Part 2 How Did I Finally Have The Courage
To Pursue My Passion
1
When I was doing my master’s degree (Social Work) in Australia, I started to teach people Chinese and became very involved in the community. Because of these experiences, I got a full-time job in student recruitment after graduation (experience is more important in Australia than in China).
However, since I haven’t worked much in my life, I found this job was very challenging. These were my dark days, but now I want to thank them: painful moments triggered my self-transformation journey.
I struggled to complete some critical tasks for my work, so sometimes my manger wasn’t satisfied with my performance. I became scared: “What if I lost my job?” Also, the feeling of not having too much value to contribute to my work made my self-esteem drop significantly.
Besides, when my colleagues were excited talking about our sales number and strategies for agents, I felt like an outsider. Since I was a kid, the people that I’ve admired the most were always social entrepreneurs or philanthropists. For me, making positive impacts is much more important than pursuing pure sales figures.
So, I started to ask myself:
“What should I do now? Isn’t there any job that can make me happy but also maximise my potential at the same time?”
That forced me to search for an answer, so I started to research online, read books, ask people, and even book a pricy consultation with a career advisor. In the end, I was told my best option was to work in a community centre based on my previous work experiences and personality tests.
“But a journalist is also on my recommended career list though.” I was stubborn and curious.
"It’s tough to find a job in that industry, especially now, even for many media graduates. You have to be very talented.”
Again. Heartbroken. But I still wasn’t satisfied. I knew working in a community centre would be rewarding in some ways, however, that just couldn’t excite me to jump out of bed every single morning.
I got stuck, and almost lost hope.
Some of my friends said: “Why are you so stressed? Don’t worry. You will find the answer eventually. Now, just focus on what you are doing.” But I couldn’t, my heart just didn’t feel right.
2
Luckily, things started to change.
Later in the year of 2018, Rosie, my previous housemate suggested me reading a book called Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. I found myself falling in love with it only after reading the first few pages. It felt like Liz was talking to my heart, and her warmth and encouragement wrapped all over me. My curiosity got ignited.
In the book, she said:
“Do whatever that brings you to life. We have the responsibility to bring out our unique talent to this world. Done is better than good.”
“So, what made me feel most alive?” I pondered. The word Media popped into my head straight away. That’s right. Interviewing our students for testimonials or songwriters for my community radio show always had a special magic to make my heart sing.
In fact, I realised I had neglected an important fact for a very long time: media was like a child who had always waved at me from time to time: “Hey, I am here.” But what I did was to tell her: “Unfortunately, I’m not talented enough to make this dream come true, sorry.” In my dictionary, I had millions of “I can’t” instead of “how can I make this happen?”.
Therefore, reading this book was liberating, and it inspired me to rethink and imagine: “Maybe I should give it a try and take responsibility for my part? But where should I start?”
One day, Mary Ann, a friend and mentor of mine, suggested me: “You should start to write a blog, because you are very special. Unlike many Chinese students, you have a strong desire to mingle with people from other cultures and the insurmountable curiosity to explore this world. You can use your blog to show Chinese students how to study overseas fully”.
What a lovely compliment! Yes, I had to admit that many Chinese students tend to interact with Chinese only. Therefore, a perception among people here was: Chinese students don’t like to talk with people from other cultures. That’s just not true, because of two reasons:
Many of them are not confident about their English. Therefore, instead of taking the risk of losing “face”, they rather keep their mouth shut, like what I did at school.
Personality-wise, a lot of Chinese tend to be conservative, so they usually rely on others to break the ice.
Tip time: if you want to approach a Chinese, try this handy greeting. It’s not “Ni Hao Ma (How are you)?”, but “Ni Chi Le Ma (Have you eaten yet)?” The reason is a few decades ago, people didn’t have enough to eat. Therefore, asking this is a good way of showing your care.
I liked Mary Ann’s blog idea, because it matched my strong inner desire.
At that point, I had studied and lived in Australia for six years. Oddly, I suddenly had a strong craving to share. I believed by doing that could benefit many new international students and immigrants, so they can have a better transition in this new country.
Additionally, the idea of a blog is also for people back in China. To be able to study and live overseas is like one of my wildest dreams coming true. I still remember, when I was reading a book and watching a TV show about studying in Canada in my high school, I got very envious. I’ve never thought that my parents would spend most of their savings on my tuition fees and let me go (being as the only child). A big shout out to them.
Unfortunately, I knew, still, a lot of people in China who were unable to experience what I had experienced due to various reasons (lack of money, time or disapproval from their parents). But they were hungry to know, so I wanted to be a window to help them see this world.
You might think: "Ah, so you then started your blog.” Not yet. I wish it was that quick and easy.
Still, many things were blocking me. Self-doubt was the main one: “There are so many great blogs out there already, so who wants to read mine?”
3
Thankfully, two more supporters came to my life and pushed me through that bubble. Who are they?
The first one is Joon, my ex-colleague. We talked about career and dream a lot. One day when I told him about one of our students’ blog with my full admiration, he looked at my eyes and told me, very seriously: “You should start your blog too.”
I then told him about my self-doubt.
He asked calmly: “But have you written anything yet?”
Silence, and a long pause. In the end, I decided to be courageous and confess my inner thoughts.
“No. I, I am so afraid of failure. I don’t want to let myself down. If I tried and didn’t make it in the end, I would feel like a loser. Miserable. So, I rather not even try it.” After finishing my sentences, I sensed my eyes have already filled with tears. I didn’t expect saying these made me so vulnerable and emotional.
“But you haven’t even tried it, how do you know you would fail?”
Joon asked me back.
That’s true. I started to think about it in the next few days. Finally, I decided to give it a try, as I didn't want to leave any regrets later in my life. But, still, not now. I needed a few months to brush up my English first (See, I was very good at finding excuses to postpone). Remember, writing had never been my thing. Looking back, I wish I knew: we will never be ready, so done is much more important than good.
Time passed by, and March arrived.
My other helper Joe came to my life, the person who I saw at that time. Hearing my media dream, he said:
“Let’s take a walk around your neighbourhood today, so you can write something about it afterwards. I’m happy to check your grammar if you want.”
I thought: “I don’t think there’s much to write about it.” But what I responded was: “Sure, challenge accepted.” My competing side showed up. In the end, the outcome surprised me: I ended up writing more than 1500 words in only a few hours. Never underestimate your potential. So, my first blog post was born. Sometimes we really need an external push, right? (Thanks, Joe.)
After that, I made a promise to myself, having a monthly update for my blog. I didn’t realise that it could take me so long to write and revise due to my perfection side (so hard to get rid of it). Sometimes I even had to work till midnight and sacrifice a lot of my social time. Because I hated breaking promises, so having public accountability worked.
This year, I changed to a new blog website (which is this one). To be honest, looking at my blog site alone has already made me feel proud. In the past, I always admired people who have their own website, and I’ve never thought I could be one of them. It taught me again: the power of passion.
Also, noticing my writing skill getting better and better, and that I even started to love writing was unbelievable. I guess that’s the charm of life: you can only discover some of your hidden talents through doing. Isn’t it cool to see your transformation? Now it’s your turn to think: what makes you feel most alive?
Reading here, some of you might wonder: “You haven’t told us the reaction from your readers yet.”
Very positive! Many of my viewers messaged me and said they loved my authenticity and learned a lot from reading my articles. Last year, one of my blog posts about the cultural comparison between Adelaidians/Australians and Chinese even got featured on the City of Adelaide website, which is beyond my expectation. All these really gave me more and more confidence: “Maybe I do have this inner treasure?” 😊
But what made me start another project - podcasting while being busy and content with my blog? Stay tuned to find out more about why and my learnings for the podcast in Part 3.
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