i hate wasted potential that shit crushes your spirit

What’s up pals, welcome back to another episode of No One Asked Yuna to Spill Her Guts on the Internet. We’re coming to you live from a cozy timber cabin on an idyllic Gibsons farm, complete with ducks and a really really cute dog. It’s gorgeous out here. The thick layer of snow I’m observing through an icicle-encrusted window is doing that serene thing thick layers of snow are wont to do, casting an enveloping gravity blanket-esque mantle of peace and calm. Which makes it, naturally, the perfect backdrop for reflecting on all the fuckery of the last year. 

Y’all. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re in a pandemic yo. 

It is actually bonkers bananas that we are collectively experiencing trauma after trauma and are just expected to carry on like business as usual. Pandemic deaths. Police brutality. Racist hate crimes. School shootings. Climate disasters. And we’re supposed to just rock up to work and clickety clack on our little keyboards and log into our little meetings and talk about our little OKRs like nothing strange is up? There’s even been a growing trend of companies outlawing talking about politics altogether in the workplace, as if politics doesn’t seep into the fabric of people’s entire identities and impact how they show up at work. As if the ethos of those companies (like hmm, say, financial decentralization and enfranchisement; communication and collaboration… yes this is a Coinbase and Basecamp subtweet) isn’t fundamentally entrenched in politics to begin with. 

People, like, aren’t okay, man. Ok it’s me I’m people.

I don’t know how to grieve; I don’t know how to process the extreme loss the world is experiencing; I don’t know how to balance an appropriate level of acknowledgement of all the bullshit whilst still maintaining my sanity and practising gratitude for the abundance that I do have. So on that cheery note, please enjoy the following (extra lengthy, sorry lol) instalment of my annual feelings dump. 

My left stroke just went viral 

ICYMI (unlikely because I literally never shut the fuck up about it), I went viral on Twitter. Inspired by a TikTok and in a silly goofy mood, I started sending surveys to my Tinder matches. By chance one of my matches (hey Jake) blew this little exercise up to the tune of 40 million impressions (views, for the uninitiated), and I got to experience first hand the unique joys of being a woman on the internet. 

When I tell you the men were MAD…… Hell hath no fury like a man projecting his own insecurities onto a little internet funny. Hundreds of crusty musty Twitter trolls emerged to admonish me for my disproportionately high standards for men (such as owning a bed frame — how dare I, the audacity) relative to my looks (2/10, according to user @NabilAlDhamari tyvm). Haters (exclusively male, as far as I could tell) materialized cross-platform — in my IG DMs, on Linkedin, through my personal FB messages… I even received hate mail to the contact page on this website — you kind of have to admire the deep stalk effort. I was called names (including colourful slurs of various flavours, some of which I had to google), harassed, berated, and threatened. Oh to be a woman existing in society.

It wasn’t all bad, though. By far the best thing that arose from the whole ordeal was that it caught the attention of one (then internet stranger, now colleague, friend, and Twitter mutual) Microsoft SPM and champion of women in tech, Alexandra. She literally just thought I was funny and decided to adopt me (aka send my resume to a bunch of hiring managers and even practice interviewing with me), bless her soul. Definition of women supporting women, you love to see it. So um yeah, if you heard that I recently landed a shiny new job at Microsoft… this is deadass how it happened. Oh and of course, shoutout to all my haters — I couldn’t have done it without you xoxo. 

It’s so weird to think about how my career has shifted from the vision I had in school. Then again, most people don’t end up in the fields they study tbh. I graduated with a marketing major and big dreams to brand manage like shampoo or something (no shade to all the CPG homies lol) but life had other plans. I got bait and switched at my first post-grad job where I was hired into a PMO to do an international market entry, which was canceled mere months into my tenure. I had no tech knowledge or qualifications for the big SAP implementation I was reassigned to instead (APIs and data architecture, oh my), but to my great surprise the more I learned the more I fell in love with it — a happy accident upon which I continued to capitalize at Hootsuite, where I became an IT Project Manager (the most technical job you can have whilst possessing exactly 0 technical skills). 

Thus in August, I made my third career pivot in as many years into product management at Microsoft. This line of work bridges my marketer heart’s love of figuring out what customers need with my newfound passion for building cool shit. I’m working on creating a better Teams for small and medium businesses, which is perfect for me because I’ve spent my entire professional life working at so many of them. I am equal measures excited and grateful that I get to collaborate with some of the brightest minds in tech and impact some 300 million users, a stupid big number which I cannot even begin to fathom. 

But here’s the real real. I feel like I have been making my way through a giant dark world with only a flashlight illuminating a tiny radius of my immediate surroundings (for visualization purposes, please picture the spaceship in Among Us where you can only see your little circle of light and don’t know what lies beyond the shadows until you traverse into them — it’s a metaphor, ok?) I know there is a lot more out there — I don’t know what exactly — but my wildest guesses are limited by the scope of my own perceived reality. 

Dude, what the fuck does that even mean? 

Well, it feels like all the really cool things that have happened to me have been by accident — like I got really lucky and fluked into it. In high school, it never occurred to me to even dream of the life I have now because it felt so far out of reach. Growing up poor begot a scarcity mindset that persisted deep into adulthood, and I was convinced for years that I was destined to end up broke and homeless (which I guess could still happen — never say never). But hey, I managed to land here: incredible experiences living and travelling around the world; owning a home in an impossible market; a sick gig at one of the biggest names in the industry; the kind of financial security I didn’t dare fantasize about (wouldn’t be me if I didn’t throw in a #humblebrag now would it) (don’t worry I promise I hate myself more than you do). Even though I know I’ve worked hard to lay the groundwork for all of these opportunities, it still feels like they came out of the blue — things I never foresaw that only became goals once they were the sole logical next step in my trajectory. It makes me wonder… if all this happened by accident, what could I accomplish if I actually tried? What cool shit am I not striving for simply because I lack the courage to imagine it?

I do not dream of labour 

On a completely different note, my mindset underwent a huge shift this year re:work. I don’t know if this is a business school thing or an existing under capitalism thing (likely all of the above), but I spent a very long time glamourizing labour. In school we wore lack of sleep like a badge of honour and fiercely competed to land coveted spots at the shiniest brand names where there seemed to be a close correlation of prestige to long hours. A friend once confessed to me that she spent a summer tree planting but was embarrassed to admit that to our classmates for some reason, as if planting trees was not just as valuable or meaningful as some stuffy corporate internship. 

Despite all my inner former gifted kid protests, I’ve come to realize that it is actually ok to simply do a decent job of what is asked of you, within the hours you signed up to be available, and nothing more. Hot take I know. Going above and beyond like we were taught to always do — taking on additional responsibilities, pulling excessive overtime, volunteering for anything non-career-advancing (big time side-eye to all DEI committees) — is actually performing unpaid labour. If companies want that from people, they ought to compensate them. If you’re reasonably competent and still can’t do your whole job in 40 hours (+/-) a week, that’s a staffing problem and not a you problem. Sorry bout it. So long as no babies are dying, I’ve crossed firmly over from the “get the job done at any personal cost” to the “it’s 5 o’clock this is a tomorrow problem” camp and there’s no going back*. 

To be clear, I am absolutely not saying that there is no value in enjoying your job, making a reasonable effort at it, and taking pride in what you produce. If you’re going to spend half your waking hours doing anything, it might as well be something you generally like. The thing is, contrary to what I was led to believe in all those years of business school propaganda, most likely it will not be something you actively love 24/7. Your life’s sense of purpose and fulfilment doesn’t have to (and actually probably shouldn’t) come 100% from work. If you’re reading this as one of the lucky few for whom this doesn’t apply and you’re truly living your best and happiest truth working for someone else (no comment on entrepreneurship), hey that’s sick I love that journey for you. But every single person I know has at some point in time had a bad time at work. And that’s ok. 

If you’re reading this and thinking bestie it is not actually groundbreaking or radical to live a life where work is simply a means to pursue joy, passion, and fulfilment rather than the primary source, you would be correct and I admire you for coming to these conclusions sooner than I! But I’m only at the beginning of my journey of unlearning all the capitalist indoctrination I spent the last two decades internalizing, so even this small revelation is a huge step for me.

*Caveats for all the employers creeping: obviously exceptions apply, also we are all adults who can identify reasonable emergencies, also do you and live your life and don’t listen to my dumb ass if this is at all upsetting to read for you.

Maybe she’s born with it (maybe it’s mental illness) 

In 2017 I started to suspect that I might have ADHD. I mentioned it once to my GP of 15 years, but he responded with an awkward chuckle and the insinuation that it wasn’t a real thing. Fuck that guy. Joke’s on me though, due to what I can now identify as ADHD-induced executive dysfunction, it took me another four years to actually get my diagnosis last June. ADHD has historically been harmfully characterised as an overactive schoolboy’s affliction. Young girls often go undiagnosed because they’re socialized to not take up space or command excess attention, and young boys often are overdiagnosed because they’re annoying or disruptive to adults in authority. It’s even harder to identify in adults who, like me, have spent a lifetime learning to cope and mask. (On the real it’s a huge problem that many different types of neurodivergence are framed by their relative inconvenience to neurotypicals rather than impact on the person experiencing the symptoms but that’s a whole ‘nother thing for another time).

I never felt a sense of urgency to get diagnosed though I suspected it for half a decade because by all accounts, I was doing just fine. I did decent enough in school, got consistently good performance reviews at work, and was generally hitting all of those traditional markers of success. How could there be anything wrong with me, right? Everyone’s experience with ADHD will be different but personally along with usual suspects like not being able to focus for long periods of time or difficulty with administrative tasks and detail-orientation, I also experience a lot of guilt and shame for not being able to keep up with the standards of productivity I arbitrarily set when I was much younger. I have near non-existent object permanence and short-term memory (traits I share with 8 month old babies which may also explain why I am such a child), I frequently get overwhelmed to the point of paralysis when it comes to performing even very basic tasks that feel like they should be very easy (like opening mail or even putting on socks), and I get stuck in negative feedback loops where I feel shitty about feeling shitty about feeling shitty about… you get the idea. 

Putting a name onto my condition has helped in a few major ways: first, I have language to articulate my condition and can research and implement targeted symptom management strategies, which seems good for obvious reasons. Second, it’s helped change the narrative from “I am struggling because I am a lazy and useless person” to “I am struggling because my brain broken” (which granted still isn’t the optimal mindset, but hey, baby steps). Most importantly though, it’s allowed me to extend more grace and empathy to myself when I experience what I now know to be symptoms of mental illness rather than simply being inherently dumb and bad. If these revelations on the tattered state of my self-esteem are surprising to you given how obnoxious I am irl, sorry nothing makes sense when you have broken brain.  

Ah shit, here we go again 

I think we kind of have to accept that there won’t be any “return to normal” any time soon. Like, times are starting to feel hella precedented. I didn’t set any real goals last January (due to the ✨depression✨) but honestly even just surviving yet another year where it was literally illegal to hang out with friends for half of it is a huge accomplishment in and of itself.  If you’re in that boat too, I am so proud of you! Heading into 2022: Electric Boogaloo, I’m manifesting optimism, connection, joy, and purpose in whatever form they come for all of us. 

Honestly when I first opened up my little blank google doc to start this post (whoops prob should be shilling Word instead), I felt like I had nothing to say because this year was such a write-off with nothing interesting to note. But upon even a modicum of reflection I’ve realized that that’s neither fair nor true; tangible accolades notwithstanding, I underwent a tremendous amount of personal growth (not without the help of several thousands of dollars’ worth of therapy… everyone say thank you Daddy Sunlife) and came out a bigger and better person. And of course as usual, in the end I couldn’t shut the fuck up. Typical.