what to do when you're feeling lost 🩵

This is absolutely gorgeous. Hello seedless potatoes. I don't even know where to start. I'm feeling pretty lost. I was watching a YouTube video to get inspiration. I think a part of me knew I needed it, even though the other part of me was like, you don't need this. You don't need inspiration from other people. The essence of the video, whenever you feel lost, the reason why we feel lost is because we're leaving our safe harbor and entering uncharted territories. So when you physically go somewhere new, when you travel, when you explore a new part of town, if you don't have a map or if you don't have your phone, inevitably you will get lost. So for any of us who wants to change, who wants to challenge ourselves and who wants to grow, it is also inevitable that we'll feel lost. This is actually a great thing because it means you want to better yourself. You want to be a better person. You want to improve. I think that that really did help me in more ways than I think I needed. It also reminded me of younger Ro when I was even more lost and had even less direction of what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go in life. Me sitting here today talking about feeling lost, even though the feeling is the same, the circumstances are very different and that I think is something that I'm trying to embrace and trying to be grateful of, to be proud of and to just remind myself that I've come a long way and that it's okay if I don't have all the answers. When I was younger, it was 2, 3, 4 years of figuring out myself out, figure out my path out and once I figure out my path, it was another 2, 3 years of figuring out how to get this YouTube channel off the ground and after that is kind of where we are today. Probably another 2, 3 years of figuring out what the next 2, 3 years are gonna look like before another 2, 3 years of oh my god, where am I? Do I want to go other places? Do I want to change direction? Do I want to keep sailing in the direction that I have? And I think it's very easy for us to be hard on ourselves and we want ourselves to figure things out by yesterday but you know, we gotta respect the process and I think that journey of acceptance, embracing, leaning in, that is the journey and I'm so grateful to be on this journey with you guys. I'm so grateful we get to learn and grow and embrace these uncomfortable but necessary feelings together. Now let's move on with our day and continue enjoying my coffee that I haven't had a sip of. This is so, so, so good. You guys just saw I just mixed milk with the instant coffee powder. My friend's brand, I love them. Not just because they're my friends but because their products actually taste delicious. Good news is, you guys know I'm usually in my apartment cleaning. The apartment's actually pretty clean. The only thing that is not that clean is my closet. Let's go do that together. Hi tripod. Let's back into it. Party stepping and tripping over clothes. This is what we're working with. Kind of organized but kind of not. Things are like kind of folded but anyway. Since we've been doing a lot of reflecting, let's just keep reflecting because especially when it comes to guiding questions, for me it's so clear that when I have a guiding question, whether it is for my life, whether it is for my life partner, whether it is for my lifestyle, we'll get into all of them in a second, it really does help give me direction. Even though I'm not actively working towards solving this question 24-7, whatever it is that I consume, that I read, that I listen to is getting me closer and closer to this answer because I have something that I'm working towards. So when it comes to life, my guiding question of my late teens, early 20s when I was in college was what does it mean to live a meaningful and fulfilling life? Especially because I experienced a loss that was very close to me. It really made me ponder and think what does it truly mean to live a good life? And not just a good life, but like a meaningful one. When we're in college, it's so easy to be influenced by what we should do, what society thinks we should do, what parents, peers, whatever thinks we should do. And so that was my mission to figure that out. And it took me a good amount of years and I did eventually get there, which led me to go down this path that I'm currently on now to be able to talk to a camera in my closet as I'm cleaning or trying to clean. Now, when it comes to your life partner, ever since I became aware of the opposite sex, I don't know why I'm losing my breath. On the spectrum of boy crazy and not boy crazy, I think I was a bit more on the boy crazy side. This is actually something I've never talked about on my channel. That ruled everything in my life. I didn't know what I was looking for. I didn't know what I wanted. That's normal. No one's supposed to know what you want out of a partner when you're that young. When I got out of my second serious long-term relationship, I really wanted to take some time to figure out, okay, I know who I am in a relationship, but who am I on my own? And what am I really looking forward to? What kind of a partner am I really looking forward to? The question, again, I asked myself was, what do I really value and need from a partner? It came down to three very simple things. If you asked me when I was in my teens or maybe even my early 20s, it would be a long laundry list of, they need to be this tall, they need to have this job, they need to look this way, they need to dress this way, they need to like this music, they need to like this food. One thing that I want to emphasize to myself is that all of these took time. It's okay to take time to figure out what my next guiding question is and to take time to find the answer to that question. You know something fun that I realized? For as much as I love pink, I actually don't have a lot of pink stuff. This is the first pink shirt that I put up. So that is life, life partner. When it comes to lifestyle, I don't drink, I don't smell, I don't do drugs, I shop. But yes, I think I'm just, I'm gonna sit. I do not do any of those things anymore. When I am feeling not okay, I do tend to splurge because it is a way of distracting and numbing myself. I'm glad that it's less destructive than the former, but it's still not something that I want to use as a crutch. One thing that I'm trying to work on is to really differentiate between things that I need versus things that I want because we all want a lot of things, but we don't need much. So for example, something that I use every day for work calls, for podcasting, audiobooks, even meditating at night, headphones. Although this section is about tuning inward and listening to yourself, I think there's also ways and avenues that you can go down instead of like shopping and distracting yourself. You can do something that's constructive to the state that you're in and what you're going through. So anyway, headphones are something that you use on a daily basis. But one thing that I realized after using my plug-in headphones, like the Apple AirPods or the Apple Air Max, this might be too much, but I feel like my ear hole starts smelling and I low-key feel suffocated. And I just remember thinking there must be something out there that doesn't plug your ear hole completely, that isn't unbearably heavy, and that gives you enough situational awareness so that you know exactly what's going on around you. Especially when I lived in New York City, people would get their headphones yanked from their heads. So when Shox reached out to work on their OpenFit Air headphones, I was like, they have answered my headphone prayers and it made it such an easy yes. Literally has everything that I've been looking forward to. They have an open ear design where you can hook it beautifully into your ear and it just stays above, it doesn't go in as you guys can see. Yes, yes. This lets you stay plugged into the real world while you're going about your day, doing your thing, taking work meetings, taking a breather. Every part of this headphone is designed for ultimate comfort. It also has a very secure fit so if you want to go out and run, if you want to work out, if you want to dance, go upside down, whatever you want to do, it is still in my ear. And it can also be worn with sunglasses, glasses and hats. I actually tested this on my dad. He can wear his hat and glasses and this just fits over his ears so, so, so comfortably. He goes on walks, 12k steps a day minimum. This helps give me peace of mind that he's out there listening to whatever he's listening to but he can still hear things around him. He also loves listening to music. The sound quality is amazing. So if you want to learn more about shocks, you can go to the link in my description or try them out in stores like Best Buy. Let me finish the rest of this. It's the best I'm gonna do today. That's all I can ask for. Finding courage to stop, to go, to lean in, to explore. If you've been staying inside most of the time, try going outside. If you've been heading one direction for a while, try something new. If you've been feeling stuck on your current path, maybe try SideQuest. So as you guys know, I'm a massive, massive homebody. That already doesn't account for the fact that when I am not in a good place, when I'm feeling lost, I tend to self-isolate even more. So many cars! So I just haven't been going out much at all. One thing I've been trying to do more is to just get out of the house a little more at least once or twice a day. Go for a walk, do things outside, get some fresh air and you know, for the girlies and boysies out there who have gone through stuff, you know it takes courage to go outside. So we're doing this, we've been doing this and it's been helping a lot. So why have I been feeling lost? I think for a lot of us, we are our jobs. Either like we've become our jobs or our jobs become us because I've been feeling quite stagnant with content that kind of led to this lostness and the reason why I haven't been creating as much content. I just feel like there's less magic within. Before it used to be so easy for me to write my thoughts down, my reflections down, to script, to do anything and now it's like pulling teeth or I just feel like the reservoir of my brain has dried up and a huge part of that maybe because I have to live. I have to have lived experience to be able to talk about the things and I think because my channel depends so heavily on my growth and me sharing my growth and the challenges and all of that, if there's no growth, there's not much that I can be talking about. Going back to what I said about I feel like I have less magic within and maybe I've like lost touch with the magic within for a while that frustrated me but I think as we talked about throughout the whole video that maybe it's a good thing because I can rediscover the magic within. I can reconnect with the magic within and maybe it's a different part of me. Maybe I'll find it in the most unexpected of ways. The very last thing I want to share is because my career has been so tied to content, there has been so much resistance. There hasn't been as much joy. There hasn't been as much excitement going on in this department but a few days ago, I had a call with Team Potato and we're talking about non-content related ideas waiting for the card to pass and that lit me up. So speaking of side quests earlier, this is like a little side quest. Hopefully sooner rather than later, you'll all be able to see what the side quest is. So for the first time in a very long time, I was feeling excited. I was feeling fired up. I felt that the stars were aligning as if it was like I started my channel back in 2016. Like that feeling, that fire. That's all just to say, if your main path isn't working out, if your main boo's not working out, still continue to work it out. Still continue to figure out what you can do. I feel like there's a fly in my eye but don't shy away from the side boo. Don't shy away from the side quest. It might surprise you. That also takes courage. We're home. We're changed. Wow. Okay. So this last point, actually this whole video really is more of a reminder for myself that I already have all the answers within. The best way that I can live my life and that I can figure out where I am at and not be as lost is to continue to follow this path of discomfort and this path of pain because eventually it will lead me to where I need to go. There's no other path that I can follow. Someone else's path is not going to lead me to where I want to be. Looking back once again because I think this video really also is a reflection for me to help remind myself of the path that I've walked which can hopefully remind you of all the wonderful amazing things that you've done up until this point in your life. There's all things worth celebrating. In high school, when my friends were studying, I was playing. College, when my friends were partying, I was studying. When all of my peers were looking up internships at big four companies as a business major, I was like, you know what? I want to work at startups that I feel like are mission-driven and are doing good in the world. It was cool but it wasn't what everyone else was doing so being in a business fraternity, I was definitely judged. And fast forward to graduation when all my peers continued to work at said large companies that are the beacon of success, I decided to take six months off to figure out what I want to do which eventually led me to truly figuring out who I am, what I want in life, reconnect with spirituality, start a YouTube, the rest, you can all see the journey of growth. It really is zagging when others are zigging that has got me to where I am today and I feel like the past few years, I've been trying to zig more than I zag if that makes sense. That is probably why I feel like I've lost my magic because I've lost touch with the essence of me being different and being okay with being different. I think being online makes you more susceptible to other people's thoughts and opinions and judgments. It's easy to have that affect you and it's easy to do things differently or say things differently or not talk about things altogether because you don't want people to misunderstand you. You would think that at 32, I'd be like that doesn't phase me but it still does. In the meantime, no matter what you're going through, no matter what you're feeling, know that it is totally normal. It is totally valid. The more we're able to sit with it, the more we're able to embrace it, the more we're able to tune in and ask ourselves questions and have north starved questions, the more that we're able to find courage, the more that we zag rather than zig. I really do believe and have faith that one day, maybe it's not today, maybe it's not tomorrow, maybe it's not for the next month or two or three or four but one day you will come out of the tunnel and I have faith that one day I will come out of this tunnel that currently seems like there's just a flickering light very, very far in the distance. Granted, I also feel that we're in many tunnels and it's just for me, my career tunnel is very dim so it feels like that is my whole world because the size of these tunnels is how much weight we give them and I do give my career a lot of weight. I also need to remind myself that there are many other beautiful tunnels in my life from family to friends to my significant other to my health. I'm just glad I went through what I went through in my late 20s and that I'm able to be at a place where I can recalibrate, try to figure out again how I want to move forward and the pace in which I want to move forward factoring in all these other things that you know now it's not just me now that I'm closer to my parents it's my family, my significant other like there's more things in my life as well. My life is a lot fuller in that aspect and in that way. Yeah, oh, can you say hi? I don't think I've ever properly introduced Kitty. Kitty is my cat that I've had since I was six. I've literally gone through every phase of my life with her. Some of these nights I would just stare at her and just be in awe of quite literally all the things that we've gone through together. Anyway, a heart forehead kiss. Give you a hug. Oh, come in. Come on in. I'll see you guys when I see you guys.