Review: The Real World

It's been over a year since I took a one-way ticket out to CA. In a couple weeks, I'll  be off on another one-way move, this time to Beijing, China.

Looking back, it seems ridiculous how incredibly stressed and nervous I was about the move one year ago. Really, life is not that hard. Once I realized how easy it is to live off of 50k / year, life settled into a comfortable, lethargic pace. I learned that, like in school, people like to slack off in working environments and rarely push themselves. Likewise, I discovered that even as contributing members to society, working professionals are still largely ignorant about the world outside of their own "bubble." I have had a nice place to live in, a steady job with good pay, and a decent car to get around. I guess that at this point, a normal person would work towards getting married, climbing the career ladder, buying a house, etc.

Unfortunately, it's not in my nature to follow these patterns.

In the past year, I've made a lot of new friends. The difference this time, was that they weren't poor students with no money. I've met so many wonderful people. Some regular young professionals on their first job like me, other more accomplished professionals with long careers behind them, and others in between. After hanging out with extraordinarily successful people my age, who make well over six-figures and support expensive lifestyles, I realized that all of these characteristics of the commonly described "high life" (designer apartments, VIP club membership, hot ladies lined up to fuck you, etc.) do not (always) equate to happiness or even moderate satisfaction.

As my one friend recently said: "I've gone through the entire checklist: Ivy league degree- check, job at top-level financial firm- check, hot girlfriend- check... but I still haven't made it." I would disagree with him, but the truth is that we all judge our success based on personal standards. Comparing these people to the musicians, professors, athletes, intellectuals, and artists that I met, admired and respected in my college years, I don't take anything from the success and accomplishments of any of these people. Really, I think, happiness in life (for guys at least), comes from a strong sense of identity and mission in life (and from girls too haha, but that's for another post). What is more important than any standard of "success" is a set of strong ideals that are actually followed, and crucially, the relationships developed along the way.

For me, I'm not done exploring yet. I'm not done trying to get rich either. I feel that moving to China will be the beginning of a new lifestyle for me, and I don't put any limitations on where I go or what I will do afterward. One thing that I doubt though, is that I will ever return to such a cleanly prepared "real world." I think from now on, I will decide my own reality and way of life, it should be more interesting that way.

OK, that should end my review, the final grade: C. On more practical terms, please let me know of any web dev jobs you might throw my way :)

BTW, I knew I was right about Asian(-American)s being racist... check out this snippet from an NYT article:

Several studies have shown that living with a roommate of a different race changes students’ attitudes. One, from the University of California at Los Angeles, generally found decreased prejudice among students with different-race roommates — but those who roomed with Asian-Americans, the group that scored the highest on measures of prejudice, became more prejudiced themselves.

Also, I'd like to plug my blog (http://www.shuugouteki.net), which I write with 3 other astounding individuals. Two of them will be journeying with me to China and spending at least some time with me there together. The other has just embarked on a remarkable hitch-hiking / couch-surfing journey that will begin and end in Virginia Beach, VA, and take him across the country. Good luck Chris!

Hopefully, We will be writing about our experiences and observations on Chinese culture, so check out the blog if you are interested.

Strangely not-so-exicited or nervous,
-Pin