Two years of my life in review

It's crazy to think that it's been two years since I started on this journey. Two years ago, I decided to join mentorship committee. It's interesting to see how this has developed in me over the past two years, and how having significant commitments outside of school has affected how I view school. My first two years of college I used to study more than anyone, probably. I literally studied all the time. After class. Before class. Friday nights. Saturday nights. 6-8 hours a day. Why did I do it? I don't really know. Part of it is I somehow had this sense that it made me better than everyone else, that it made me special. Another part is my whole anal perfectionism thing that I have. Great fun. Another part was the fact that I had regretted going to UCLA over Berkeley, and so tried to make up for what I decided was probably going to be an inferior education experience by studying harder than anyone else.

Two years of that, and then something completely different. School was no longer my priority, it was mentorship. And if I wasn't doing that, I was doing something for research or just hanging out with people. I was thinking about this as I was driving to UCLA today, about how this experience has affected me. It's literally been a paradigm shift for me, to question the vision of success and happiness that I had previously never thought about. I just hope that what I learned from this experience will stay with me as I move on to a new chapter. I hope I will stay as passionate about education, about volunteerism, as I have been these past few years.

I think I'll start posting about things I've learned from this experience, or how I've changed from it. I'll try to post every day or every week to capture what I'm thinking about.

What about today? Let's start with today.

First lesson learned: Work smart.

What does this mean? I used to think that all it took to be successful was to try your hardest. To put everything into the task at hand, to completely dedicate yourself to it. I still think dedication is a huge part of what makes me who I am but I've learned that it's better to take a step back first, and see what would benefit most from your efforts. In mentorship, for example, I wasted valuable energy doing something that should not have been my responsibility. My mindset was, this is my priority. I will do WHATEVER it takes. So why not do this? But it turned out, at the end of the year, that because I had dedicated so much for these other tasks, I had sacrificed working on other, more important things.

I used to think I can just keep working and working and working, like a machine on meth or something. Okay I didn't actually think about the machine on meth part, that was kind of dumb. But I've learned that I should distribute my workload more intelligently, so as to not overburden myself.

That's all for now. More to come soon! Be excited.

random thoughts at 2 am

Entourage is interesting. Plan: check out more.

It's frustrating when someone says they support whatever you choose to do, but when you tell them you're doing something besides what they want you to do, they always find a reason why doing that thing is either a) bad for your future, b) morally decadent, or c) misled. Coincidence? I can't help but think not.

Writing music (or trying to) is so frustrating. Ideas come so easily when you're not trying. As soon as you try, everything you think of just sucks. It's like a physical law. How do you then remember what you're randomly thinking about long enough to make use of it? Maybe I should invest in one of those ipod audio recorders so I can sing ideas to myself... maybe not. Maybe that's trying too hard. And then no ideas will come.

Sometimes the hardest thing is to just be yourself. Same idea as above. Being yourself is so easy, when you're not trying, right???? Then as soon as you try, it gets complicated.

I used to think putting in my best, maximal effort, was the solution to everything. It's interesting to know that sometimes not trying as hard, or at least not forcing things to happen, is better. Life is subtle like that.