What I've learned in 2021

Key takeaways

2021 has been a big reality check for me, but I learned a handful of valuable life lessons.

• Outsource what you suck at. Focus on few things you're good at. It's cheesy but it took me a good while to change my mindset.

• What you're passionate about probably don't matter as much as what you value in life. The values are going to help shape your life's purpose when things go rough.

The full story

Ah 2021, a year like no other.

From mental health problems to something as benign as being late on online classes.

It was my first year without any accomplishments besides personal ones. For the past 4 months of quarantine in Saigon life has literally stopped in time.

Those quarantine days were what I'd like to call as the "dark ages."

Ramens were staple for breakfast. 24 hour shifts at traffic checkpoints once every 3 days. Struggled with grocery shopping when traffic gets mangled.

But this year had a profound impact on how I see myself as a person and what kind of purpose and dreams I should be having. I've amassed a mountain of knowledge from learning natural science on the after-hours and reading people's stories.

So, without further ado, let's jump right in.

After spending 1-2 years of learning software engineering and app development as a hobby, I made a tough decision to take a break from it, in order to soul search and find my truer self. The break was supposed to be over many months ago, but I haven't returned from my adventure since.

The journey of self teaching science started off in the beginning of 2021. It was exhilarating but nonetheless pretty rough - months of learning hundreds of new concepts in Classical Mechanics and making flashcards plus fortune telling myself find what my future career will be. I went down the rabbit hole of figuring my career path and managed to managed to connect with some key people in my desired LinkedIn network, but the amount of support from them was far from enough to help make any discernible career changes. Because I have no relevant degree and experience, everything you do in the past few months was pretty much wasted.

When it became clear that I could only go so far, I had my first big rethink about life priorities. And so in the rainy season I finished my own Classical Mechanics coursework and dived into climatology, because it is the field that is closely in line with my interest in weather and climate. I ended up making a concise summary of what i've read for the past month poring over it. I had a wild ambition of writing a book about it, but it soon became too difficult and the thought of blogging about it is still far-fetched when you are still doubting whether that path is viable in the first place.

As I became more and more anxious about my inability to settle myself in one domain and the delays in achieving my dream to travel to New York, I overcompensated myself by trying to monetize every skill I have and learn more stuff than I feel is necessary.

Looking back, it was a symptom of toxic productivity. The narrative goes that if you're willing to work hard enough, then you could do absolutely anything without wasting a penny. And better yet, you don't have to haggle with freelancers about what the end product ought to be.

Even though I was literally a walking Wikipedia, I was still overzealous about my ability to do everything and generate income with little transferable skills.

Until reality slapped me hard in the face. For many months I did everything to prove my worth on freelance sites but ultimately my plans fell through. It was impossible to land writing gigs without lying everything about yourself and I was still very resistant about the idea of freelancing as a developer. Didn't I say that I wanted to take a break from it ?

Tired with my ambitious money making scheme and the constant shortcomings to accomplish it, I was back to the drawing board to come up with another master plan. And the planning coincided with citywide closures due to the unprecedented advance of COVID. So I dedicated the latter half of the year to bring my product idea that has been in my back burner for a long time into real life.

I'm gonna patent my idea.

So during the quiet quarantine days, I did exactly just that. Redesigning a vapor compression heat pump from scratch. All without any help from the outside world.

I thought my mental health would break into pieces, but nonetheless I managed to connect my ideas into a single coherent block of content.

I admired the blueprint whenever I look at it, but I was still troubled about whether my design would make it to the patent office.

So in the midst of the chaos I've created myself, I had my first sobering realization for years after I watched one video about our relationships with money.

The more negatively we think about the money, the less likely money will bring you comfort and wellbeing.

In short, the less I outsource, the more worse off I am when it comes to making progress in your projects.

Because of the negative bias I have about money, it is nearly impossible for me to specialize at one thing since I keep doing everything myself. And now I'm unemployable and I feel like none of my projects are going anywhere.

And I teared up very hard.

I felt like I've done a grave mistake. And somehow I convinced myself to repeat making that same BS mistake every time.

In the midst of my own existential crisis, it dawned on me that I was pressuring myself to succeed so hard that I keep doing too much without paying attention to what I want out of life.

2021 could easily be among my most productive years, but the lack of mental clarity ultimately led to indecision and exhaustion, as opposed to spiritual fulfillment as I once hoped.

Also, I did too many things that I don't necessary like nor enjoy. And it pretty much ruined my mental health just as much as I claim to improve it.

So I decided to cut everything that doesn't serve my values and purpose. That's why I'm writing about this now.

Even though life doesn't go as quick as I wanted to, at least I can feel peace.

Still more to come in part 2