Funemployment: Week 1 (Jan 9 - Jan 16, 2015)
I officially ended my job with L’Oreal on Friday Jan 9th, 2015. After spending nearly 3.5 years doing brand management for the world’s biggest beauty company, I decided it was time to put my nerd hat back on and start learning.
For 2015 I wanted to focus on learning programming and creating things. Prior to this, I did attempt to learn while employed, but it was incredibly hard and I found myself too tired at the end of each day to learn productively.
The past week was the first week of ‘funemployment’. I wanted to take some time each week to document and reflect on my progress. Although I set out a schedule of all the classes, work and exercises I needed to do, I utterly over-estimated how much I could actually get done. During Week 2, I will attempt to catch up to the work load I have originally set for myself since I don’t want to get into the habit of lagging behind. Here are some thoughts from Week 1.
Why do I want to learn programming? I know, how cliché, another millennial quitting their big corporate job to learn to code so they can start the next billon-dollar startup. I think my decision to quit and learn to code had a few different factors, they culminated in me asking myself: “What do I lose if I quit?” and the answer after much pondering was “Not much.”
When I told my SVP that I was leaving, she didn’t say much other than “I have a mortgage and two kids. I’m in a very different stage of my life than you are.” And she’s perfectly right. I don’t have two kids nor a mortgage. There’s nothing wrong with having kids or a house, it’s just that I’m not there yet. If nothing pans out from this exercise, I can always go back to the industry and position I had before. But at least I would’ve tried. I think the worst thing that can happen would be looking back and wondering the what-ifs and regretting not taking a risk and missing the opportunity. If I chicken out of this, it is much more likely that I will be too scared to take another risk down the road. I am increasing my risk-tolerance profile and getting comfortable with the unknown. Another reason is to take some time off and reflect. Growing up in a pretty traditional Chinese household, my family pushed me every step of the way. Learning was something I did so I can achieve a milestone. Getting an A in a class, scoring well on the SATs, getting into a good college, finding a well-paying job. All these things were expected of me and I did as expected.
I read a lot when I younger; my parents fully stocked our bookshelves and never cheaped out on any educational materials for me. I remember sitting there and doing book after book of logic puzzles because I loved the feeling when I figured out an answer. I also read Greek Mythology, fairy tales, novels and encyclopedias (the illustrated kind of course) and as a result my knowledge far surpassed that of other kids my age. But when school became a bit more serious, the joy of learning came from extrinsic motivators such as stellar grades and academic awards rather than my internal desire to learn. Even after college, I did things that I thought would give me a gold star in life. I forgot what it’s like to learn for the sake of learning. Another reason was actually my parents, I am super lucky that they are supportive of this decision. At one point my dad even said: “Every moment you hesitate and not take the first step is another moment wasted.” For Asian parents, they were quite liberal in some sense. Although they hovered over me because I’m an only child, they also afforded me tremendous amounts of freedom. My parents had me when they were 26 and left China when they were 28. I know it was a different time, but I’m pretty close to their age right now and I’m not sure I’d have to guts to give up a great career, move to a new country where I barely speak the language and have zero friends. Quitting my job and programming is a lot less daunting than starting life all over again in a foreign environment. I guess a part of me is itching to find out if I’m as brave as they were.
That was probably a lot more about myself than what I originally set out to write. I guess sometimes things just flow out without me really realizing where it could take me next. This is sort of the same mentality I have for the next few months. I don’t know where this journey will take me, but I’m excited to find out.
Lastly, this is how I am starting my learning process. Not too hard, but it’s a start!
