Finding Momentum

I often­times talk about how matu­rity is a hard process. These past few months have been times of self-discovery. A peek into the rough-and-tumble, totally awk­ward jour­ney of self-awareness…

1. I have an EQ of a door­knob. I used to think I was pretty sen­si­tive and in touch with how I felt–how mis­taken I was. A few months into my rela­tion­ship with Sarah, I basi­cally real­ized that I am an emo­tional Nean­derthal. I don’t have a very large vocab­u­lary to describe my feel­ings and I real­ize that I am totally clue­less as to the rea­sons why I feel things (Psy­chol­o­gists will tell us that nobody knows why they truly feel things, but still. I take this to whole new levels.)
2. I have time-delayed emo­tions. After some big event or dis­agree­ment, I won’t know how I feel about things until about a day after­wards. This is a huge con­trast to Sarah, who feels things on the spot. I’m try­ing to under­stand why, but I think it’s par­tially because of my (afore­men­tioned) stunted emo­tional devel­op­ment. It also makes things hard for us as we resolve issues and dis­agree­ments because I can’t quite fully bring my side to the table at the moment.
3. I process things best by writ­ing. See­ing words on a page or com­puter screen legit­imize them for me. If I go too long with­out jour­nal­ing or blog­ging, I start feel­ing lost and dis­ori­ented (or just really uneasy). It’s like feel­ing like I have this big back­log of things to write down, but they don’t enter real­ity until they’re writ­ten. Which is most likely why I’m writ­ing this post.
4. I value other’s approval of myself, often to an unhealthy degree. There’s this people-pleaser in me (that I’ve pre­vi­ously writ­ten about) that I’m try­ing to shake. Much of my iden­tity is founded in how I’m per­ceived by oth­ers. As such, I’m often a social chameleon, tak­ing on the whims or likes or habits of the peo­ple around me. Often­times this means I’ll be ingra­ti­at­ing with the peo­ple I try to please or impress. Nobody wants an imposter as a friend. I’d do bet­ter being myself–the lil kid with a proud Dad.
5. I’m start­ing to find and use my voice. I grew up with sub­tle cul­tural val­ues that taught me to adhere to the norm, sup­press my opin­ions and to do things that pleased oth­ers. Which are actu­ally really, really good in cer­tain con­texts, but often lead to unhealthy, unbal­anced rela­tion­ships. I real­ized recently that I am still really shy about speak­ing up and say­ing how I feel if it incon­ve­niences (麻煩) oth­ers. I am learn­ing to become com­fort­able speak­ing up, speak­ing truth into oth­ers’ lives and voic­ing my needs.
6. I’m a worka­holic because I put my worth in what I can pro­duce. I’m def­i­nitely a by-the-book Type-A per­son­al­ity. Which is cool, because I can get lots of stuff done. Which is cool, because I’m fairly con­fi­dent in my abil­i­ties. Which is not cool, because I begin to sac­ri­fice more impor­tant things (friends, rela­tion­ships, fam­ily) for the sake of “fin­ish­ing this project” or “beat­ing the dead­line”. On one hand I know that I have God-given tal­ents and abil­i­ties and doing qual­ity work is Good. On the other hand, I can’t let it get out of con­trol and con­sume me and become one more idol to chase.
7. I’m still fig­ur­ing out friend­ships. This one is pretty hard to write about. I’m not very good at keep­ing in touch with peo­ple. Maybe this is because I always exude an air of “I’m really busy right now,” which is alien­at­ing. I should think that it’s more of a mat­ter of time, though. I think it might be a mat­ter of valu­ing them for who they are. Maybe it’s because my old bud­dies and I seem to be in very dif­fer­ent places now. I don’t know. But I do fear los­ing the gen­uine friends I’ve got­ten to know over the years, whether by dis­tance or inevitable cir­cum­stance or otherwise.
8. I really value my fam­ily. Being at home this sum­mer makes me real­ize how much I missed them. And it made me real­ize even more how much I took them for granted from high school through col­lege. There are some big changes in store for us: Esther’s mov­ing in soon at UCSD and my mom and dad are headed off to China for a period of time. I just know that I love em.