When I first moved back in Hong Kong in 2016 I was only meant to stay for 4 months. The plan was to re-connect with friends and family, take some time to finish my degree and then leave for France or Japan, learn the language and lead an “awesome” life.
As an adult I’ve never liked Hong Kong as a city. It’s expensive, crowded and consumerist driven — traits that I don’t enjoy or identify with. Beyond that, it felt a little too close to home. Between easy access to friends and loved ones as well as the privilege of my family’s environment and wealth, I knew that Hong Kong was a comfort zone and I was scared that by staying too long I would stagnant. The last thing I want to do as a young man was to stop growing and so when I decided to stay beyond the four months that I originally planned, I promised myself that I would eventually leave…something that finally happened yesterday.
The 22 months that I stayed in Hong Kong in some respects were some of the most unremarkable and occasionally downright disappointing times of my life.
Career wise, for the most part I felt stuck. While I had learned a lot and made a reasonable amount of money on the two ventures (I’d Hike That and Tenex Marketing) that I worked on in Hong Kong, I don’t classify either as roaring successes. I’ve always felt like I had to justify (not even sure to who) my choice of not studying at a university and getting a proper job by being crazy successful in my own work. Between the expectations that I had for myself and the desire for validation in terms of real world results, there were many times that I couldn’t help but feel like I was failing (again I have no idea who I failed).
Personally, there was a lot of transition. Figuring out what I wanted to with my post-college life while recovering from the devastating breakup of a four year relationship was not an ideal situation. Between the two issues, for the first 10 months of my time in Hong Kong, my anxiety levels peaked and the most inconsequential things would trigger panic attacks that I had never experienced before. Throughout most of college the driving force behind building Altanx was the idea that I would then be free to do whatever I wanted, whenever and wherever. I remember the countless times I was lying on my bed in the middle of the afternoon when everybody else was at work, simultaneously bored out of my mind but without the motivation to actually do anything, thinking, “is this really it?”
Yet at the same time I view my time in Hong Kong with the utmost gratitude.
I had my first adult relationship — learning to both love and lose the most authentic, kind-hearted person that I know was a journey that I’m eternally appreciative of.
I connected and re-connected with friends both new and old — in particular deepening the friendships with three guys to the point where I feel comfortable bringing up pretty much anything with them. While I can’t speak for all guys, I do believe it’s particularly hard for grown men to create and maintain genuine, long-lasting friendships, and so am grateful for each of them.
Strangely, I’ve gotten to know my parents as adult human beings, rather than the people-who-always-had-their-shit-together that I imagined as a kid. On one hand, it’s jarring to realize the extent to which my parents are just like everybody else in terms having problems that they deal with, yet on the other hand, it’s an honor to be included in these problems and a major step towards truly knowing my parents and creating healthy, loving relationships with them.
I’ve always found this quote from Tim Urban’s “The Tail End” painfully striking:
It turns out that when I graduated from high school, I had already used up 93% of my in-person parent time. I’m now enjoying the last 5% of that time. We’re in the tail end.
It bites to think that if my dad plays football until 65 and I play 5 football matches with him a year going forward, I’ve got less 40 games left to enjoy with him…
And so in a way I’m thankful that I had the opportunity to spend this extra time with my parents.
Most of all though, my biggest takeaway from my time in Hong Kong is the realization of just how average I am (Mark Manson has a great article on this)…and how wonderful that is.
Growing up, I always had to have something that separated me from others. Whether it was playing football for the youth national team, starting a business, learning French or doing college online — I identified so much with the activities that distinguished me from “normal” people that the moment I felt like I wasn’t “special”, my self-worth and esteem tanked.
But somehow just spending more time with my friends, cousins and family, I guess little bit at a time I realized that ultimately most people (myself included) do and want the same things. We all eat, shit and sleep, we all want to feel loved, respected and appreciated. The common points that we share will always far outweigh the minor differences that separate every one of us…and at some point during my time in Hong Kong, that bit of insight sunk in as cliche as it sounds, allowed me to be me without the need to “succeed”.
So what next going forward?
Truth is…I don’t know.
Moving to Chiang Mai is the first time that I’m stepping out into the unknown.
I’ve never been here before.
I don’t know anyone here.
And frankly speaking I have no idea what the fuck I’m going to do here.
Beyond wanting to get outside my comfort zone and wanting to save money, even I don’t know why I’m here.
But for the first time in my life I’m OK with not having a plan…
And we’ll just have to see what happens.