24 & Lessons
A summary of my 24th year on this planet by Hannah Wei, edited by Asad Chishti
“Young enough to get away with things, but old enough to know better.”
I heard that somewhere and think it’s a pretty accurate description of being 24. What a turbulent year full of heartaches, finding myself lost, gratitude, everything in between, and more. I tried to keep this summary as raw and honest as possible.
24 & Stuck
Early last year I found myself in a toxic relationship. Our personalities, values, goals differed. We found ourselves breaking up and getting back together over and over and over. We had good moments, but when things weren’t so smooth we did things unhappy and dramatic couples do. Eventually he ended it and I was heartbroken. Though I had tried to be mature about it and stay friends. During one of our post-breakup hangouts, I enthusiastically brought up my potential travel plans, to which his response was simply, “that sounds pretentious.” It was a rude awakening and I realized that his version of staying friends was keeping the parts of me he enjoyed, and rejecting the parts he couldn’t relate to.
The bitterness aside, I was selfish too, I wanted to prove to myself that I could handle an adult relationship so much so that it skewed my perception of what is emotionally healthy between two people. At the end of the day we’re all human: We need comfort, we want validation when we truly believe something, we want a cheer when we’re down, and have an unbounded desire to understand each other. So when two people are toxic together it doesn’t mean the people involved are individually horrible. (Designer Milton Glaser originally wrote about this idea in his essay: 10 Things I Have Learned)
I stopped including him in my life. It felt like the break up of a break up, but I was finally feeling unstuck. Friends told me to brush it off and move on, but really, you cannot just drop emotional baggage like you’d drop old, unwanted clothing at Goodwill. It takes two to break up, and it takes courage to own up to your part of the mess. It’s not easy to look at the immature parts of myself and say “I don’t like this, and I’m going to take time to sort it out before attempting to share a piece of me with someone else”.
For me, that part was emotional vulnerability.
24 & Vulnerable
Relationships as an adult, romantic or otherwise, are difficult to maintain outside of school and particularly so in a big, busy city. People operate on their own schedules and often times seeing someone meant you had to book them several weeks in advance. I’m constantly surrounded by work and projects, and I was terrible about making friends and family feel included in my busy life. On top of that I wasn’t particularly skilled at reaching out and asking for help, or telling someone that I appreciate them. Having charisma and an easygoing personality didn’t change the fact that my relationships were starting to feel very lonely and impersonal.
Sometimes when friends tell me that I’m doing exciting things with my life, what I really wanted was for them to ask if I was eating properly, getting enough sleep, and tell me to call them if I needed someone to talk to.
My emotional distance had a lot to do with deeply rooted family issues. I kept my problems to myself since a young age and filled my surroundings with creative projects, sports, and smart people. I didn’t want to be someone people felt sorry for, I wanted to be the fun, ambitious, talented girl with a bright future. For the longest time, I didn’t like to share anything too personal, and it was draining to be seen as the interesting, optimistic, badass person because I did not feel that way 24/7. As a defence mechanism I was shutting people out when I wasn’t feeling my best. In retrospect, I’ve lost touch with a lot of valuable people because of this.
A few months into being 24 I started reaching out more to new and old friends. Clearing my “schedule” and being less busy being busy. I no longer watch the clock when I’m out and about with people. I reminded myself to ask more and deeper questions about people’s lives and relating to them personally. I’ve been telling intimate stories rather than just the successful and exciting ones. I started exchanging snail mail with old friends, and I’ve been working on responding to texts and emails in a timelier fashion. So far the quality and depth of my relationships have improved. It made me happy to learn that being available and vulnerable with my friends is quite natural and reciprocated mutually. Why did I ever make a big deal out of it?
Of course there’s always the risk that when you do open up to someone, they’ll use your vulnerability to feel better about themselves at your expense. Those people make themselves obvious, and I didn’t feel bad letting them go to focus on more genuine connections. Entrepreneur Dan Martell wrote an excellent article about cutting negative people out of your life.
24 & Adrift
In late June I took off on an experimental journey to the west coast. Partly as a vacation, and partly as an experiment. I had set out on my trip with the intention of allowing new experience and people to shake up my worldview, but what I got in return was an incredibly rich human bonding that felt easy and familiar.
I had tea with an Air Canada retiree who travelled to the deserts of Africa. I hiked up a mountain with a marathon runner, who taught me about human limits. I marvelled at the glass artworks of a 60 year old former solo cyclist, who taught me about gratitude. I hitchhiked to and from Hornby, and on the way shared a ride with a sweet old couple and a young wandering musician. I went on a midnight tour around Portland with a gardener who had built his own hut in the woods and lived in it for a year, his humble temperament taught me about living slowly. In Seattle I met up with a best friend, a former guild leader from my Ragnarok Online days (a Massive Multiplayer Online game), and I stayed with an old high school friend.
I spent a few days on Hornby Island, a magical little place off the coast of Victoria Island, five hours from Vancouver. Tony, a host and now a friend, took me on hikes, we swam in the ocean (Never had I met a man in his sixties who could outrun me in a race across the beach), and we met his dearest friends and neighbours. There is something about the way he carries himself which is reminiscent of a modern day Gandolf.
Right now, this moment, this is amazing. We’re gifted with these bodies we can move and exercise. There’s beautiful view, beautiful weather, interesting companion — it’s perfect! So if you look at each moment as just being perfect and being right in it and enjoy it, you’ll live a very good life.
— Tony
The experience left me feeling lucky, and lighter. It was a reminder to me that happy people are kind, and that I didn’t need a lot to be happy.
24 & Grounded
In October I visited my extended family in China for the first time in eight years. My dad’s side of the family lives in LingYun, a community in the wild mountains down south, with Vietnam as a neighbouring country. The people in the community are close, so much so that my dad’s name hangs in display in the town’s temple as one of the few who had made it into a University. Students come to the temple to pray before their exams.
The brief time that I lived with them felt more grounding than anything of the sort I experienced in the west. I had been away from family for such a long time, that I was not used to the constant company and tight social dynamics. Our entire family of eight would meet downstairs to eat breakfast. After dinner, our family stayed in the dining room for YieXiao, which means midnight snack. The food, I soon realized, was only there to fill our mouths when we were not making conversation. At times neighbors and friends would be over. People’s lives in LingYun are incredibly interconnected. Even my oldest uncle, who is introverted, would sit happily in his corner of the dining room making tea for the family.
In the west we go out of the way to give each other privacy. We learn to read social cues and make sure the other party is comfortable before we enter their space. I found little use of that in China. But on the contrary, I discovered I had a lot to learn in caring for a younger generation and being dependable for the older generation. Everyone did things for each other without asking. I was presented with a clear sense of responsibility for the first time in a long time, and it had helped put my age into perspective. I felt like an adult. Holy shit.
It occurred to me that as privileged, western 20 somethings we are bombarded with conflicting messages, from get out there and find your soulmate™, to get your education-career-life together™, to try new things and figure out what you want in life™. It’s no wonder then that we would feel so ungrounded, un-grownup, even when presented with so many opportunities. It was much simpler in LingYun. At 24, my generation was getting married and having children and it made sense. A child would be cared for by the couple’s mothers, aunts, in-laws, almost entirely during the first year of their birth, and for many years after that. So that one can focus on work or school if needed, or even live in another city. Growing a family wasn’t a scary thing, it was celebrated so that one could share richness and belonging with the people they love.
My family stayed in a five storey house that we built when I was still in high school. Every floor had two rooms and a bathroom. My aunt pointed to a room on the third floor, “This room is for you, anytime you want to come back to live here.” Amazing. “Next time bring a boyfriend, okay?” She added with a smirk.
24 & Grateful
Although this year I have no wild startup stories, conferences to sell you on, athletic achievements on my record, I’m incredibly grateful to have been exposed to a broad spectrum of human experiences. This entire piece was incredibly difficult to write, so I hope it was a good read for you. If there was a part that stood out for you, I would be happy to listen to your thoughts. And lastly, thank you for being a friend.
