Ode to an Extra, Undeserved Day

January 19, 2018 Friday

The sky is slowly un-dimming itself and I hear some chirping here and there outside the window. The temperature—friendly, but leaning toward cold—gives flinches to my forearms’ hair. But I’m only wearing a single t-shirt on this destined 47-degree Fahrenheit “morning” because I consider myself a hot body. Okay, the blood in my fingers is just beginning to warm up as I’m typing, but my heart, man, if it explodes right now, my bedroom would turn into the largest fireplace ever appeared on earth. But taking back my hyperbole, my heart truly is burning with desire. For what? Maybe the opportunities to create, to explore, to create further, and to feel deprived of emptiness.

“Today is the day, the extra blessing of aliveness, which I have, not one day, perceived as earned.” Yet, for most full-time engineers about to confront another 8-10 hours of labor at work plus a couple frozen in traffic—including my next door housemate—the day hasn’t begun yet.

Philosophers often question individuals, “Don’t waste your time, see how much you can accomplish in the next 24 hours!” True, 24 hours is a lot—in fact, 3 times the typical work-hours—so sure, in addition to your full-time job, you can accomplish a lot if you will. I used to be inspired by this revelation that time is golden, or time is money. I used to challenge myself to do more and better than yesterday, and I did. But one day—-last week, in fact—I realized, “I’m a senior undergraduate working full-time while finishing up my final semester of schooling. I should be proud of my management skills, diligent attitude, and courage to break personal records, but how come not only do I feel empty, but also exhausted.?” Books I’ve read say that great leaders make quick (and wise) decisions, and in order to achieve, you need to first conceive, so by nature I truly feel and believe that I am a wise leader. In less than two weeks of full-time (2 part-time jobs), I quit my new job AND my original part-time job. Leaving aside the sorry and guilt, I knew this would be the 2nd wisest decision I’ve made in my life by far.

So here she is, originally projecting a monthly income of $4000 USD as an undergraduate still in school with zero student loans, now just a senior undergraduate with a monthly $1000 (including rent) from her Mom & Dad. She hasn’t sorted out her next steps and she hasn’t even identified what exactly it is that she truly desires to go after. But she knows the next 4 months will be, hopefully not, the most fruitful, most out-of-the-box period of time of her life.

Now, going back to the philosophical “How much can you accomplish in 24 hours?”, I want to play around with the question in hopes of defining meaning from another set of lenses. As my personal scenario proposes, action-oriented excellencies do not necessarily bring meaning or value to that additional 24 hours of your life. On the other end, productive busyness requires sacrifices of interpersonal and religious relationships that you would, toward the end of your life, identify as more significant. Playing the devil’s advocate, I invite you to think, “Walking through your day, regardless of what you do, how much can you observe and feel in the additional 24 hours you’ve been freely given?” If you truly take this practice by heart and stay loyal to it, sooner than you realize, the richness of revelations coming from observations and feelings is overwhelmingly life-altering.

Waking up in the morning to only feel stressed and burned out by your own decision to work for this organization, do you appreciate this opportunity? Just 3 months after recruiting hundreds of people—many my age or a couple of years my senior—I was shocked by how undeserving I was to take on the part-time job I had. I do believe in hard work and persistence, but from an economic perspective (undergrad degree finally rises to the surface, like 5 words in a thousand?), successful employment considers too many factors that academic or professional achievements may be weighed too less than what their tuition and time were worth. If you are living in the Silicon Valley—like I currently am—and having a stable full-time job, especially in the technology industry, just know that any hardworking Masters student in China has the intelligence and work ethics to put you to self-reflection. The difference is, they do not come from families of opportunities and wealth like those of yours, and that they do not have U.S. Citizenship to have what YOU have. If in the morning when you wake up feeling unexcited and UNGRATEFUL, or if you ever bother to FEEL before brushing your teeth, do you mind giving it a try tomorrow, if it exists?

Now you’re driving and too hurried for even a quick breakfast, so you’re chewing on a Sheng Kee bun while being immovable in traffic. This alone, you have A LOT to be grateful for. 1. You have food. 2. You have a car. 3. You have what it takes to afford 1 and 2 without feeling financially hunted down. You are an adult and you understand my point. The same feelings should revisit when your boss hands you more work, when your coworker seeks you for help, when you get off later than others, when you go home to eat and sleep, and when you receive your direct deposit. My scenario is too confined to only individuals working in the technology industry, pardon my lack of consideration for those who do not, but here I am purposefully making a satire out of my example. Often, those with the most complex knowledge of a Ph.D or an engineer do not have the most fundamental kindergarten-knowledge of giving thanks before your meal and loving one another truly and equally, despite their socioeconomic status and race.

We all come from different backgrounds, raised with different values, and wear different contacts to perceive the world differently. But my point is simple: gratitude never goes wrong, and gratitude begins with the ability to feel before you think, to believe that God has given you the very best before you compare, and to act upon your gratitude by loving and giving—openly and in secret. Every morning when you rise, don’t dress yourself in name brands to guard your ego, but do dress yourself in gratitude to protect your heart from dying in the outside cold.

And this is what makes us humans, not working robots.