My Life, My Demons Part 1

Last night, I was planning to head out with a colleague of mine who lives in the city. However, he ended up getting too tired after spending a day working at the Stanford Career Fair. So, I was debating what I should do to kill the night. My ex-colleagues from Google called me a few times to head down to a bar in Mission and 21st. I was about to go but I ended up being too tired to take a cab to go to the club. I ended up staying at home cleaning up my apartment and having a great conversation with my best friend back in Hong Kong.

In case you don't know, the friend that I am referring to is actually the person who I have known for the longest period of time besides my family members. I have known her since I was 3 or so. So, literally, I have known her for 27 years. That's a really long time.

I was talking to her about things happened at work and in my life. I realize that I am refusing to grow up. I think turning into 30 is one of the biggest fear I have in my life. Not only have I been told before that I would die by the age of 30, I also realize that I need to clean up my act and figure out what I want before 30.

I am lying to myself because I refuse to grow up.

The older I get, the more I want to be a perfect person. I tend to be very harsh on myself but pretty easy on my friends. I don't think there's anything wrong about it. However, I may point out that I may end up making everyone around me to be happy except myself. I should treat myself better and put myself in a better position. I should be nicer to myself.

;Since I came to US in 1995, I developed this insatiable need to be the best in everything. When I was back in Hong Kong in high school, I cared less about school and everything. I had so much confidence that I knew if I just put in some time, I would definitely be fine. That's why I ended up doing everything that a typical student in the "elite" class in my high school won't do. I stayed late after class to play volleyball when I was in F.2. I spent all the time to running student organizations when I was in F.3. I basically spent every bit of my energy after work to organize joint school activities. I still remember the time that it was such an ss="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">opportunity to go to girls' school after class each day to have meeting about various joint school events. You know, it really helps if you go to a boys school and have chances to hang out in a girls school.

Anyway, my time in high school passed with a very uneventful event in F.6. Many of you know that I like to help people and make my friends happy a lot. When I was in F.6, I was asked to run so many organizations that I started passing some duties to some of my "inactive" classmates, those that hadn't built up enough social capital and network to be invited to lead student organizations. In Hong Kong, having the ability to run students organization would increase your likelihood of getting into universities, especially if you are looking to get into universities in US or UK.

So, I ended up giving up an opportunity to be the chairman of an organization and heavily recommended my buddy for the position. The teacher-in-charge ended up agreeing with me and let my buddy be the one. Since then, our friendship eroded. I guess it all came with the attention and fame that you got once you became the chairman of an organization. My mate still lying to me and speaking behind me. It was up to a point that I finally discovered what it was all about. I was very upset and have since been afraid to get too close to anyone around me.

Here I am now, 13 years later, I still let this incident haunting over me. How can I breakaway from this demon that has been with me for such a long time?