My army story
By: Sean Liu
Tags: Taiwan, Memoir, Army

I served in the Taiwan army from January to April in 2021, and this is my attempt to document and reflect on that experience. In publishing this story, my goals are to share an important piece of myself, a glimpse of what I went through, and the lessons I’ve learned. I hope you’ll enjoy this story, and even find some inspiration to create your own opportunities for growth.

I’ve intentionally left out many identifying details about the army, such as exact dates, specific locations, and people’s names, in an effort to provide some anonymity. I may be exposing too many details and don’t want to get anyone in trouble. Regardless, I think I’ve shared enough to paint a general picture of life there and how it progressed. If you want more details, I’d be happy to share more in private.

Background

In this section, I share some context for my service in the army; I address questions like why I did it and what events led up to it. If you’re only interested in reading about what the army was like, skip to the next section.

Reluctance

You know that feeling of really not wanting to do something, yet it’s absolutely necessary? Like waking up for a Monday morning meeting after a wild Sunday night, or filing tax returns on the afternoon of tax day. That’s similar to how I felt about military service, except way intensified. This duty required a commitment of 4 dedicated months, not just a few hours or even a whole day, and I really didn’t want to sacrifice that much time.

I had always known that I had to serve in the military, but it never felt like a reality until I finished college. Every male citizen of Taiwan is required to serve in the military after he turns 18, but as long as he remains an active student, he is legally allowed to delay this duty until he finishes schooling, including higher education. A key detail: while one is studying at a school outside the country, he is allowed to leave Taiwan to attend school. Otherwise, men of age usually cannot travel outside Taiwan until they complete their military service duty.

I graduated from high school in 2012 and went straight to the US for college. At the time, that decision seemed like a no-brainer — why interrupt my education, when I could just serve later? While I was college student, I visited Taiwan during every summer and winter break, a typical annual travel schedule of any international student. But after I graduated in 2017, I lost that privilege.

I didn’t serve then because I didn’t want to waste my time. I was eager to start my career had had zero interest in a military career. Furthermore, spending 4+ months in Taiwan on my student visa after graduation would’ve severely hurt my ability to live and work in the US. Considering these immigration difficulties and prioritizing my career, I decided to stay and work in the US for while and focus on earning a green card first.

Fortunately my plan worked out, and I returned to Taiwan in December 2020 to fulfill my duty. But let’s take a look at my level of reluctance to serve. Before then, my last visit to Taiwan had been in January 2017. For almost 4 years, I chose exile from my home country, the place where I grew up. More importantly, I gave up the luxury of being with my family.

Burden

When I mention family, I don’t just mean my parents and brother. I also think of my aunts and uncles, cousins and their kids, and grandparents. Having grown up around them all, I missed my family dearly while I was away in the US. It’s a strange feeling to be away from family for a long time, a weight in the heart that accumulates so gradually that it takes months to realize how much heavier it has become. In college, a 4-month semester semester already felt quite long, and if you have experience like studying abroad/internationally, you’d understand. Imagine that feeling accumulated over several years!

And I wish it were that simple. Throughout my time in the US, much of the family naturally got older and their bodies weaker. By the time I graduated, both grandmothers had passed, and during my 4 years away, I also lost my grandfathers and an uncle. Those deaths took massive tolls on everyone, myself included.

Death of a loved one is hard to process. I felt a whole range of emotions, and a recurring feeling was guilt. Guilt for choosing my career and personal convenience over spending time with my family. I had already spent 5 years abroad in higher education, returning only twice a year, and then I followed that with another 4 years of continuous exile. I wish I got to say goodbye to my grandfathers and uncle. The last words I said to them was “see you next time”, sincerely believing I would see them again soon.

I carried this weight in my heart for a long time; some days it would grow and overwhelm me, and others it would shrink and almost disappear. It was probably an unhealthy way to think, but it also provided a source of motivation and urgency to work hard and stay on top of my immigration process. I’m fortunate that my employer provided excellent legal resources to support my green card application. Once I received my green card in 2019, I was finally ready to make plans to take time off work and serve in the military.

Enter the army

Day 1 felt like one of the longest days ever. Feeling really apprehensive, I could barely sleep the night before. That morning I showed up at the assembly location for all the recruits from my hometown, and we were all quickly loaded onto government buses that brought us to our military base. Everyone was really nervous and tense — nobody broke the silence to speak with each other.

After everyone arrived (multiple buses of cadets from all over northern Taiwan), we were organized into companies (連), units of ~150 people, and we mostly operated and interacted within each of these units. Within each company, we were further broken down into squads (班) of ~13. Our sergeants did this by first picking out the tallest 12 people, and each became a squad leader. Then the next tallest 12 were delegated to each squad, and so on until everyone had a squad. Finally, we were assigned unique ID numbers within our company. I was cadet #27, leader of squad #3.

Each squad had specific responsibilities that served our company, such as maintaining our guns, prepping and serving food, and cleaning the showers and toilets. My squad had a relatively easy assignment — we were in charge of inventory (handling personal items like clothes, bedding, and gear) and sweeping the stairs of our main building.

A day in the life

For those who have never experienced military life, try to imagine attending a rural boarding school that’s extremely strict. Each cadet (student) had the same exact schedule that would dictate exactly where he could be and what he could do, and we were always confined within the base (campus). Our sergeants (teachers) held all the power and dictated everything we did.

Our days followed this basic schedule:

05:00- Wake up.

05:20–05:45- Morning drills. In formation, we usually practiced saluting, standing at attention and at ease, pushups, and/or jumping jacks.

05:45–06:20- Morning break.

06:20–07:40- Breakfast.

07:40–08:00- Morning assembly. We would march and sing in formation, and sometimes our captain (the company’s commanding officer) would share announcements.

08:00–08:50- First period.

08:50–09:00- First period break.

09:00–09:50- Second period.

09:50–10:10- Second period break.

10:10–11:00- Third period.

11:00–11:20- Third period break.

11:20–12:40- Lunch.

12:40–13:30- Afternoon break (nap time).

13:30–14:20- Fourth period.

14:20–14:30- Fourth period break.

14:30–15:20- Fifth period.

15:20–15:40- Fifth period break.

15:40–17:20- Exercise time. Free time to exercise, work out, and/or relax. In terms of equipment, we had some dumbbells, foam mats, and pull-up bars. For sports, people typically jogged or played basketball, volleyball, or dodgeball.

17:30–19:00- Dinner & shower time.

19:00–20:30- Evening activities. This varied a lot — watching weekly military news, journaling, additional training, and sometimes just sitting around to wait for bedtime.

20:30–21:00- Cleanup. Every squad had specific cleaning responsibilities, and this was the time for that.

21:00- Bedtime, lights out.

Phase 1: January

During the first month of training, we had two main goals: adjust to the routine and culture of army life and pass the physical examination in the beginning of February.

A general overview

I never quite appreciated the simple freedom of being able to do anything, anytime, until the army took that away. As I mentioned earlier, we had a consistent daily schedule, and we followed strict rules for virtually everything. The army had specific instructions for exactly what we could do during each period and how to do those things, and there was almost no tolerance for any degree of fluctuation from the standard way of things.

Let’s take a look at personal organization. Every morning, we had to make our beds, folding our bedding exactly the way they taught us, making sure that all surfaces were smooth and all folds were perfect right angles. In our closets, the hangers and clothes all had to be facing the right direction, with the shirt sleeves tied up behind. Even my toothbrush, cup, and toothpaste tube had to be placed in a specific manner. Sergeants would inspect our stuff randomly, and we’d get penalized for violations of their standard.

Another example: meals. We always ate at the cafeteria, sitting at our assigned seats. We had to maintain proper posture, which meant backs straight, butt taking up only half of the bench. We would have food on our own sectioned meal plate, which could never leave the table, and we’d eat with chopsticks and a rice bowl, which we had to hold in a specific way — 4 fingers on the bottom, thumb on the lip. Until then, I had never paid attention to how I (or anyone else) held a rice bowl. And we had to prepare a napkin, folded neatly into a small rectangle and tucked under our plate on the top right corner. If someone dropped their chopsticks, they’d have to stand up and apologize 20 times. No talking during mealtime, so all we’d hear were chopstick clanking and muffled apologies: “I’m sorry my chopsticks, I’ll take care of you better. (筷子筷子對不起，我會好好愛護你。)”

These rules extended into so many other details of daily life. Whenever we wanted to speak to an officer, we had to start with “Excuse me <sergeant, captain, commander, etc.>”, and wait for their acknowledgement to continue. When walking, we had to walk in straight lines and only make right-angle turns, and we needed to step in sync with each other. When raising our hand for an officer’s attention, we had to raise only our right hand, fist closed, arm completely straight. All this stuff wasn’t hard, but it was a lot to remember and be aware of. To help us learn them faster, our sergeants would yell and scold whenever someone made a violation. Naturally, there was a ton of yelling every day, so it was easy to feel stressed all the time.

I don’t mean to paint the sergeants in a bad light. I genuinely believe they had good intentions and did care for everyone’s well-being. But they had a tough job of getting 150 kids adjusted to army culture ASAP, so they didn’t have the time to patiently remind everyone about each rule, every time they messed up. They had also been conditioned and trained in this same environment, so they didn’t really know any other way.

The training

We went through a ton of training every day. The physical part was straightforward: 20–30 pushups daily, 30–50 jumping jacks daily, and a 2-mile jog weekly. The skills portion was far more interesting and demanding. Throughout the day, we learned and practiced the following:

T65 assault rifle assembly and disassembly: This was super interesting to me, as I had no experience with guns. We got to learning about all the basic components of a rifle and how it worked.

This was super interesting to me, as I had no experience with guns. We got to learning about all the basic components of a rifle and how it worked. Bayonet fundamentals : We practiced using the same rifles, but without the bayonet attached. This training felt more like dance practice than a practical skill. We would practice all the stabbing and footwork motions in formation, and the sergeants only cared about organization and powerful movements. They only wanted us to look good as a group, because for the exam we’d be evaluated in the same way. So this training was basically practice/rehearsals for an upcoming dance performance.

: We practiced using the same rifles, but without the bayonet attached. This training felt more like dance practice than a practical skill. We would practice all the stabbing and footwork motions in formation, and the sergeants only cared about organization and powerful movements. They only wanted us to look good as a group, because for the exam we’d be evaluated in the same way. So this training was basically practice/rehearsals for an upcoming dance performance. Shooting practice: Once a week, we would go to the shooting range for target practice, again using the same rifles. We only practiced the easiest form, lying on our front and pinning the rifle to a sand bag, shooting a target that’s 175 meters away. I enjoyed learning and practicing this new skill — it’s way harder and scarier than it looks.

Once a week, we would go to the shooting range for target practice, again using the same rifles. We only practiced the easiest form, lying on our front and pinning the rifle to a sand bag, shooting a target that’s 175 meters away. I enjoyed learning and practicing this new skill — it’s way harder and scarier than it looks. Grenade throwing: We used fake grenades for this exercise. The technique felt like a blend of throwing a baseball and throwing an American football.

Recruiting

In addition to training, the military put a lot of effort into recruiting volunteers to join the military. Divisions across the army, navy, and air force would send representatives to visit our base and give presentations about the benefits of joining the military, salary differences of each division, and perks and benefits.

Across all these recruiting presentations, I was disappointed to notice that the reps focused exclusively on the salary and perks. The general argument was extremely practical — if you join the military, you are guaranteed job security and an above-average salary, and the government will take care of you by subsidizing your education, housing loans, and child care costs, and retirement. Nobody mentioned pride in being part of the military or fulfillment in serving our people — there was nothing to inspire the heart.

After the presentations, we could sign up for follow-up sessions with the divisions that we’re interested in. I signed up to speak with the army’s special forces reps, to take the advantage of this special opportunity to learn more about military life and ditch some training sessions. These special forces guys were the toughest in the army — they went through the most rigorous physical training and had the most dangerous assignments. I enjoyed listening to their stories about why they joined the special forces and how they pushed through painfully difficult training experiences. Essentially, their attitude was “If I’m joining the army, I want to be the best”, and I admired their determination and drive.

Food

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of our food. Based on stories from friends and family, I was expecting mostly bland empty carbs like plain steamed bread (饅頭), but our food was actually way better!

Focusing on health, volume, and variety, the food was excellent. It was generally low on calories, fat, and sodium. For every consecutive meal, we had a new combination of soup, a main protein, and 3–4 different sides, with steamed white rice. And there was always extra, to accommodate those who ate more.

From a quality standpoint, it was decent. Since these were low-budget meals that were quickly made to feed 1000+ people at once, the food was usually lukewarm, bland, and/or overcooked. Our favorite was a braised chicken leg — the simple combination of soy sauce and sugar was delicious, and chicken legs don’t dry out as easily.

Contacting the outside world

From the beginning, our phones were locked away, so we had extremely limited access to people outside, the Internet, and the news. Once a week, we would get to use our phones for an hour, and that was precious time to catch up on everything we were missing.

Beyond that, we had daily access to payphones, which we could use during most breaks throughout the day. I used them every day to talk to my parents and friends in Taiwan. I’m beyond grateful to my parents and buddies who took my calls — those couple minutes every day really helped me cope with the stress of army life, especially early on.

Weekends

We looked forward to every weekend and national holiday, because those were our priceless windows of freedom. We’d get our phones back, leave base on Saturday morning, and return on Sunday night. I used this time to recharge. I spent time with loved ones, ate well, and drank (no alcohol allowed in the army). Time always seemed to pass way quicker in comparison to the weekdays.

Mental strength and attitude

I consider myself an optimistic person, and I attempted to carry that same energy into the army. This was a new experience, and I was making a ton of new friends and learning many new skills.

However, I struggled with my underlying attitude — I hated the lack of freedom and saw this as a waste 4 months of my life. By the end of Week 2, my frustration was taking over my baseline mood. I stopped approaching friends to chat. When we did talk, I would often complain, sometimes losing patience with them over silly things. They noticed this change too, frequently asking what was wrong.

I had to address with this problem — if I was already giving in to constant negativity after just 2 weeks, there was no way I would survive 4 months. I brainstormed things I could still do to be productive with my time. I started reading, doing sudoku puzzles, and journaling. My readings gave me inspiration to think about my future, how to strengthen my mental resilience, and how to live better, and I used my journal to document those thoughts.

One book had a dramatic impact on me: Be Water, My Friend by Shannon Lee. It’s an interpretation of Bruce Lee’s life philosophies, on how to discover and be the best version of yourself, written by his daughter. I especially resonated with this Bruce Lee quote:

It’s not what happens that counts, but how you react. Your mental attitude determines what you make of it, whether a stepping stone or stumbling block.

That book lit a fire in me. Yes, I was stuck in the army for 4 months, but I didn’t have to stumble and let that be a waste of time. I would take ownership of the things I could control, make this experience a turning point in my life, and grow from it.

I felt like a lost ship at sea that had finally found its direction. My optimism and enthusiasm returned. I set aside time to read and write, and I unintentionally set an example for others to follow. Friends asked me to share some of my sudoku puzzles for them to work on, and others started bringing in their own sudoku books. When I sat in the hallway to read, I would start alone and soon after many others would be reading with me. A fellow comrade said that I reminded him of Forrest Gump, when he started running and thousands of people joined in, which I found amusing.

Language

Mandarin Chinese is my first language, but I’m far more comfortable with English. Especially having lived in the US for the past 8 years, I had a difficult time adjusting to daily life amongst these Chinese speakers. There was so much slang and military-specific vocabulary that I didn’t know. Sergeants expected immediate understanding and would yell and talk so fast. Every moment my brain was busy translating between Chinese and English, either to process what I was hearing or packaging what I wanted to say.

I heavily relied on my squad mates for support. Many of them were good enough with English to understand the things I struggled to express and to explain things that I didn’t understand. Needless to say, they saved my skin countless times! With their help, my Chinese improved over time, and by the end of the month I became quite comfortable using it as my default language.

I wasn’t the only one working on learning a language — several comrades were learning English too. They’d come to me with questions about confusing sections in their TOEFL prep books or ask me to review an English journal entry, and I was happy to help.

Poo

If you’ve spent enough time with me, you know one of my greatest joys is my daily shit. So you know I have to write about this topic.

Poo was a big problem for everyone! Army life presented so much sudden change — a high-stress environment, new diet, lower-quality sleep, and generally a new lifestyle. Most people didn’t — couldn’t — poo for the first couple days of camp. Starting on Day 4, the sergeants polled us once a day, asking who hadn’t taken a dump since the beginning, and there were raised hands until Day 12. And the sergeants would provide laxatives to help us. I was relatively lucky — my gut adjusted on its own and resumed normal operations on Day 4.

Another huge challenge for me was the method. For my whole life, I had been sitting on toilet bowls, but we only had access to squatting toilets. That ruined the experience for me, because every dump became a mini leg workout. I suppose this was good training, since squatting is supposedly a more natural and optimal position for our gut. I got used to it after a couple weeks, but sitting still wins for me.

A fun fact: I learned that many people have the opposite preference, having spent their entire lives squatting. If they only had to use a sitting toilet bowl, some would step onto the rim to squat.

Phase 2: February and March

Life became much easier after we made it through the physical exam. For the rest of our time in the army, our goal was just to survive, because there were no more tests/examinations to pass. Over time, sergeants gave us more freedom and trust, and army life became more relaxed. Our weekend breaks started on Friday nights instead of Saturday mornings, and this additional night at home was HUGE — sleeping at home was so much more comfortable!

Training

This part got really boring. We still did 20–30 pushups daily and 30–50 jumping jacks daily, and shooting practice would happen once every few weeks. The other stuff got dropped completely.

Our training shifted to focus on two guns: the T85 grenade launcher and

M72 LAW rocket launcher. Every day we practiced assembly and disassembly, as well as the motions for using the guns, but never got to actually shoot them. This quickly got mundane and mindless. Furthermore, sergeants explained that these guns are so outdated and old that we would never use them if we went to war. So while were were probably practicing some fundamental skills, nobody (not even the sergeants) really cared about this training.

Reading

I went deep into reading, averaging almost one book a week. Having all this extra headspace, I enjoyed the opportunity to process and think about the things I was reading and learning. The books I read:

Be Water, My Friend, by Shannon Lee

Educated, by Tara Westover

Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari

Homo Deus, by Yuval Noah Harari

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Steven Covey

Start with Why, by Simon Sinek

Why We Sleep, by Matther Walker

Search Inside Yourself, by Chade-Meng Tan

A Random Walk Down Wall Street, by Burton Malkiel

The Five People You Meet in Heaven, by Mitch Albom

Sexual Citizens, by Jennifer Hirsch and Shamus Khan

The Lord of the Rings trilogy, by J. R. R. Tolkien

I enjoyed and learned from every book, and I’m very pleased to have developed this reading habit. During my time in the army, I read more books than I had accumulated over the previous 10 years! For a long time I had wanted to read on a regular basis, but I rarely had the discipline to finish even one book. Now, I’ll be keeping this habit moving forward, but definitely at a slower pace.

The New Year

During this time of the year we had a lot of national holidays, including 7 days off for the Lunar New Year. In Taiwan, the New Year is the most important time of the year, where families make time to get together and celebrate. It’s a big deal, like a combination of Thanksgiving and Christmas in the US, and I had missed the last 8 while living in the US. Being together with my entire family again was so special for me. I felt it was a real start to making up for all the lost time while I was away from Taiwan — my heart was so full. I had started working on my past feelings of guilt, and this time together got me over the hump to finally let go completely.

Phones

I didn’t mind being unplugged for most of the time. Especially because of work, I feel addicted to my phone, checking it way more often than I’d like, so I welcomed this change in lifestyle. I suppose life without our phones was more boring, but it also forced us to find other ways to entertain ourselves like socializing and reading.

However, not everyone felt the same way — people generally missed their phones. Sergeants relaxed the phone rules and let us use them once a day. But even that wasn’t enough. Many people started sneaking their phones in their pockets, either not locking their phone away or locking away a spare. They would use them throughout the day, when sergeants weren’t looking.

Phase 3: April

Toward the end of our time in the army, our training more or less stopped completely. Most of the time, we’d pass the time by watching military-related movies — my favorite was Hacksaw Ridge, an inspiring story about a medic who singlehandedly saved a bunch of soldiers during World War 2. And whenever the base needed manual labor for jobs like cleaning, fixing something, painting, wall-building, we’d get pulled aside to do those random jobs.

But this last month was far from boring/uneventful.

The earthquake

As I mentioned earlier, our phones were usually locked up, and many people would break this rule and carry their phones around anyway. Some guys in my squad were extra daring, sneaking a bunch of photos and group selfies, which are extremely illegal — sergeants explicitly warned us several times.

The sergeants somehow got their hands on some of my squad’s photos, kicking off a tense game of cat and mouse, sergeants vs. cadets. Following standard procedure, the sergeants had to sniff out all our phones and other inappropriate stuff we brought in (eg. e-cigarettes, bluetooth earphones).

A lot was on the line! We knew that if they found our phones, we’d likely lose our remaining weekend breaks, meaning we wouldn’t be able to leave the base anymore until the end of army service. Everyone in my squad showed up in our photos, so we feared that we’d all get penalized, even though only a few of us actually had phones on us.

It started with casual questioning of random cadets in our squad, and then escalated to private interrogations. Nobody confessed or admitted to knowing anything. Then one evening, we stopped all regular activities, and every sergeant showed up to conduct an extremely thorough search of the entire company. We called this “earthquake”, because they had us move everything from our upstairs living quarters to the assembly area on the ground floor. Each person had to bring down his personal belongings, mattress and bedding, and personal army equipment, and then wait patiently for a sergeant to look and feel through every single item. While this was happening, other sergeants were flipping through our living quarters, bathroom & showers, and other shared spaces. They even started checking our photos on our locked up phones, but quit pretty soon after discovering nude selfies.

Naturally, our diligent sergeants ended up finding and confiscating a bunch of illegal stuff that belonged to cadets across the company, ~50 people impacted in total. Our squad felt pretty guilty, our photos had brought down so many others along with us.

The next morning, our captain assembled my squad, along with all the people whose stuff got confiscated. We thought we were dead meat — I had even called my parents to let them know that I’d probably be stuck in camp until the end of the month. Our captain listed out all the rules we broke and the associated punishments that we deserved, and then to our surprise he let us off the hook! This was our final warning, and he simply asked us to behave and exercise restraint for just a couple more weeks, so that we could finish the service with no more issues. He also asked us to delete all army photos that we had, and of course we complied. Needless to say, we were overjoyed — what a relief to still have our precious weekends!

Slacking off

Toward the end, every day became a list of endless chores. Our training was complete, so essentially we were just waiting for the end of service. Sergeants had us sweeping dead leaves off the street, organizing inventory for the next wave of cadets, pulling weeds from the dirt, and other similar work. They just wanted to keep us busy. No matter how quickly or well we did our jobs, we would always be rewarded with more work that they found or created for us.

Soon we adapted and messed around to keep ourselves entertained. We got really good at pretending to work and taking our time, so that we could have an easier time. We would stop working and chat quietly if the sergeant left us unsupervised. Or we’d sweep the leaves and trash, pour it out again while the sergeant wasn’t looking, and repeat. Or we’d take shifts — half of us would hide from the sergeant and relax while the other half was working. And if there was only one sergeant supervising a lot of people, we would hide from the sergeant in a different part of the building. Nothing to be proud of, but nobody on either side really cared about the work we were doing anyway.

This apathetic and laid-back attitude carried into the rest of daily life. We stopped making our beds, chatted with each other during meals, and got to use our phones twice a day. Even during training sessions, we’d take it easy by chatting with the drill sergeant while sitting in formation with our guns laid out in front — from afar it looked like the sergeant was giving a lecture, but in reality he was telling funny stories about his time in the army. Remembering how rough the first few weeks were, we didn’t take these carefree days for granted and enjoyed every last moment.

Community service at a local farm

Brothers for life

My fellow comrades and I made it through quite a crazy time together, surviving 4 months in the army during the coronavirus pandemic. I made so many friends along the way, and my squad mates especially have become like brothers. I plan to keep in touch with these guys, and I look forward to getting together with them again to laughing about these old memories. Only time will tell, but I have a feeling that I’ve made a few lifelong friends.

Table tennis fun with Squad #3

Final thoughts

This experience in the army was unlike anything I had ever gone through. It truly felt like hell in the beginning — when I called my mom for the first time on Day 3, I cried trying to tell her about my new life and thinking about how hard it was to adjust. But after I got the hang of it, nothing seemed that bad. Every day felt super slow and long, but I managed to make it productive for myself, even if the military training itself wasn’t useful or meaningful. And these memories will be fun to revisit with the army guys when we get together in the future. We’ve already started laughing about them in our chat threads.

Beyond reading a lot, I strove to embrace change and take action toward living better. I verbalized my life dream of a creating a restaurant dedicated to service and have begun making a real plan toward it. When my negative emotions surfaced, I managed them by using meditation to maintain calm. I wanted to show more gratitude, and one way I did that was by sending cards to dear friends who were outside the country. I committed to doing small workouts every day to build strength and be healthier. These just a few examples, and I continue to work on them today.

I’m proud of the growth that I achieved by taking ownership of my response to the situation. At the same time, I realize that I shouldn’t have needed this dramatic change in lifestyle to create this kind of growth for myself. Everything I learned and gained from this experience was not unique to the military. Moving forward, I will strive to slow down occasionally to create opportunities for myself to grow mentally, and I truly believe anyone can do the same.

On an emotional and physical level, finally completing military service has been extremely relieving. It’s similar to that satisfying feeling of kicking off your heavy shoes after a long day out on your feet, but magnified a million times! I had lived with the weight of this looming burden for almost 10 years, and to finally leave that behind is a truly blessing. I have finally earned the privilege to legally visit Taiwan to see my family anytime I want, and that’s priceless to me.

Three lessons

From my time in the army, I’ve come to embrace three general learnings that I personally view as truths to living better. Nothing groundbreaking, but nevertheless important reminders that I hope will help you too.

In any situation, you choose your response and therefore what to make of it. I’m paraphrasing Bruce Lee’s quote here. The great Michael Jordan says something similar, that it’s important to “turn a negative into a positive”. When something bad happens, it could just become a bad memory that we complain about or try to forget. Maybe it could be an experience to reflect on and learn from. Or even better, it could be opportunity to do something positive/productive for ourselves and others. All of this requires work and discipline, but it becomes easier if we start with the fundamental, small decision to change our attitude. Doing this made all the difference in how I used my time in the army to rebuild myself, and I’m grateful to look back on this experience as a major turning point, or stepping stone, in my life.

When we slow down, it’s an excellent opportunity to invest in ourselves. When we step away from the usual flood of responsibilities/priorities, we have extra time and headspace to reflect and work on becoming better and stronger. If we do this well, we empower ourselves to better navigate life when it inevitably speeds back up again. So it pays off to make time for ourselves dedicated to personal growth, just as taking time off work to relax helps to maintain our mental health. My time in the army forced me to slow down and gave my this opportunity to invest in myself, but nobody should need 4 months in the army to grow! And while investing time into our own growth is another kind of work, it’s also a source of fulfillment and meaning that no vacation, party, or TV show can provide.

Growth is a process and direction, not a destination. The best way to achieve results is through consistent work, and that starts with embracing the process. Two goals I had were to develop a reading habit and get physically stronger, but I didn’t achieve them by focusing on my destination. In the past, I gave up because I got discouraged thinking about how far I was from where I wanted to be. I read maybe one book every two years and never got consistent exercise besides walking around the city. This time, I committed to doing a little every day, reasoning that doing anything in the right direction is better than nothing, and when I noticed progress I would use it as encouragement to continue. I started with reading one page a day, and used my daily exercise time to do short workouts. And now, reading and exercising have become natural daily habits that I enjoy, and as an example measure of strength, I improved from 2 to 10 pull-ups in a row. Everyone starts from somewhere relatively low, and by committing to small changes and routines, anyone can improve over time. Embracing the process, with some patience and dedication, is bound to pay off with positive results.