“Only what is really oneself has the power to heal.” -Carl Jung
Monday, May 1, 2023
Wednesday, April 26, 2023
This is America
I know I’m not the only one cognizant of the declining empire that is the U-S-A.
This isn’t about promoting divisiveness.
This is about one’s own autonomy steeply declining in the name of geopolitics.
The bandwagoning effect of people who don’t ask all the questions and make it about red vs. blue, democrats vs. republicans, is what’s wrong with this broken system. A system intentionally pitting people against each other so we don’t achieve self-actualization. So we’re so mired in misanthropy we don’t even feel the rug being pulled from beneath our feet....
Tuesday, April 18, 2023
Hustle Culture
Nowadays, the anti-hustle culture rhetoric has permeated in social media forums and real-time conversations alike.
People now refuse to glorify working 25/7. It's unhealthy, they say. It's toxic, they add. Work-life balance is key!--they protest.
The part that confuses me about the anti-hustle culture rhetoric is that it can seemingly smother a culture that is still rooted in deep mental health and addiction issues. Saving dogs and plants, posting your latest kale salad and oat latte recipe, stretching and meditating for the Gram, and criticizing others for failing to make the same priorities in their lives and lifestyles has become the norm.
We have found ourselves in a society where one-upsmanship does not so much revolve around working ungodly hours, anymore, but about working on out-me-timing others. Pictures of cars and lavish trips are now replaced with content surrounding massages, candles, yoga, meditation, climbing rocks, and similar "me-time" activities.
Indeed, perhaps the society that is promoting the work-life balance rhetoric is also creating a society devoid of professional responsibility and financial accountability. I agree that the hustle culture mentality can potentially be toxic to one's physical and mental health---but so is glorifying a lifestyle that may not be attainable or sustainable for others. Imagine being depressed because you can't have your massage today. Imagine feeling lesser-than because you couldn't make your instagrammable Zion hiking trip that you've been planning outfits for the past few months.
Telling a working professional who strives to achieve to provide for themselves and their family that what they're doing is wrong and too-much work, is like telling someone who is a Coachella fanatic to stop attending music festivals, because it's too-much fun and play.
Too much mental healthy goodness rhetoric, can also be toxic. Because it's unintended effect can be attempting to rework or rewire another's brain and shame them on what they're apparently doing right or wrong.
Perhaps this is why the candidates I interview at my firm take their phone interviews at the coffee shop--because coffee is life and takes priority over making a good, professional impression to your future employer. That oat milk latte better have been worth it, Ashley!
Every person's definition of ambition and professional/life success is different. It has to be. My definition of work and play ought to be different than yours--unless one of your favorite pastimes is blogging and talking shit about the anti-hustle culture rhetoric, too.
Consider the fact that a lot of people around you are a product of immigrant parents and guardians who hustled and worked ungodly hours to provide a better life for their kids. Perhaps we simply repeat what we know, we're hardwired to. And perhaps, identifying our own mental health issues makes us realize that it's not all about work. Now we have the resources and money to understand that sometimes you just have to live a little. But, at what cost?
Anyway, I'll end here. I'm late for my weekly facial.
Sunday, June 14, 2015
The Cigarette Smoking Man
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Amal Clooney and the Armenian Genocide
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Inspiring Quotes and Things to Help Promote A Stronger, Better Version of SELF
---"How Bad Do You Want It?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsSC2vx7zFQ
---When Muhammad Ali was asked how many sit-ups he did, he replied, "I don't count my sit-ups. I only start counting when it starts hurting. That is when I start counting, because then it really counts. That's what makes you a champion."
Thursday, September 18, 2014
HeforShe Campaign
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Close Her.
Excuse me while I attempt to further burden my unconscious through the melancholic harmonies of a (fleeting) cerebral (and impending myocardial) infarction.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Pardon me while I pour myself a glass or three of wine
I can't help but be inspired by those people who have this sense of enlivening resilience and determination about them to do anything and everything they set their mind to.
Just today I met this very unique man: a charmer, an entrepreneur, MD, JD, (insert any other occupation/credential you can think of). Post med-school/residency, and after over a decade ingrained in the healthcare field, he decided to enroll himself into law school...thrice. Needless to say, after both med-school and his third and last attempt at law school, this doctor was knee-deep in debt with an MD and JD-in-hand. This man became both a practicing healthcare physician and attorney and sits as chairman at a top-tiered hierarchy of everything healthcare-law related here in Los Angeles.
While I do believe one's degrees or credentials isn't necessarily a predicate or defining measure of one's worth or intellectual prowess, I do always appreciate people who take another stab at the wonderful world of academia-- whether it is to further one's career or to lessen-the-unfortunate-blow of one's own intellectual shortcomings, I always appreciate a head-strong, determined academic. Financially, mentally, and physically speaking, it takes a toll just to get a single degree. Clearly this doctor's path was not so easy.
When I asked this doctor which practice he preferred, he said he enjoyed being a physician far more than, well, pushing papers (fine..I may or may not have misconstrued what he said about what it *really* means to be a practicing attorney ;) ).
When I asked this doctor what made him decide to pursue two very different and challenging careers, I thought he'd say something along the lines of how it was his deep-seated childhood dream to become a money-making, power-house hot-shot, dotting "i's".. crossing "t's"... and saving lives. I then took another moment to realize that this thought-process was likely a manifestation of all of my deepest and darkest desires. Lol what?
His answer: "I did not know what to choose, I couldn't decide, so I chose both."
While some of you (and by "some" I mean my sum total one Facebook reader: hi mom) may think the moral of this very long-winded story is that you can do anything you set your mind to or that some other relevant cliche applies here...
I'd say the true moral of the story is: being indecisive isn't so bad. =]