Conditional Love

My grandmother grew up as the 2nd daughter of a 3rd wife, within a large wealthy family where she was neglected. From the way she blindly favored her one son over the other, one could easily guess that she probably suffered similar treatment herself and subconsciously came to treat her own as differently as her family treated her.

While my grandmother completed high school at a time when most women in China could not read or write, she never matched up in the eyes of her family to her prettier and smarter older sister, who had the opportunity to complete college, marry an educated man, and live the modern life.

Instead, my grandmother married a Communist foot soldier and settled in a small town in Western China. To the outside world, my grandmother is the definition of grace and modesty, but as many quintessential Chinese woman of the traditional world, she grew up without a sense of empowerment, was never taught to have self worth, and worst of all, without an understanding that respecting others starts with respecting the self.

She is great at putting on a show, but it took me 24 years to realize that deep down, there is nothing there. I learned recently that she was not on speaking terms with my grandfather around the time of his death, some 25 years ago. She was not loved by her parents, and now I have come to learn that she was not loved by her husband either. “The perfect relationship between husband and wife should be one based on mutual respect and harmony at all cost.”

“Harmony at all cost” – it is her way of covering up anything that might be wrong. It is also a phrase my father has repeatedly said to me during the most frustrating and depressing years of my life.

For a person who was not loved by anyone, how can she then in turn love anyone else, including her own children?

It took me 24 years to figure her out, and figuring her out has in some ways set me free. She has haunted my father into the man who despite all his good heart, has emotionally abused me for 8 years we lived with my grandmother close by. Figuring her out made me realize why she has torn apart marriages of her own daughter, why her lack of independent thinking ironically matches with her calculating outbursts of anger. She knows when to use the vulnerable, when to hurt the vulnerable, when to be ruthless, and when to suck up, as others have done to her and around her back in the days.

I see in my grandmother, a tragedy. And in her son, my father, regret of not being able to overcome a tragic upbringing and all the flaws and fears associated with it. And I sincerely hope that I can be courageous enough to obtain the will to overcome the hereditary tendencies of repeating their mistakes.

Love withdrawal – it’s a psychiatric term I learned in college, utilized by those that practice conditional love as a way to get what they want. My grandmother is a pro, my father has inadvertently practiced it all his life without any understanding of what he is actually committing, and while I try not to repeat their mistakes, I look back in my short life and have already seen it happening in many situations of pressure and distress. We are all trying to not repeat the flaws of our parents, I am doing my best to avoid mine.

Once I get over the hate, I feel sorry for my grandmother, a woman who has never experienced unconditional love and thus does not know how to love others. And I am thankful that I was brought up instead by a different grandmother, one who has taught me how to pour all the love you have onto someone else, and realize that when you have poured all the love you could possibly pour, it all comes back, and that is what family is all about.

Therapy from Life

I haven’t written in awhile because I met a boy. And then a few more (it was summer), but the first is the one that mattered. And life was much more fun when I am texting a particular individual of interest, versus sending this post out into the World Wide Web.

This is therapy. And that is life.
Now that the boy is gone, I’m back to therapy.

There was a point during my summer fling when I really wanted the fling to work out, so much so that when I got an interview opportunity from one of the most prestigious hedge funds in the world, I secretly decided to myself that if I had to choose, I would choose to be in a relationship over a much more exciting career.

That was then.

Last night I saw “the Devil Wears Prada” and thought to myself how stupid the main character is to give up a career she grew to genuinely love. She quit the job in order to get back her old boyfriend, and I questioned why she had to give up one to receive another. But then, I remembered that I had thought the same thing just weeks earlier.

But at this particular moment, when I am totally logical – I don’t think I should ever give up the chance on becoming my own Anna Wintour, for anyone.

Just Shoot for the Impossible

The one time I really tried positive psychology to achieve a goal, it actually worked.

This was the fall of 2007, the world was rosier and the future seemed brighter.  I had started at an elite practice group within a mediocre consulting firm.  A selected few were invited to join this practice;  I ended up as the only girl.

I thought I was on top of the world, albeit nervously looking around.  I was making good money, wearing good cloth, and strutting my way down Midtown Manhattan everyday in carefully selected business casual.  The smell of the subway, the greeting of the receptionist, the sound of the elevator bell and the smell of lunch delis are the memories of a period so filled with misery and yet promise. 

I imagined challenging dilemmas to be handed to me on a plate, begging for me to solve.  But alas, the real world hit me quick and hit me hard.  3 months into the job and I was still sitting on the bench.  As a student who rarely slept before 2am for the past four years, including summer, stuffing herself with classes and activities, this new found sense of nothing was practically suicidal.

At one point, I was the only person not staffed on a project.  And what would you think when one of your bosses makes politically incorrect comments, another one has a tendency to avoid eye contact with you (and only you) while the rest of your co-workers bonded over sports and rock music (neither subject you could care less about)? 

There is always that fine line between blaming yourself for not reaching out enough, and blaming the world for sexism – I was trying to pick which side of the line should I stand on so I could feel a bit less miserable, and I couldn’t decide.  

And so I decided to try positive psychology.  Positive psychology doesn’t come to me naturally because business people are not startup dreamers - we under promise and over deliver, we expect the worse despite shotting for the best.

To reenact positive psychology, I decided to repeat in my head countless times every day that I am going to become the star player of my team, that I am going to get on amazing projects and peform better than anyone else.  And I also became unbelievably optimistic in manner and practice – despite blatant realities starring at me on the contrary.  People noticed my unfailing personality and once things got rolling, I was on a roll with it.  

Long story short – I did end up ”utilized.”  Soon, one boy from our group of starters left, and eventually, I moved on to a better firm while another got sacked.  The third boy went on to graduate school and the fourth one is still stuck in limbo. Long story short – I ended up well. I ended up well might sound easy now, but it was practically a dream back then, that what I really believed would have never happened had I not “pretended,” which later really led me to believe that I am indeed better. I deserve better and thus received better. 

I want all of you to shoot for the impossible. Because as Adidas would say, “Impossible is Nothing.”

Feeling Lost during Emerging Adulthood

The thing about life is that someday we will all be dead.

Birth, no matter how significant, faces an inevitable fate all the same. This preface makes what we do matter. And people in their twenties matter the most.  Look at me: I have no partner to commit to, no child to feed, no parents with broken hips or mortgage to pay off.  I have nothing else aside from feeling incredibly self-indulgent and self-inflicting.  I matter because well, who else is going to matter?

Bloggers write about how it’s okay to be lost in your twenties. But “it’s okay” is hardly the phrase people in their twenties use to describe their state of mind, not the banker who believes he’s invincible, the hipster with an opinion on everything, or the entrepreneur dreaming of taking over the world.

It’s not okay that I’m lost, and I don’t think anyone growing up in today’s competitive education system would feel at all okay for not knowing what to do with their life. Not having an answer to a question, and not knowing where to search for an answer is like watching yourself getting a failing grade and not doing anything about it. It’s unacceptable.

Two years ago I met an incredibly hot Vice President from an investment bank during a recruiting session.  She has remarkably  puffed-over hairdo, gorgeous makeup, fitting Armani suit and the nicest personality. She use to be a competitive figure skater. Her Manhattan presence looked just awe-inspiring under the limelight of my Midwestern college.  I swore to my friend Chuck walking home in 3 inches of snow that one day, I am going to become her.

Two years later our banking industry collapsed in shame. Two years later I stopped talking about white privileges on a daily basis. Two years later we have our first African American President. Two years later Chuck the asshole sidekick of any emotionally unstable female is banging the hottest girl north of 80th street. None of these I would have EVER predicted the day I graduated college. But here we are, and I am the one who is lost.

Emerging adulthood is de-evolution. I feel less sure of myself than I did in college, less optimistic that I am going to change the world, more certain that maybe the world just changes on its own. In this era of hope, I wish I could embrace what I feel about this country on the inside too.

Being lost is not okay, no matter what others write. But there is really nothing I could do about that.

Sick people

Do not fly if you have a cold. Or else, this is what will happen: rapid changes in elevation will cause mucus within your nose to shoot through the eustachian tube into your middle ear, resulting in hearing loss lasting days. This is also why babies cry nonstop during flights.

Every time I get sick at work I receive positive encouragements from my boss: “feel better,” “don’t worry about the assignment,” “take a day off”, and “get some sleep.” It’s sweet and he sounds just like my mother. Employers understand everybody gets sick once in awhile. But getting sick has a bigger story behind just getting sick.

I was on a project with 5 people: we are all sort of new so we inevitably compete. 4 of us caught the flu and 1 person didn’t. Health was never a defining factor in performance but it was brownie points in a competition where we are all uniquely talented in different ways. It may just be luck, but the healthy guy proved that he took responsibility of his health and was strong enough to defend what the rest of us could not defend against. I was slightly in love with him for awhile because he looked so healthy among a group of sick people.

If you work long enough at a company you will notice that certain people consistently get sick while others consistently remain healthy.

Those who consistently get sick are also less predictable in personality and performance at work. This is because risk-taking people tend to get sick more often while risk-averse people tend to take better care of themselves. Staying healthy is a positive trait and people value that, because drinking enough water and eating a balanced meal are consistency exercises and consistency leads to promotion. Consistency also promotes trust; leaders are people others trust. So being sick all the time shows you cannot be a leader.

I am not consistent and I get sick all the time. While at the end of the day your intelligence, creativity and hard work make you who you are, consistency allows your intelligence, creativity and hard work to turn into measurable outcomes. So I try very hard to be consistent in all aspects of my life, including staying healthy; and I hate it, it takes away all the spontaneity and fun. But I guess that’s part of being an adult, oh being an adult.

I have worked with managers with multiple health problems: people who are erratic in health are also erratic in project management. These people freak out and I am always scared the world is going to collapse under their management. But they also tend to be witty and weird, and overall extremely fun to hang out with.

And I have worked with managers who are healthy/positive all-around: these people tend to be easy to work with because I know exactly what’s expected of me and there are less panic episodes during a project cycle. But I don’t laugh as much. Of course, they have got to be good at what they are doing; being consistently wrong is useless.

But the bottom line is if you are consistent you don’t have to be as smart as if you are inconsistent. If you are erratic you better be very intelligent in order to make up for the times you screw up. I wonder if there is a middle ground: someone who can be consistent but also fun? I use to think that’s not possible, but perhaps that’s why great leaders, those who are both consistent and fun, are rare and significant.

And then there is cramps. I cannot talk about being sick without talking about the plague and source of gender inequality. Although, calling cramps an illness is sexist in and of itself, perhaps.

We don’t talk about cramps but just go to a discussion forum on “cramps at work” and you will be amazed at how common this happens (and how bad the episodes can be) to well, 50% of our work force. This is why I think women are tough: we suck it up, we pop pills, we call in sick but we rarely talk openly about the discomfort to our fellow male coworkers.

I had a debate with a fellow girl about how women in Corporate America should receive 1 extra day off per month, a “cramp” day to level the playing field, kind of like maternity leaves – it’s only fair. The friend argues that this difference in treatment will push back feminism because we have fought hard to prove that women can do anything men can do – employees are already less likely to hire women, imagine what would happen to recruitment of women when the federal government passes a “Cramp Day Act”.

Does that make Cramp Day an affirmative action policy?

The guys I use to work with wonder why I am really quiet on some days, and I don’t tell them it’s because I have cramps and would really like to just go home, crawl into a ball and go to sleep. I was rejected from a job at the Federal Reserve because I had an especially bad episode of cramps during an interview and instead of allowing me to go home the Fed people forced me into an emergency room where I laid there for about 4 hours, paid $600 and went home (back when I didn’t have health insurance.) The Fed never called me back for a second interview because they didn’t know I was in pain because I had cramps, and that’s because I didn’t tell them I had cramps. So they decided to better not hire a girl who randomly collapses.

Then I met a mentor / co-worker and she changed my mind in talking about cramps at work. Her cramps are worse than mine and she is completely unabashed to talking about cramps to everyone she works with, not just whispers to us fellow female coworkers. She would announce the fact that today is her period day during morning meetings. She would talk in detail about her “contractions” to my male manager, completely oblivious to the horror in his eyes. She would proudly display the hot water she drinks and recount stories after stories of “this one time when the cramp got really bad.” And when other girls secretly tell her that they too have cramps, she would announce her sympathy to the world and make sure they skip meetings and not receive any amount of stress.

She was my mother in Corporate America.

And I love her for it. Talking about cramps is talking about being women. It’s kind of like talking about your culture if you are Korean, Black, or talking about going to Mecca if you are Muslim. Cramps are such big parts of our lives and we should not feel embarrassed to talk about this to our fellow friends from the other gender.

And for the rest of us sick people: consistency in drinking your water is hot, literarily hot.

On being Asian, getting old, and falling in love.

I recently turned 24. 

Turning 24 is cathartic, because I’m no longer approaching adulthood. I am already an adult and just getting older, with no special meanings attached like being able to drive, to vote, or to drink.

Getting older is scary. When I was a kid I imagined a 24-yr-old to have her life all figured out. But here I am still clueless. And turning older is also scary because, well, I am old and not in love. And according to my grandmother, that’s just not normal. And really, I want to be in love too. 

I am talking to my single friends about this dilemma – turning older and not being in love. And their responses are surprisingly shocking: 

Response #1: “At least you are not Black.”

Response #2: “I don’t understand, you get hit on all the time in the club”

Response #3: “Asian fetish is in, did you know Mark Zuckerberg is dating an Asian girl?”

I am speechless. I am speechless because being able to admit that black women have it much worse does me no good, because getting hit on in a club is not a good indicator of finding love in real life, and because I have nothing to do with nerdy Ivy League white guys and their imagination of stereotypically subservient creatures loosely based the idea of “Asian girls” that really don’t exist in real life. 

Speaking of which, I just would like to know: why are so many Jewish guys nowadays in New York marrying Asian girls? Is anyone conducting a socio-political analysis on this new phenomenon? 

I can’t even begin to talk about my dating life without talking about the fact that I am an Asian girl. I am painfully sensitive to color, I admit. I love color and can’t live without it. I walk into a room and instantly count the % of people of color within. I get to know someone and want to find out if all his/her friends are white. All the best parties, friendship circles I have ever had, and will continue to have, are made up of diverse groups of people. And let’s face it, diversity is not exclusively but nevertheless importantly race-based. Calculating racial makeups is judgmental and to be honest not very accurate at diagnosing a person’s character or a location’s favorability, but it is by far, the best method i have come up with so far.

And this isn’t just me. Numerous studies have shown that diversity trumps intelligence in solving complex problems, creating efficient societies, and making the world a lovely place in general. 

So what is the point of this post, talking about feeling sad at turning 24, not receiving any sympathy because I am an Asian girl, and then finally – there is still the melancholy status of not being in love. Well, I’m not sure I have a point. I’m not even sure if there’s any problem with not being in love, getting old, and being Asian. Life is really a lot more interesting when we don’t get what we want.

How do I fit into my womanly shoes?

I can’t handle my level of importance at work. It stresses me out more than the work itself.

I’m 23 and I just want to make sarcastic liberal jokes, drink beer instead of wine, and wear tight skinny jeans and a t-shirt that says “Che.” I want to be that carefree girl with a pretty skirt and long hair, opinionated and cute. But my attempts always fail, especially at work.

Instead, I am surrounded by married people and couples in serious relationships; I hangout with men whose wives stay at home and girlfriends either dance or teach. I would be less of a weirdo if I just lie that I have a fiance; maybe he could work in banking.

I wear wrinkle-free dress shirts even though I look horrible in collared shirts. I am a mac user, but I carry my company PC in tumi laptop cases and seriously, when a tiny girl like me carries that “awe-inspiring” bag through the airport, no arist/hot frequent-flier guy wants to flirt with me. I try to read Obama’s autobiography to get their attention, it does not work.

“Older” people assume I have years of experience in their “industry” when really, I just started two months ago and am scared to death they are going to discover I know nothing. Oftentimes I allow this fear to overwhelm me.

I am quiet during meetings, it delivers a horrible message for me as a woman, especially an Asian woman. Silence is practically career suicide anyways. Everybody from the billionaires to the crooks (these days they are really the same thing) talk their way to success. But how do you talk about a topic you have no confidence in?

I feel out of place all the time; part of me thinks I don’t belong here and the other part thinks I should get over this and find my place. And the last part fears that when I do find my place, it will kill my passion in social change.

Sometimes, I think I don’t know how to be a woman in business because I don’t know how to be a woman period. But what woman knows how to be a woman?

I fail in feminism because I can’t help but feel that my co-worker’s girlfriends and wives really know how to be “women” and my mere presence in a place filled with men suggests that somehow I am not being women, enough.

The bottom line: I am uncomfortable in my own gender.

I have struggled for years to come to terms with my race and nationality. But gender is something I only started to notice within the past two years. How do you become a woman and what should a woman be? These are questions feminists have struggled for decades to answer and un-answer. It’s going to take me some time.

Occasionally I see an “older” business woman carrying her laptop case in the hotel or at the airport. She is almost always white, with short hair. She usually looks like she is in a hurry, sturtting away in her stilettos while talking on the phone. She is polished and her mannerism suggests a certain level of command and power. I want to talk to her and ask her if she was just as insecure as me starting out in this business. I want to ask if she is happily married. Or happy, period. But right now, I just can’t see myself in her shoes 10 years down the road.

Us accomplished young people: we should really just f*ck life

Invest in real estate. Have children. Contribute to your 401K. 

 

Shop at Bloomingdale’s. Cab it home.

 

Get a boyfriend. Get a hairstylist. Get dinner in Gramercy. Get a hip apartment. Get cool friends.

 

Attend Ivy League parties. Wear lip gloss over lipstick. Purchase expensive shoes. Perform eye lash extension. Maintain perfect skin.

 

Be cute. Be sweet. Be nice. Be positive. Be optimistic. Be innocent. Be every girl’s best friend. 

 

Run once every two days. Starve every other day.

 

Avoid red meat. Avoid trans fat. Avoid white bread. Avoid people with no ambitions. Avoid the sun. Avoid beer with calories. Avoid any bad hair day. Avoid taxes and politics. Avoid getting drunk, avoid looking sober. Avoid eye contact with ugly men. 

 

Choose to live appropriately without a fight, until the day you die.

 

Choose Life

 

You are right, I am wrong. I am right, you are left

Ah, to be wealthy AND creative!

I’ve viewed my life in limbo – I’m at the cash-making period via the semi-lucrative corporate job therefore everything cannot be possibly interesting.

I imagine that my “sexy life” will start when I attempt riskier things: inventing a brand, writing stories, baking fusion cookies… I gave myself excuses after excuses and say when the loans get paid off, life starts!

But life happens – despite my excuses – I am a twenty-something with this incredible fear that I will die getting older without EVER experiencing anything meaningful.  I am deathly afraid of becoming the Ivan Ilyich.

Then I read a presentation on “How to be Creative,” it made me think about creativity in a whole different light.

Creativity is really about I don’t care what you think – you the media the mother or the best-friend. It’s about taking time out of your day to listen to that voice in your heart. It’s about ignoring purpose or productivity.

Well, that sounds simple; but really, it’s rather difficult because we have been trained to be productive, to think about consequences and advantages of everything we do, to evaluate costs and benefits.

Creativity is illogical and unstructured, and we probably will not know where we are going until we get there. But out of creativity, hopefully something meaningful – perhaps not significant, but meaningful to you alone, nevertheless.

Having meaning – it is a journey worthy of every fear and doubt – something inherently your own, and therefore inspirational.

I have been inspired by Mariah Carey, Barack Obama, and countless individuals in my life and on the blogsphere. It’s time for me to get inspired by that little voice inside my heart.

Halle Berry Teaching Girls about Life

Halle Berry, at 40 years old just after having a baby, is named the Sexiest Woman Alive by Esquire Magazine

This woman of color who after 2 failed marriages, many untrustworthy men messing with her self-esteem, has finally figured out the finer details of womanhood: the happiness out of owning yourself.  For girls who are still trying to figure out what she wants, what should she want, and what can she get… here’s what Halle will tell you:

1.  Sexy is not about wearing sexy clothes or shaking your booty until you damn near get hip dysplasia; it’s about knowing that sexiness is a state of mind – a comfortable state of being.

2.  Sexiness is about loving yourself even in your most unlovable moments.

3.  Sexiness is also about knowing what’s sexy to you.  To Halle, spaghetti is sexy, especially when it’s served off the tips of a man’s fingers.  Wine is also sexy, just before sex.

4.  Lingerie is sexy, but the truth is, every woman should own at least one good pair of pumps and a tank.  A tank top and pumps: you’re good to go then.

5.  What else? Ah, yes: the big O. You know that stuff they say about a woman being responsible for her own orgasms? That’s all true. And in Halle’s case, that makes her responsible for pretty damned good orgasms these days. Much better orgasms than when she was twenty-two. And she wouldn’t let a man control that. Not anymore. Now she’d invite him to participate.  Halle’ll tell you this: she has learned her tricks.  She knows what she likes.  She does not wait around.  She initiates.  And She’s not all about frequency.  She favors intensity.