Gotta die #5: How to find a miracle
If you read my gotta die series:
- Gotta die #1: Hard time job searching
- Gotta die #2: I’m an ostrich
- Gotta die #3: Conviction is a stone
- Gotta die #4: Worst Case Scenario
You know I’m…yes, gotta die. My days are divided into 4 modes. The biggest mode is Mode 1 — Panic.
Four modes of dying
Mode 1: Panic
The moment I woke up, I told my roommate I’m gotta die. And my roommate will say “你要活下去！” (You have to stay alive!) My mind usually repeats 950 times “I’m gotta die” to myself. This takes the majority of my mind.
Mode 2: Anger
Mode 2 is swearing at my intuition and conviction. Hence, you will see me saying “fxxk you” 50 times a day to them (essentially myself) in front of all the pedestrians. I look like a complete idiot swearing at myself haha.
Mode 3: Bargaining
Yes, welcome to my bargaining stage with the universe. I spend the rest of my time bargaining and begging the universe to give me an easier life. I don’t know if the universe is listening tho. They might not understand human languages.
Mode 4: Let’s find a way out
Mode 4 is Let’s find a way out stage usually happens after I exercise. Around 2% of my mind starts panicking and thinks about what can we do and how to do it.
I know many of you have suggested it I compromise for a few years to stay in the US. I have filed this appeal to Esther many times but got rejected. That’s why I’m quite mad at Esther. But anyway, most of my time has been in my panic Mode 1.
Miracle around the corner
However, however, Esther as a creative human being, was still continuing on her fun project: How to ask for help. She and her friends keep asking for one help a day, including asking random technical questions on Twitter about how people go with their entrepreneurship journey. Any sort of random ask.
Esther decided to rather go home than stay in a misaligned job in the US. One day I decided to ask people what Esther would miss out for her. The first person who came to my mind is a VC from edtech capital in the Bay.
Usually, I hate VC people because they are usually powerful, rich, snobbish people who bet on startups like betting on horse races. But that VC was a nice person when we talked and she didn’t have any arrogant energy. Since she might know more about the tech resources in the US, I think she can probably tell me what I’m losing leaving the US.
Yet, she didn’t tell me what I lost, she just asked about how I job search in edtech. And after a few days, a miracle happened. She said that some founders wanted to talk to me. Apparently, she sent my information to her network.
Omg omg omg weirdo friends, do you know how crazy that means? There was a company that I’d been trying so hard for a solid two months. I built a website and tried to ask my friend who worked there to help me, but I still, barely got to their hiring manager. But now their FOUNDER wants to talk to…. me? me? me?
She suggested a company that I super super like, and I told her I tried it before but they only did many many experienced hires. And then she emailed their board member to see if it was possible to open a chat.
Whaaaaaat?!
I was mind-blown.
What I learned
Even though her help has not worked out yet or even it might not work out in the end, she unblocked my dilemma and showed me possibilities. It’s not necessarily an either/or choice between my passion and the US. I feel so stupid, why didn’t I think of trying both before? If I have used my knee to think a bit, it is so obvious the best strategy for both short-term and long-term alignment.
We always said network network network, but she is the first person in my life who really showed me what a powerful network really means. I stopped feeling that I had gotta die even though my situation stay almost the same now. I learned that there are still so many untraditional possibilities and creative problem-solving I haven’t tried, waiting for me to explore and play on this planet.
