Growing up into Fate

Growing up.

I've been thinking that maybe "growing up" really just means working on and strengthening bits of our humanity. Growing up and staying grown up requires work. Week by week, I'm required to make little choices and perform small tasks in things such as emotional maturity, kindness, fiscal responsibility, and career progress.

I constantly make choices to sway me towards a certain direction. Whether it's accumulating experience, knowledge, or skills. I make a choice when I sit down and read a book or watch a youtube video. I make a choice when I go for a run or a bike ride.

I wish I had possessed an intuitive understanding of this in high school and college: how little things add up to larger things and how attention to the little things was your due diligence to a larger picture or goal.

But I'm glad I eventually came to this conclusion on my own and although I feel "behind" everyone else in success, I am content knowing I'm on the path to becoming my own person.

Fate. Destiny.

I actually believe that everything happens for a reason. I prefer beliefs in destiny, fate, and karma over chaos and randomness. Without such beliefs, it would be impossible for me to maintain a sense of sanity in this forever changing and dynamic world. The unexpected can always strike because it is impossible to see all of the seemingly infinite variables of life's equation. Making sense of the chaotic and seemingly random is why mathematicians work with summations and series and laplace transforms. In fact, laplace transforms are the reason I clutch onto fate and destiny.

If every action we take turns us into a certain person and leads us towards a certain path and towards certain places in life, spiting even the most difficult of circumstances, therein lies our fate/destiny. God plays a part but he gives us control and free will over what we do with our circumstances.

In many ways, I feel like I was destined to meet the people I have formed relationships with in my life. I ended up here in the Bay Area, despite my shortcomings as a young and naive soul with many imperfections. Looking back, I feel happy. But I continue to grow up and I strive to make my destiny even better.

2016 New Years Themes

TLDR: My New Years "resolution" is to maintain a compassionate and conscientious identity while learning how to disconnect from the clutter, focus on what's important, and work towards personal wealth.

This year, my resolutions are centered around themes:

1. Disconnect

While I in school, I became reliant on social media. But during work life, social media is growing less appealing when it feels like I have to put more and more effort into image crafting and caring about what people think. The pervasiveness of social media has become a nuisance to me. Every time I check my phone with no notifications, I go straight to Facebook or Instagram, and it's usually of no productive value to me but it's an addiction! It's become so much of an addiction that I check my phone while driving impulsively. And that's really unsafe.

So one major theme of 2016, starting now, is "disconnect." I'm not sure how I will achieve this and how I will measure any success tangibly. I've heard of people swearing that smart watches change their life and during the brief week I had a Garmin Vivoactive, I can see why. A phone is something that is fully engaging while a smart watch limits your interactions and lets you stay on task. Because I had the smart watch to keep me inconspicuously connected, I was satisfied with my "connectedness" and rarely felt the urge to check my phone. It was great. Unfortunately, the Garmin Vivoactive did not live up to my aesthetic preferences and was too bulky for comfort on my wrist. I will keep an eye out for newer models of this watch.

One positive action that I'll take towards this is to hike and backpack more. I love the outdoors and I love taking in the scenery and, once I'm out there, I love the fact that I'm disconnected from society and work and all my human burdens. I love coming back and reconnecting, too, and I think that's part of what I'll enjoy from this theme. Honestly, I sometimes think the fundamental idea behind both the engagement with internet/social media and the search for great outdoors... is really that search for connectivity. They feel very different ... but isn't it true that we need people to feel connected to humanity and that we, conversely, need nature to feel connected to our personal humanity?

I feel like I'm halfway there. But I'll need to make an everyday, conscious effort to win this game.

2. Focus

This seems like a similar concept to the first, but my goals are different. I want to disconnect because I want to free myself from the clutter of "information overload" and from the need to "image craft" on social media. Once free, I want to fill it in with new, resonant, and/or productive things. But in order to do that, I must obtain a skill I has been underdeveloped for many years now: focus.

--the ability to set my mind on a task without getting distracted or being pulled in different directions. I've set many goals and resolutions in life only to be lost because I did not have focus. I've even started many unpublished blog posts that were unfinished because I did not have focus. It has to do with self-discipline against distractions, daily dedication, and determination even when failures occur. So instead of having goals or resolutions, I am going to work on my "focus" this year. That will be what is on my mind every time I tackle a new task.

To work on this, I will start with 15-20 mins of yoga stretch every day and 5 minutes of meditation every other day. Baby steps for now.

3. Wealth

For me, this is a weird theme. Money has always been a central theme in my life because it has always been a huge area of stress. My family has always been barely afloat on the financial front. I may have studied abroad on a tuition scholarship, but I struggled to make ends meet, feed myself, and pay for room and board. I used my free time in tutoring for money (and sometimes food) and had many stressful, sleepless nights. I had enough mindset to stay afloat because my mother was always very frugal and handled her credit well so our family never went completely broke.

However, in the game of wealth, I don't feel that I grew up with any role models. Wealth to a comfortable degree, where I could spend wisely but comfortably enough to buy nice, durable things, did not seem attainable to me while I was growing up. It was really just about survival...

I have to realize now that I am approaching a position where I can turn up. I've never felt interested in this whole grown up world of investments, mortgages, interest... Looking back, it was either because I never gave it much thought or I was scared of reaching very high (the less wealth you have, the less risks you can take).

In practice, tax season is coming up; time to really understand what I'm doing when I fill in those boxes! To start, I resolve to read more about how to manage my money, my wealth, and how to achieve enough to live comfortably and give back to my community. (Now taking book suggestions!)

P.S. Obviously this theme does not just apply to monetary wealth. :)

What I Learned from Dogsitting

Thoughts on Responsible Dog Ownership and Pet Obsession

If you know me well, you know I will often joke about how small dogs are not "real" dogs. It's not that I really think that they are a separate species (I go so far as to to joke chihuahuas and pompoms are big rats). I despise the idea that they were bred to look like permanent puppies that irresponsible dog owners can baby. Because they are smaller and and so "cute" and easier to handle and dominate, they are often irresponsibly bred, which I believe is the reason for the "chihuahua mix epidemic" in adoption shelters and kennels. Small dogs and dogs bred just for cuteness reflect human pet obsession and babying.

Larger dogs tend to encourage a more rewarding companionship since they cannot be treated like babies all their life. There's the puppy phase and then it's over after a year or so. However, they are likely to become abandoned dogs if they are not socialized properly or not given the proper love. They end up misunderstood when they develop aggression or uncontrollable behaviors as adults. Because of this, I despise the notion that pets are just pets. Do NOT bring a "just a pet" mentality to large breed puppies. Why do you think there are so many German Shepherd mixes and Husky mixes in the shelters?! </endrant>

The first domesticated wolves were allies to humans. We made it each other better and helped each other survive. Since the first alliance, dogs have evolved together with us. But in a modern, pet-obsessed culture, it's so easy to forget that these souls can form real, meaningful bonds with us that are forged out of respect.

The Adorable Toasted Marshmallow (Dogsitting)

Last month, I had the opportunity to dogsit our new family pup, a 10-month-old Japanese Akita, for a short span of 10 days. The Akita breed is a large breed of dog and it is classified among the most dangerous dog breeds, next to the Husky and the German Shepherd. Knowing this, responsible dog ownership over Mashi was very important to me.

In sum total, she gave me something to live for--outside of my work, my boyfriend, and my friends and family. She gave me a glimpse of what it took to really, truly be responsible for another soul: self-awareness, dedication, and time.

You have to be self-aware in everything you do with and around a puppy. In developmental psychology, the brain is constantly making positive or negative associations with events so every little action can affect their development. Associative learning is at the crux of caring for a young life. For example, one day Mashi ran out of the house while my landlord had the garage open. In my many years of dog ownership, I'd learned that chasing after a dog will only make the dog run away. So I slowly approached her and to my pleasant surprise she did not run away as I took hold of her collar. This was a key breakthrough because I wanted her to learn that being offleash was okay as long as she let me approach her and take her collar. If I brought her inside the house at that moment, I would end up letting her associate "the collar grab" with "ruining the fun of being offleash." So instead, I put her training leash (15 ft) on and had Marvin take her for a walk in the park. In contrast, many dogs associate the collar grab with being dragged somewhere they don't want to go. I was always on thinking about my actions, even the tiniest of ones, and trying to remain self-aware.  Most importantly, my self-awareness helped me communicate with the dog because it made me aware of how I was communicating with her and how she might communicate back.

Self-awareness also helps a lot with dedication. In my last microblog, I brought out the quote "being awesome requires constant vigilance." Nothing is truer when you care for another being. Consistency is a key principle of associative learning but it takes a great deal of patience and discipline to do the right thing the large majority of the time. While laziness is the great bane of consistency, I found that when there was another life on the line, I was less likely to be lazy. I got out of the house to walk her in the cold mornings and evenings. I made sure she made positive social contact with dogs at the dog park. And I made sure she was fed and exercised. With dedication and self-awareness, I ended up exercising awareness over Mashi's needs. (It wasn't all perfect. One morning I failed to exercise her adequately because I had an early work meeting... and she ended up chewing up my roommate's slipper.) But even though it was a demanding "job" to care for her needs, I really think the love I developed for Mashi and time I invested in her over the short 10 days made me a better person. It put things in perspective and got me out of my own head and that is a huge thing for me.

Last but not least, the most difficult requirement of all when caring for another soul: time. My demographic profile (female, mid-twenties in the Bay Area) is not something to take lightly. It's an age when time is limited, careers are mobile, relationships volatile. In the fray of it all, taking care of a dog seems like something that could disrupt my current set of priorities (skill/knowledge acquisition, career, social life, relationships). Don't get me wrong--I know that in the future, the honor of forming a lasting bond with "man's best friend" will be high on my priority list. That bond in itself is a huge, irreplaceable reward--not to mention the endless warm and fuzzy instagram-worthy pictures, loving cuddles, crowd-pleasing adorableness, and cuteness overloads. However, unless I had adequate financial resources and could tag team with someone or have reliable dogsitters of my own, I would not risk adopting a puppy or a young adult dog.

What I learned from dogsitting is that I'm not ready to responsibly own a dog yet. It was a relief to bring Mashi back to my home in SoCal so I could "live my own life." But in the near future, who knows?

I still want to adopt a border collie and name him Spock.

But I want to earn that dream.

Nerdfighter

I secretly (or not so secretly) watch the vlogbrothers. A lot. By far, my favorite video contains these awesome words from Hank Green:

"A slogan of nerdfighteria these past seven years has been Don't Forget To Be Awesome, and that is a good slogan, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. Being awesome requires constant vigilance, and you will slip up, whether because of ignorance or because of selfishness or because of outright malice, or because you're drunk. But you have a choice, after you've done something crappy, you can transform into one of two things. Either you can regain your awesome through actual apology, or you can become a fartbag."

"Being awesome requires constant vigilance" is probably the phrase that plays most frequently in my head as it applies to... everything in life. Being awesome is hard and sometimes I just want to be a potato but then I realize that I'm only 25 and by golly I've got a plethora of quests to complete and the possibilities are still endless and the day will come when I will slay a dragon or something. Some weeks it takes me a lot longer to realize this and sometimes it's instantaneous. Either way, I must apologize to myself and forgive myself for not being awesome. And fight on.

Happy Feet

It's been too long since my last post, so I'm just going to churn one out.

I've been thinking a lot about how my relationship with running has changed over the years. And I wonder if it's what most former sprinters/jumpers like myself go through. Sprints and jumps were signals of power. My college intramural long jump was 4m07 (13ft4" while in high school I could jump a solid 14ft). 400m was at 70''99 (in high school, I bested 67''). At HKUST, I placed first in both events at an interdepartmental meet so even though I'll never be Alyson Felix who ran 49''89 at the Beijing 2015 World Championship, I have a small piece of my history to be proud of.

As running short distance races becomes less realistic and taxing on the body, I've slowly converted to longer distances. From the beginning, I took a track athlete's mentality to long distance running. I look at pace as a performance metric. I push myself on long runs and in every active thing that I do.

And that "tough as nails" attitude has merit to it. But it's taken me eight years to realize that this has also led to my many injuries at a great cost: knee surgeries, depression, body dysmorphia, tendon and ligament strains, shin splints, negatively comparing myself with others, etc.

Does placing first (or bettering someone you're mentally in a competition with) always matter? No. I will never be Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. However, I can learn a lot from top athletes when it comes to attitude and perseverance. (Side note on Fraser-Pryce: this 100m Jamaican national record holder is 5'0'', runs a killer 10.7'', and has a million dollar smile and a beautiful personality!)

Mardy Fish had an insightful article on a recent Player's Tribune which, essentially, highlighted that there will always be someone better than you:

My dissatisfaction with the status quo — that had been so helpful when there were 20 players ranked in front of me — crossed over into something more stressful, and then destructive, I think, when that number became reduced to seven.

The idea that I wasn’t good enough was a powerful one — it drove me, at an age when many players’ careers are winding down, to these amazing heights. But it also became a difficult switch to turn off. I was, objectively, doing great. And looking back, I wish I had been able to tell myself that. But doing great wasn’t something that my frame of mind back then had time to process. All I could focus on was doing better. It was a double-edged sword. 

Fish, Fraser-Pryce, and Felix are all athletes I look up to. They're winners, but more importantly, they recognize that being the top dog is not everything in life. Filling your life with non-material meaning and purpose--that's what matters. And in your journey of self-improvement, do it on your own terms, find joy in the process, and fill it with love. I've always believed in "unselfish" self-improvement; making yourself a better person should be to the benefit of your community and your loved ones.

Flash forward to my current self. I'm running 12-16 miles per week. Other amazing distance runners are running 40-50 miles or more. But it's just unrealistic for me to put in any more than what I do now as I'm still recovering from surgery. I haven't re-adapted myself to the mechanical stress those distances put on the body. So when the dastardly Shin Splints wafted on the horizon as I first got back into training, I slammed the breaks and decidedly eased back into it with more discipline.

And that brings me to my favorite new element of training: the easy, long run. I used to dread this element of training (fire trails at Berkeley!) but that was because I was running them too quickly. In order to train an aerobic base, you have to run farther, slower. And, as a sprinter, that never made sense to me. "Tough as nails" and "pushing your limit" and "past the lactate threshold" were a sprinter's bread and butter. We're always thinking "faster" and, very often we're thinking: "fastest."

But do you enjoy the scenery when you're running faster? Can you smell the air? Greet a passing jogger with "good evening" or "hello"? Smile and wave at the little kid that waves at you?

Most recent 6+ mile run (Ocean Beach -> Land's End Trail -> Golden Gate Park)

Since I somehow tricked Marvin into doing the Berkeley Half Relay with me, I've coerced him to doing long runs with me too. To my bafflement, he'd never run more than four miles before and now we're running 6+ miles together (ranging between 9:30-10:00 pace). On these long runs, I'm always emphasizing conversational pace. And while running slow can be boring and 1+ hours of just running can feel like a waste of time, I also enjoy the company and the mini-conversations we hold. I'm happier when I run and try to enjoy my surroundings--not to mention, the Bay Area is B-E-A-U-TIFUL. And we've also quickly begun to see the effects the long run has on our faster, moderate-paced runs. Marvin was able to run a sub-8 paced 3 miler while I've begun to hover at 8:10-15.

With 100 miles logged on my Adizeros, there's still a few weeks of training to go... but I might just be a believer in the easy, long run now. I feel that the theories are solid:

• It increases aerobic capacity by stimulating capillary development
• It increases speed/energy production by stimulating mitochondrial development
• It increases aerobic energy availability by increasing myoglobin content in muscle fibers

I believe that this is really about stress adaptation and growth. As a sprinter, I've never really had a "base aerobic fitness" since my body tends to favor anaerobic activity. But with enough consistent adaptation, maybe a half marathon is in my future, after all?

I still have a soft spot for short-distance interval training though. See ya on the track. ;)

Recently Read: The Martian (Andy Weir, 2011)
Currently Reading: Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert M. Pirsig, 1974)
Currently Listening: Rivers (Thomas Jack - Hugel Remix)

Things to Do Before I Turn 30!

My 25th birthday recently passed. When I was 21 I made a things to do before I turn 25/26 list and still have a ways to go. So I'll just dump everything in my To Do Before 30 list:

From my 25/26 List:

• Read through the Bible cover to cover at least 3 times. one time.
• Go on a cycling trip across a different country (2-4 weeks).
• Learn Tagalog to a limited working proficiency. Converse with my parents in Taglish.
• Finish a half-marathon for a good cause.

Moar!

• Take my parents on a vacation. Preferably another country. Philippines or Europe.
• Adopt my own dog, implying adequate financial responsibility.
• Finish paying off my car.
• Volunteer for 1-2 months in any of the following countries: India, Nepal, or rural China.
• Learn Mandarin to a limited working proficiency.
• Learn Spanish to a limited working proficiency.
• Learn archery, buy my own archery set, and get really good at it. (<- I really want this to be my zen hobby)
• Write a short sci-fi novella.

Five years doesn't seem long enough to complete these goals.... but it's always nice to have a goal in sight. ;)

Is that all?

faith

noun

1. confidence or trust in a person or thing
2. belief that is not based on proof
3. belief in God or the doctrines or the teachings of religion
4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.
...

The list goes on.

Faith, by the second definition cited here, is irrational. But why do we as humans seem to need it? Has it not been a double-edge sword to human progress?

Faith is often used in science. Some in the scientific community have faith that interstellar space travel will be possible. Some in the scientific community have faith that we will discover cheap, safe, and effective ways to harness renewable energy. The timeline is unknown, sure, but science works towards these goals. However, our current physical models do not support such beliefs. Interstellar travel isn't even theoretically possible right now. Our knowledge of physics is limited. And yet, we have these flashes of brilliance: gravity, string theory, the God particle (Higgs-boson)... that provide glimpses of a world not our own.

Without faith in our own curiosity and search for expansion, would we yield to our limitations?

It's a simple concept, isn't it? Faith?

Faith is used in the absence of knowledge and certainty. Without a belief in whatever thing you want to believe in, we relent to the view of our limited certainties. Inspiration dies.

You can have faith in anything, really- enough to seek out the fruition of that belief. God, renewable energy, interstellar space travel, the soul, etc.

That which you manifest is before you.

Life as we know it is mysterious and I don't believe that this is it.
Keep going, do your best, reach forward into the unknown, and have faith.

Currently Watching: Star Trek: Voyager (Season 4, I'm so obsessed with this show!)