To New Beginnings…
By: Michael Alfredo Chan
Tags: Mental Health, Career Change, Unemployment, Career Advice

Goodbye 2019, Hello 2020

2020 already started about two months ago, but this post isn’t about the start of a new year. This is a story about a journey I’ve been on, which started almost exactly a year ago to this day. When I opened my journal yesterday morning and wrote “Funemployment Day 366”, it hit me in a lot of different ways: 1) I still can’t fathom that I haven’t had a paycheck deposited in my bank account in over a year 2) Boy, I sure am happy that I planned ahead financially, saved up for a rainy day fund, paid off my student debt, and invested while I was working 3) I’m super indebted to the family and friends that have supported me throughout this time in more ways than one 4) I can’t help but reflect on the memories, mistakes, decisions, and sacrifices that I’ve made along the way that have led me to new perspectives and new things to look forward to. Let me explain…

On July 11 of 2016 I started my “dream job” right out of college. I shit you not, I thought, and felt, like I was on top of the world. It checked every single box on my dream job checklist coming out of school: Fortune 500 company, Bay Area Silicon Valley, Tech Company, Corporate Finance, and Financial Rotation Program. It was a stamp of recognition, something that my parents were proud to talk about with their friends (you know how Asian parents are). And, it definitely proved the four years of grinding in undergraduate was worth it. It provided for me in so many ways, and to this day, I’m still really happy that I got this job as as my first learning experience out of school. But…things happened in my life, and I started to question whether or not this corporate grind was really worth it.

Both my parents escaped to the United States from China during the Mao Zedong era for a better life. As you can imagine, our views on work, and life in general, are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. My mom (It was just my mom and sister growing up mostly) worked to put food on the table and support my sister and I through school. In other words, she worked for survival. She never thought about anything else besides stability and paying for the one thing she knew could change her family’s life: an education. The thing is, as my sister and I made our way through high school, college, and now into our careers, we started to really come into our own and find something that our parents never really got the chance to pursue : a career that doesn’t just pay the bills, but provides value and meaning to our lives and to the lives of others. My sister found her path and is now about to wrap up Medical School at a top University. But for me, I always felt like I stuck with Finance because because it sounded like a lucrative and stable career path. It felt like the safe, comfortable, and easy decision to make.

It wasn’t until I started working that my passion for this career path was really tested. I started reading the news heavily around this time and…the constant headlines of new shootings, natural disasters, sexual assaults, political scandals…it started to weigh on me. I looked at the world around me and knew more could be done. I looked at the inspiring work my sister was doing and felt compelled to do more myself. The thing was, I didn’t know where to start. So I started asking myself questions. What good was I doing with my life? How was I helping the world become a better place? Will I be okay leaving the world where it is today? Are the 70+ hour work weeks that I pull going to help solve some of the world’s problems? As I let these questions consume me, my work started to feel like more of a chore than an opportunity for growth. I was more concerned with trying to solve other peoples’ problems than my own. And slowly but surely, the weight of it all started to turn me into a shell of a human being. I became extremely depressed. My anxiety was at an all-time high. I was abusing my body with substances to temporarily numb the pain. My blood pressure was 165/60 (that’s hypertension 2 range). It got to a point where I lost all my self-esteem, and sometimes had suicidal thoughts. It started to show in my work, and in February of 2019, I eventually left that “dream job” that now just feels like a bad dream .

Initially, my mom was happy to have me home. “Start fresh.” “Take this as a learning opportunity.” “It’s just the first one, don’t worry!” “Use this time to apply for Grad School.” But a more immature me had others ideas (oops). I was still in a pretty big party phase of my life and wanted to take advantage of all the extra time I now had on my hands. As you can imagine, that led to some pretty heated exchanges between my mother and I. I eventually headed to LA to live with my sister, which was one of the best decisions of my life.

The last time we lived together under the same roof was probably in high school, and let me tell you, I missed those times. Although we had less space, had little privacy, had no income between the two of us, and had to share a teeny bed in her dorm room together, we both couldn’t be happier. We were both pretty burned out from the career paths that we chose, and it was nice having someone else know exactly what we were going through on a day to day basis. We supported each other, lifted each other up, and really stood up for each other during this time.

It was also during this time that I started to get my life back on track. I was applying to volunteer opportunities abroad through WorkAway, shadowing MBA courses at UCLA, putting in 6–7 hours of studying for the GMAT each day, and cutting out most of the unhealthy habits that I used to temporarily get me through the day. I started to fall in love with the idea of self-improvement, self-care, and mental health. I even started a Youtube channel centered around raising awareness and breaking the stigma against talking about mental health topics, a very taboo topic in the Asian community. I felt like I was finally being more honest with myself, and was’t living a life that I thought I was supposed to live in order to please others.

Fast forward a few months to August of 2019, and my pursuits towards a more humanitarian career path in line with my mental health journey have led me to Indonesia, where I landed a psychologist internship for the Indonesian government. It wasn’t a paid internship, but based on the job description, it sounded like a once in a lifetime opportunity. A government supported internship halfway across the world that would allow me to help others on a global scale, work with professionals in their respective industries, and get my foot in the door in mental health/humanitarian work through therapy sessions and research…it sounded almost too good to be true. But still, a ton of doubts flooded my mind…I didn’t speak the language. It was my first time in this country. I only knew one person in the whole country prior to coming. I had no idea what I just signed up for. To say I was scared would be an understatement…I was literally shitting anxiety out. However, it marked the first time in my life that I would be taking a risk in a direction that I actually wanted to head in. I knew this entire experience would be bigger than just the internship itself. And…I was so right.

The internship had a few parts to it, so I’ll try my best to recall those parts and break them down. My first two weeks of the internship, I was placed at our remote facility in the mountains of West Java, Jonggol. Almost immediately upon arrival, all the worries and questions I had melted away slowly. It was paradise on earth. Waking up to the sunrise overlooking fields on fields of rice patties, the simple farm-to-table lifestyle, monitoring clients on a daily basis, living on less than $10 a week between a household of sometimes five people or more, the bucket showers/bucket laundry, all the animals (sheep, chickens, cats, dogs), sleeping on the wooden floor of the cabin with super musty matts…I loved it all. This time of the internship showed me that I really didn’t need much to be happy. I already had everything I needed in life to be happy. I started to found my motivation to LIVE again, and let me tell you, it felt incredible.

Unfortunately, I only got to spend about 1.5 weeks in the mountains before being called back to the capital, Jakarta, for the remainder of my internship. But I still kept in touch with everyone I met in the mountains, in the off-chance that we would run into each other again. As I got settled with my new routine, new clients, and new study schedule for the GMAT in the capital, I started to really enjoy the day to day living in this new country called “home”. I signed up for a gym membership, learned the customs/traditions of a new country, found content in sharing homecooked meals, made friends from going out, explored the city’s restaurants/malls/coffee shops by myself, signed up for a bootcamp fitness gym, made more friends and helped out with their businesses by sharing my mental health journey, went out some more, and started to really take care of myself in the right ways.

It was also in the middle of the trip that I really started to come to terms with my path and the decisions I’ve made that have led me here. I started listening to different podcasts to give me more perspective on life, and came across one that touched on all the topics that I was interested in exploring. The podcast had episodes covering dating, career pursuits/expectations/changes, mental health, traveling solo, struggles with relating to your Asian Immigrant parents from a 1st Generation perspective, and so much more. Although some days were tough being on my own, I tried to tough those days out and put myself in my mom’s shoes. I thought about the challenges she faced when she came to the States as an immigrant with no college education, English background, and friends, or job. We didn’t talk about it until I got back to the States, but I really started to understand my mom during this time.

So as some of you may know, the internship ended up not working and I left 3 months earlier than expected, essentially cutting my trip in half. My flight back to the States was set to take off on November 16th, and I had two weeks left to make the most of it. Initially, I was torn in half. I remember calling my sister on November 4th (the day I quit my internship) and letting her know the situation, feeling like such a fuck-up. Another job that I “couldn’t handle”. Another “missed opportunity”. I’m not good enough. All these thoughts hit me like a ton of bricks. But in a way that only older siblings know how to, she consoled me and reassured me that things would be okay. I wasn’t sure if I believed her, but at the same time, all I needed to hear was that at least one person still believed in me.

I packed my bags and stayed with the only friend I had prior to coming to this country. His family and him were gracious enough to let me into their home on a moment’s notice, and really took good care of me (Terima Kasih Sutandar family!). During this time, I had to take care of a lot of last minute logistical changes like: cancelling my Airbnb/flights to Bali for Thanksgiving (maybe I’ll get the chance to go in the future), selling some concert tickets for December, cancelling my GMAT test, rearranging my plan to head back home, letting my family and friends from home know I’d be coming back, and saying goodbye to the new friends that I made in Indonesia. It sucked, but for the remaining 10 days, I really tried to treat it like vacation. And to my pleasant surprise, those last 10 days would be so much fun that it made saying goodbye that much harder.

Now that I’ve been back home for a little over 3 months, I am still trying to make sense of all of this. In the meantime, I’ve been helping out at my family’s business part time while still dedicating most of my time to studying for the GMAT (my test is in less than two weeks so wish me luck). My goals are still more of less the same: get into a good MBA program, find the career path that’s an intersection between something financially sustainable and in line with my passion of helping others, and be a good son. But after going through this entire journey, I feel like I got a second chance on life. I try to really treat everyday like it’s my last, and focus on the important things that will help me out long-term. This trip, and entire last year, gave me the one thing that I needed so badly, but couldn’t find by sitting around and doing the same old thing everyday: perspective. Once you change the way you look at things, the things you look at will change.

So to close this lengthy rant of a first post, if you’re feeling stuck, rest assured, you have options for your life. They may not be clear to you right now, but you will figure it out. Life is only a series of mistakes if you choose to look at it that way. You also have a choice to acknowledge those as learning experiences, and move on from them in a new direction. I still have a lot of figuring out to do myself, and am nowhere near where I want to be, but just like you, I’m trying my best to work towards that. Keep your head up, we’re only getting started!