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hello swedish potatoes i know some of
you may not believe this but i recently
turned 30. as someone who genuinely
enjoys getting older the weeks leading
up to 30 were met with a lot more
resistance than i expected i realized
i'm not married yet i don't have kids i
don't own a house i don't have the
things that 20 year old me thought i'd
have by 30 but i caught myself and
reminded myself that even though some of
these boxes have been left unchecked
you've made strides in other areas of
your life take this as an opportunity to
reflect back on all the lessons you've
learned in retrospect from each year of
your 20s
so here we are a lot has changed i've
changed and although my 20s started
quite tumultuously filled with endless
existential inks when i say endless you
guys will see the one saving grace that
stay constant was my curiosity to learn
more about myself and the world around
me
so what exactly
have i learned
it's 2012 i'm 20 and i'm just starting
my college career after being rejected
from every single college i applied to i
promise myself i transfer to top
university within a year
right before i turned 20 it actually
happened
i successfully transferred to usc joined
a business fraternity and my social life
was
thriving for the first time in a very
long time
feeling pretty good about myself to
bring in my two decades of existence i
celebrated with my best friends from
high school as a generally very
responsible person i had no idea why i
drank as much apple juice as i did this
night but
it was a night
of many firsts
in retrospect
it kind of made sense i was plagued by
questions of who i was and what my
purpose was here on earth having lost a
loved one a few years ago and at the
tender age of 20 i coped the best way i
knew how which was to run away and to
numb myself
while i absolutely wasn't healthy and i
would recommend it to absolutely no one
i was doing my best where i was with the
knowledge i had and sometimes that's all
you can hope for
simply trying can be more than enough
you don't need to have it all together
when you're 20 let alone in your 20s or
30s or 40s or 50s and it goes on forever
in any case i have this thing where i
believe how you start your birthday
review will be a direct reflection of
how the rest of your year goes and that
was indeed how my 20th year around the
sun went
it's 2013 i just turned 21 in vegas and
i wanted a change of scenery another
word for escaping so i packed my bags
and flew across the pacific ocean to
study abroad in hong kong traveled
around asia revisited my childhood home
and saw some of the most beautiful
places
yet these were some of the saddest
months of my life
although i was constantly surrounded by
people
this was the year that i felt the most
alone
i'd wake up most days feeling empty and
utterly lost i still had no idea who i
was and what i wanted to do with my life
i desperately missed my friends and
boyfriend at the time but didn't know
how to properly human aka communicate so
i leaned into my avoidant attachment
style instead and disconnected with the
world
this is the prime of my autopilot years
i was high functioning while doing
things and going out but
i wasn't okay during this time my
hyperactive movie magic production
studio of a mine was so fixated on past
memories and dreaming up the idealized
future that i never allowed myself to
cherish what was right in front of me
the present
life's greatest gift for helping us get
out of our own heads
the lesson of 21 is to stop thinking
about life and start living
life
you know what you need to do so do it
you fought to live
so
live
i'm just gonna say 21 was rough i was
layers below rock bottom but the silver
lining was that you can only go up from
here
right as i was turning 22 i told myself
i didn't want to be where i was anymore
and that i was finally going to do
something about it so i did i started
reading more asking for help and letting
family and friends into the inner
workings of my mind while all this is
going on it's my last year of college
and i'm grappling with whether i should
follow the conventional corporate career
path of my peers or go off the beaten
path and find the answer to my year-long
quest of what it meant to live a
meaningful and fulfilling life the
gravity of the decision sucked me right
back into my old ways and into the arms
of my old friend once i moved back home
after graduating i was forced to face my
reality feeling more lost than ever
one day when i was feeling particularly
done with myself a question popped into
my mind
what would your future self want your
current self to do is this how you want
to continue living your life these would
be the questions that help guide my
decision making process for the years to
come so choose what your future self
will thank you for
future me would have wanted 22 year old
me to push through take a chance on
herself and give herself time six months
to be exact to figure out what she
wanted to do after all corporate will
always be around and that's
exactly what she did
23 was the first year i felt like myself
in a very very
long time even though i still constantly
felt like something was missing i made a
lot of progress on my mental health
between experiencing my first real
heartbreak reconnecting with
spirituality chancing upon an internship
and wanting to escape once again i
packed my bags and flew across the
country to new york city having spent my
youth partying and bsing a phrase i'd
write again and again in my journal i
double down ironically in the city that
never sleeps to focus on work and
rekindle my relationship with my
spiritual practice phalantha
this was where everything clicked rooted
in buddhist tradition the mind body
practice taught me how to look inward
let go of unhealthy attachments and live
by the universal principles of
truthfulness compassion and forbearance
this was the year i stopped drinking and
started meditating the year i found hope
the year i discovered a purpose greater
than myself
and the year that helped make sense of
all the turbulence from the years prior
rather than life happening to me
i finally grasped the life was happening
for my improvement
everything i went through from the good
to the tragic to everything in between
it was all to shape me into the person i
am today
despite the discomfort of some
inevitable yo-yoing remember growth
isn't linear trust yourself trust the
process and trust the universe it's like
the saying diamonds are formed under
pressure but never forget they're not
formed
overnight
cracking under pressure i pack my bags
and move home right as i turn 24.
you see for most of my life i've had
massive career commitment issues whether
it was i was too picky or my ego was too
big i've always wanted to do something
of my own so i was back at the drawing
board through spirituality i finally
found my north star and successfully
answered my question of what it meant to
live a meaningful and fulfilling life
but how can i translate this into my
career
this was when the universe threw me a
golden nugget as it does sometimes when
you very solemnly respectfully and
kindly ask or beg
for help i found a voice deep within my
being telling me to share my story so i
plastered my wall with post-it notes if
you remember this you the realist ones i
wrote out my life story and posted my
very first youtube video kind of intense
i know but this is how i rolled even
though i had no idea what i was doing or
where i was going one thing was certain
learn to listen to the small but mighty
voice within
give yourself permission to take a
chance and go out there to dance
with the unknown
25 25 25
25 was truly my prime as someone who has
never truly worked hard at anything up
until this point and always gave up
easily this was the first time in my
life where i started something and
actually stuck with it
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while i continued to create videos on
youtube i somehow found my way back to
new york city and also started hosting
and producing for beauty within because
i didn't trust myself with having so
much time on my hands because if i had
free time i just procrastinate and waste
it exhibit a of y25 was my prime between
juggling two full-time jobs i was still
able to wake up at 4 30 a.m to meditate
for an hour exercise qigong for an hour
and read for an hour before starting
work sacrifices were intentionally made
i had no social life but i was building
the foundation for my future and my
inner world was thriving this was the
year i finally lived out and understood
the saying that there really is no
substitute for hard work all the hard
work was beginning to pay off and people
besides my facebook friends were
starting to watch my videos but all the
while i still had this sneaking
suspicion that i was pouring myself into
work particularly
to escape
26 was the year that my channel grew the
most i was trying new styles of content
it hit 200k subs i brought my mom with
me on my very first brown trip to hawaii
lives
looking up after a few years of grinding
right
right welcome to my burnout and reset
year life humbles you in the most
humorous of ways but the growth of my
channel also came the growth of even
higher expectations for myself i've
talked about this enough over the past
few years so i'll just keep this one
short as my mom always reminds me
taking a break to sharpen your saw will
not delay you from cutting wood the more
you rest the more space you give
yourself to breathe the more you're
building up your energy to be even more
productive in the long run isn't this a
little ironic 25 was hard work and 26 is
the importance of rest teetering between
extremes has been my number one strength
since my early 20s but i found that
living out both ends of the spectrum is
how i'm actually able to eventually find
the middle
path i'm just glad the two extremes i'm
straddling now are a little more
meaningful than the ones
in my youth
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whether it's with age and the passing of
time or a combination of putting in the
work and finally learning how to not
take myself in life as seriously
27 was objectively
a blast
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having been a bit of a perfectionist my
whole life it wasn't until this year
that i began unraveling its causes and
effects my desire to be perfect stem
from a deeply rooted mostly buried
desire to be liked and accepted which
led me to seek external validation for
most of my life
getting to the core of my attachment and
leaning into my spirituality taught me
one
major lesson
no matter what others think of you and
no matter how you view yourself if you
believe in a higher power the only
person's opinion who matters is the
creator
of the universe the creator of your
being
while life can be long our time here is
finite and it's but a speck of
glittering dust in the vast expanse of
space
so remember who you are
and remember
where you came from
27 was a year i began to truly feel
comfortable
in my own skin
thank you
oh 2020. despite how wild up a ride it
has been
something pretty magical happened at 28.
after my heartbreak at 23 i decided to
fully embrace a single pringle life when
on zero dates romantically interacted
with zero guys and spent the time
building myself up to be
a great company but sometime this year i
slowly realized that me closing off my
heart while disguised as working on
myself was actually predominantly rooted
in fear i wrote in my journal a few
months prior that i'm scared of opening
up my heart in fear of being hurt and
that i'm isolating myself for the same
reasons i don't want to depend on anyone
and i don't want anyone to grow
dependent on me
this way no one will be heard
this way no one will have to go through
what i went through when someone i love
passed
but
the million-dollar question
is this the right way to live
is this how adopt a disciple my
spiritual practice should be living
is this being truthful is this being
compassionate to myself and to others
is this true forbearance have i really
let go fast forward to february 1st of
2020 i'm at my college friend's wedding
sitting at a table surrounded by my
college besties when i declare to the
universe and the table that this is
going to be the year i meet the love of
my life and that night
i'm at jams
open up your heart believe in people and
most importantly
believe
in
love
not the fairy tale ending burning with
passion fiery kind of love but a love
that is steady
safe and calm
my favorite k-drama this past year was
hometown cha-cha-cha and i think it
perfectly sums up the last year of my
20s
if 26 was being forced to slow down
29 was actually intentionally slowing
down taking breaks and finding beauty in
the simple and the mundane
this year i prioritized a healthy
work-life balance spent more time with
loved ones and made time to dream again
jams always gently encourages and
reminds me that it's in seasons of
downtime where i come up with some of my
best ideas it's like what my dad has
shared with me over the years the art of
fadai
making time to do nothing and to rest
the mind it's in these moments of
stillness that we allow ourselves to
reflect expand and wonder in this day i
birthed the idea of our 12 days of
christmas giveaways on instagram
finished the new year reset notion
templates recorded the first episode of
my new voice hugs podcast and decided to
start a second channel dedicated to
vlogs something i've been mulling over
for months now while i can continue to
explore topics you all know and love and
beyond on this channel
while the most of these thoughts arrived
as a product of taking time for myself
it also came to fruition as a reminder
myself why i decided to embark on this
youtube journey over five years ago
it was never about numbers or views or
money or fame or working with my dream
brands even if i get distracted from
time to time though these can be
byproducts of hard work the reason why i
started my channel was to help others
to remind my younger self that life is
good and to keep living and that it is
indeed possible and within reach to live
a life that is meaningful and fulfilling
so here's what i would say to 20 year
old bro no matter how bumpy or whining
the road gets and no matter how many
months or years you've traveled down the
path you're currently on don't forget
the heart you once had for where you are
now is where you once only dreamed of
being
if these are all the lessons i learned
in my 20s
i can't wait for what's in store in my
30s
the og voice hug now go listen to boys
hugs podcast check out my vlog channel
that i'll link down below and
yes
grateful for you all blessed to be on
this journey with every single one of
you guys
goodbye
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