go From Here?
I’m not a famous author or religious leader or a licensed psychotherapist, but what I hope will come out from my year in Australia is that I’ll be able to share my experiences in overcoming my fears and living a life that is authentic to me. The idea is that I would be able to inspire someone who is just as stuck, disillusioned or confused as myself as to where in the world (literally and figuratively) they fit in and find meaning.
I can guarantee that there will be critics in my life who will question my decision, worry about my future, and tell me that I’m running away again. What’s different about moving to a new country this time is that I’m now aware that with freedom and the choice to live authentically comes responsibility. In my past I’ve been pretty reckless but I can assure you I’ve learned my lesson.
Lastly I want to express how Buddhism might play a hand in all of this. I decided to let go of the resistance and conflict in my life (of people’s judgment and expectations, my fear of failure, unrealistic goals, etc.). Perhaps I’m running, but not to get away from myself. The actions I take and decisions I made allow me to run towards myself and becoming more me.
This post is honestly so funny. It’s part reading list, part tirade against American capitalistic society, and part stream of consciousness on the topic of my existential crisis. God knows who’s going to read this but maybe one day when I’m a successful travel blogger, I can inspire a lot of people. Stay tuned for my next big adventure.
❤️ Valerie 😎