On 2018

Barring the 7 first days in Vietnam and a month in Europe, I spent almost the entirety of 2018 in Vancouver – my first full year of living at home since 2015. While the previous two years met me with exponential personal growth and challenges overcome (by products of uprooting my life to new countries), 2018 was a chance to get reacquainted with who I was before my international expeditions. It’s been a tough but incredible year, and now seems like a good time to reflect on it.

This post is going to be a little different from my usual. For one, I probably won’t even talk about food that much. More importantly, this is going to be a bit of a personal piece – a journal entry from me to me, unlike some of my other content that is clearly geared for an outside audience. I’m going to get real, perhaps uncomfortably so. So if you’re reading this, thank you for lending me your attention and company as I take this stroll down memory lane, even if I make fewer dumb jokes than I usually do.

Most of you probably don’t know this about me, but until about the end of second year, I secretly harboured a wildly irrational yet unwavering belief that I would graduate from Sauder unemployed and homeless. I had watched one too many PSAs about highly educated people falling victim to some circumstance or another and ending up on the streets, and couldn’t shake the paranoia that that would be me. In third year, I reeled my fears back a bit from that extreme. I knew I could land a job, sure, but I’d probably be settling for one that I didn’t enjoy and wouldn’t pay much. This is what I’d been brought up to believe, by a single immigrant mother who is over-educated and underutilized in a foreign country that doesn’t value her qualifications.

Because of her lived experience necessarily prioritizing job stability over fulfillment and ambition, she could never envision a life where one turned down “good opportunities” (read: stable and adequately-paying) for lack of interest or passion. It’s not that she didn’t want the best for me – she was just trying to manage my expectations based on what she felt was realistic. Growing up she constantly asked me what I felt I needed to be happy, conditioning me to emphatically reply, “I don’t need more than we have now. I don’t need expensive clothes or a big house; I can be happy as long as I have a bed to sleep in and food to eat,” to assuage her guilt at not being able to provide more (despite my very deep appreciation and desire for pretty shoes). After repeating it enough times, I had to buy it too. It was beyond my mother’s realm of possibility to seek more than a mechanism for survival from her job, and so I, too, grew up believing that with all my effort and hard work, the best I could hope for was the bare minimum to get by.

It wasn’t until very recently that I started to place more stock into my dreams. Like everyone else, I had always had dreams. But I was in the habit of discounting them as unrealistic and moving on to work at what I perceived to be more pragmatic. If you’d asked me what I wanted to be when I was ten, I would have told you I wanted to be a fashion designer. As I grew (marginally) older, I held myself back from pursuing a creative field despite my love of art because I didn’t have the courage to risk failure. I chose instead to set my sights on medicine, and we all know how that turned out (if you don’t, click here). Luckily I found a way to build a business around art anyway, but most of my other dreams didn’t get the same treatment.

This year, I learned to trust the process, as cheesy as it sounds. I need to recognize my relative privilege in being educated at a world-class university and earning the means to fund myself through it while still maintaining a fun and comfortable life. Many people don’t have this, and their outlook will differ vastly from my own. But in my position, and if you’re reading this, statistically probably yours too, I can allow myself to have faith.

I write about this here, but the impact I felt specifically this year is that I trusted myself to find exactly where I need to be. Instead of stressing over job applications and rejections like I used to, I had the most relaxing recruitment experience ever. Rather than treating interviewers like dragons I needed to outsmart and slay in order to access the treasure (aka job offer in this weird combative metaphor – just go with it), I started treating them like a potential friend. Do I want to spend time with this person? Is what this person is working on interesting and impactful? Would I like to join them in their mission? This attitude was unprecedented for me and likely the reason I ended up with the best interview:offer ratio in my entire life (#obligatoryhumblebrag). Most importantly, this newfound faith permitted me to ask the (sometimes edgy) questions that ensured I would end up in the best place for me.

Ok, now for some listicalized reflection. All in all, 2018 was an amazing year. Every year, I think to myself that this was the best year yet, and 2018 was no exception. Here are some of the moments that made it extra special:

• Graduated with honours (finally) and made a speech (see it here, around 42 mins in)
• Completed art projects for 3 brand new clients (P.S. I am available, email me at yuna@yunawang.ca)  
• Spent 4 amazing months in the same house as Scott and Alex (and hopefully absorbed some of their brilliance through osmosis – that’s how science works, right?)
• Discovered new countries and revisited old favourites in Europe (most importantly, saw international friends I didn’t think I would for a much longer time)
• Helped shape the entire go-to-market strategy for a brand new exciting technology (stay tuned SS19) (update: peep it here)
• Celebrated my birthday at home for the first time in 3 years (it was awesome)
• Learned how to lift (thanks Rach)
• Spent 20+ hours sharing my experience with younger students at networking events and one on one coffee chats (and even more time soaking up wisdom from people smarter than me)
• Fulfilled my childhood dream of working in fashion (but please stop asking me for a discount)
• Outgrew kits basements and moved into a real (bougie af) apartment downtown
• Deepened my existing relationships and developed beautiful new ones (hi Nick)

So yeah, 2018 was pretty freaking great.

This next list is a little more personal, a little more vulnerable, a little more brutally honest. I want to share anyway because I find myself (and I’m sure I’m not alone) too often falling victim to the self-doubt and envy from believing the illusions cast by only seeing and hearing about everyone else’s highest moments. Let’s not forget that everyone has their lows, too. Here are some of mine from this year:

• Was rejected from dream job in Germany (which I write about here)
• Binged Netflix or literally just slept instead of spending time productively (this is sometimes ok as everyone needs a brain break, but I did so excessively, preventing me from accomplishing some things I had hoped to)
• Let a good friend down when they needed me most (I am working on making it up to them)
• Recklessly and supremely stupidly got involved with someone I shouldn’t have
• Spent very little time working on the kind of personal art that makes me happiest (probably due to the aforementioned excessive Netflixing and sleeping)
• Gained so much weight I outgrew half my pants (I only wear leggings now. Told you I was gonna get real)
• Stayed in Vancouver instead of pursuing my goal of moving abroad after graduating (though I’m not giving up on this one yet)
• Experienced panic attacks for the first time (not fun, didn’t enjoy, 0/10 recommend)
• Used self-awareness as a crutch to avoid making tangible effort to improve upon my known flaws (for example: selfishness, laziness)

As the youths say, yikes. Or oof. Big oof? Something like that. I’m old now, I can’t keep up.

But I’m not just here to brag or complain. 2018 was a year that happened, but I hope to have many more. While I don’t usually set New Year’s resolutions, I feel like this new phase in my life – adulting and all that – warrants it. So without further ado, here are some of the things I hope to work towards in 2019:

• Exercise more (yes I know, not a SMART goal, but I also don’t want to make myself promises I can’t keep)
• Be more proactive in reaching out to friends
• Read more nonfiction
• Travel to at least one new place
• Learn to forgive myself when I make mistakes
• Learn to take responsibility for and fix my shortcomings
• Get better at my job
• Draw more
• Spend less time in bed and more on my feet

Ok I’m finally done. I hope making my goals public will keep me more accountable (we’ll see how that works out for me). I hope reading about the worst moments of my year helps you maintain perspective. And I hope seeing my highlights reel makes you think I’m super dope and cool and live a fabulous life, because isn’t putting anything about yourself on the internet at least a little narcissistic? Do it for the clout, amirite. Kidding. Mostly.

To my dear friends who made the highs so high and the lows a little less low, thank you for another kick ass year. I hope 2019 brings us even more adventures and happy times. To my lurker fans whom I don’t actually know or talk to but have somehow found themselves at the bottom of this post, thanks for coming on this journey with me. Please don’t judge my entire character by the contents of this post. To everyone and anyone, I wish you all the best in the coming year. Let’s go crush it out there.