Fresh Wind & Green Grass

I had a colleague during my internship around 2013 who was dreaming of being dead at the age of 27 because she was a fan of Club 27. The memory of her came back to my head earlier this year, reminding me that I'm turning 27 this year. Among those so-called "Club 27", Amy Winehouse was one of my favorite singers. These people died leaving a legacy, and obviously, that's making me ask what my legacy is on my first morning of turning 27.

When I was younger, I was naive and full of idealism and dreams. I believe that everyone should form their legacy from a very young age. As I'm getting older, I'm finding the pieces of the puzzle called "Life" rather than trying so hard to build a legacy. These are my takeaways that I never learned from my parents or classroom.

I learned them the hard way, one step at a time. 

People say that losing someone is a life-changing experience. I agree. The death of my mother two years ago was an eye-opener for me in many ways. I can't consider myself close to my mom, but the damage after she left is still there. The fact that I wasn't next to her death bed was so strong to me, remembering that when I was born, I slept in her bed in the hospital, and I was never put in the special room for babies. Since she left, I began to understand that there are so many things that I haven't understood in this universe. One example, she questioned me before she died why I could fall in love with someone only because he's smart? I was confused because, at that time, I thought it was normal. My mom just laughed without any explanation. I thought she married my father because my father's smart. It's been two years I just realized that often, intelligence doesn't always mean a good attitude.

The next year, I lost my friend, who spent a significant amount of time with me back in the United States. But if we think again, we've lost so many friends throughout our life. The number of close friends is significantly decreased as we age, and maybe someday, it will be only one left; our spouse. I figured out that losing friends doesn't always mean only when the person is dead, but when we stop to talk to each other, the relationship has gone somewhere. When a person only contacts you whenever they need something from you, it's no longer a friendship. And I'm lucky enough that I still got some friends who contact me because they only want to have a talk with me. Friends who accept me for every decision I've made in life, even when it's different from what they believe in, and still want to celebrate their life with me. Friends who forgive and understand my situation whenever I'm unable to be with them and never take revenge. 

My progress so far in this age that I have figured out who is in my family and friends' circle worth to be fighting for. Those who are kind and wise enough to consider the context and situation for everyone - with no drama. Fortunately, I got some.

I wanted to be in academia for most of my life, and now am closer to stepping out of that possibility. A science refugee I am. I've found myself falling in love with science and building a small career as a scientist while making significant progress in the for-profit industry. Both worlds give me a more comprehensive view of how our species survive and how the economy supports us, and how to minimize the impact on humanity and the environment. Earlier this year, I decided to go back to my root, science, as I've committed to several research projects this year as a fully-paid scientist but also to go back as a data-driven strategist for a digital marketing company.

What I learned through my almost 7 years of professional career is that I really hate to work with someone who's lied in the past. A person without integrity can really piss me off because a lie is often never said once. You never know how many times you've been lied to by a person that you know can lie about you behind your back. I also learn that I can manage myself to stay away from fanaticism, and that I've never really loved my job or the organization where I work that much; rather, I can be very objective if my job and workplace are healthy enough for me doing the job (and I never value my job satisfaction only on how famous the company I work for is).

Another important thing that I learn from my career (and mostly from my dear first boss for the first three years) is about leadership. A good leader that can bring everyone in the organization to be loyal and love their job is a leader who can talk equally to their team members. A leader who isn't hesitating to eat what others eat and jokes about life just like how others joke about it. A leader who can embrace all ranges of emotions rather than asking to forget small problems that actually can pile up into a tower of problems (the worst thing an organization can do is to ask us to repress our negative emotions). I remember one time when I made a mistake (and that was really, really bad, emotionally, and I was too young to understand) to a client; my boss was in front of me, taking all the mistakes upon his shoulder and asked the client to have a face to face meeting. He apologized to the client, but he never scolded me for that problem. He then talked to me during a very nice lunch and said it was okay to make mistakes. Now I know that is a very rare case of a leader. We're both still on very good terms now, sometimes, I call him to ask his opinion on my major decisions, and he's one of the very few people that remember my birthday (after years I've quit his company!). He's also the one who showed me that joking with your security officer never downgrades your status as a leader; it does level you up as a respected leader - and I know that lots of his employees stay because of his leadership. You might come from somewhere, a university that nobody knows, or a very humble family, but the combination of attitude and integrity is a critical key to gaining respect.

One last thing that I learned is making a priority. As I grow older, I realize too many things to do in too little time. Lots of interesting offers come by in our email, but we need to choose from multiple options. Next month, I am invited to a very interesting networking event for international science communicators, but I already had another commitment with a government entity to give a workshop. I choose that commitment, even though the schedule hasn't been firmed, but I want to be available for them. I can imagine if my 20-year-old self were in this kind of situation, I would try very hard to do all. I've realized now that I have to be focused and realistic with all resources that I got - and the most valuable resource is -- time. My priority now is to provide time for people whom I really care about. I am now working in a place that allows me to spend most of the time working from home or anywhere that I think is most productive for me - and I transparently explain to them that I also have another work for building communications effort for an NGO, my personal science projects, and I need personal time too. This is such a privilege that not everyone can access, so I am truly blessed, I am. This is why I do really enjoy all my jobs and offices at this point and feel that I'm at my peak of work performance - because they provide me the freedom to put my beloved ones as my top priority.

Around five years ago, my dad said that there was no finish line to working. At that time, I didn't understand his standpoint. Now, I do. I also never understood why he always made a call if he needed to give an evening lecture on his campus, and I never understood why my mother always asked the same question all the time: "Have you eaten?" How could they do that for more than 25 years, which looked sooo boring to the younger version of me?

Now I have someone that I really care about, and I understand that was their language of love. While I don't believe in "true unconditional love", I do believe that respect is a universal language of love. My mother never asked my father to cancel his working schedule, and my father never asked my mom to stop her "many" social activities (my mom was a kind of partygoer, and my dad is an ultimate homebody). Again, I am truly blessed that I've met someone who really understands my job and my personality and compromise; rather than asking me to change.

Marriage is something else. For me, marriage is never a symbol of love; rather, it's a symbol of commitment to share a lifetime space with someone else. The first trigger that made me think that I needed to marry my man was my mother's death; if we're not officially listed as family, we can't make any major decision at the hospital about someone's life. The second trigger was when I tried to understand the administration of home mortgages, we will get life insurance to pay off all the mortgage when we die, but the house will be only left to an official family member. The third trigger was when I helped with someone's funeral, and I just found out that it is only an official family member who can report your death to the authorities and get an official letter for the funeral. I do really want to do all of those to someone I really care about. I want to be there when he's sick, he's dead, and when I died, he'll get all my wealth to move on with life - and fortunately, he thought the same way.

I learn that love is a thing and marriage is an entity; both build upon trust and respect, and that's only functional for two healthy and conscious souls.

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