There are plenty of things that we should normalize but these few were what I could write about from personal experience.

Fluctuating Weight

Growing up in an Asian household, it was common for my family to constantly comment on my and all my family member’s weights. When I was younger, I was told that I needed to gain weight. And when I did my family didn’t hold back commenting that weight was indeed gained.

That environment and thinking was unhealthy on so many levels. No matter at what weight I was at it was just wrong. So what is right? The reality of it is that our bodies fluctuate and it’s normal. Beautiful even.

Women especially have this hard. We’re expected to look like Instagram models but also carry babies. We’re expected to not look too skinny but also not gain too much weight. We’re expected to have abs but not be too muscular. All of these definitions are subjective and unrealistic.

What we can do is prioritize health rather than weight and appreciate our bodies the way they are. Easier said than done, of course. But I promise, fueling yourself with nutritious food, getting your body moving and learning to love your own unique curves and shape will get you to a mentally happy and healthy place.

Saying it’s not in your budget

I didn’t grow up surrounded by people with great financial literacy. My mom was constantly losing track of her money, missing bills and couldn’t grasp the concept of budgeting. She fell victim to avenues that promised quick cash, like pyramid schemes, and adopted a hoarding mentality.

I was regularly balancing her checkbook and giving her money from time to time. As a kid and teenager this gave me PTSD. My mom would unload her financial stress on me and my sibling and I was always paranoid of not having money. I couldn’t go out often with my friends because my family simply did not have the funds. In high school I had to turn down hang outs with friends 70% of the time. A high school classmate who came from a well-off family was once upset with me because I “never wanted to go out”. The truth is I simply didn’t have the means to.

As I grew into an adult I never wanted my finances to hold me back from activities, make me feel like I couldn’t do things or make me feel less than. I became career-driven and spent my hard-earned income too quickly. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties did I realize the value in budgeting and not until my late twenties did I start taking savings seriously.

Realizing that I can control my finances and having examples of what I did not want my soon approaching 30s to look like empowered me to budget and save. It’s okay to prioritize your financial security and set healthy boundaries to do so.

Work to live, not live to work

In my late 20s I noticed the overwork culture was glamorized. We were made to believe that long hours and constant exhaustion were the markers of success.

This made me conflate my value with my dedication to my work. This made me believe the more burnt out I was, the more likely financial success would come. Man, was I wrong.

The company I was working for when the pandemic started praised overly ambitious workaholism. I spent majority of my day in meetings while my afternoon and nights were spent doing actual work. I was averaging 16 hour work days. Being filled with stress and my never ending task list, I’d often forget to eat lunch or dinner and never had time to exercise. But let’s be honest, I didn’t have the energy to work out even if I wanted to.

Outside of my department, the leaders in the company were toxic and condescending. I was able to learn a lot about how to navigate difficult company politics better but I hated my job most of the time. I learned many more technologies and skills that gave me the upper hand in my industry but I didn’t believe in the deteriorating quality of the company’s product. I had amazing examples of great, empathetic leaders within my team that I will ever be grateful for and still aspire to be like. They pushed for mine and my team’s mental health. But at the end of the day, the toxic top down culture on top of the ridiculous hours never left time for me.

Why did I stick to this job? Well, when the pandemic first started there was so much uncertainty around if getting another job would be easy. On top of that, I couldn’t risk being without an income for longer than two months.

A little over a year into quarantine, I’d had enough. I decided to quit without a next step and it was by far one of the best decisions I had made. I spent 6 months without a job. I reconnected with myself. Found time to cook for myself again. Picked up a new hobby of baking. Got to do simple things like go to coffee shops to read and work out at home. I traveled to Yosemite, Joshua tree and a few other places. It was a luxury that I wasn’t sure I could ever afford.

During these 6 months I realized the amount of work stress did not provide me with professional happiness and the money that came with it didn’t have value because I had no time to be a human outside of work. I realized that I should work to live and that I shouldn’t live to work.

 

 

Thanks for reading!

xx,
Maye