It starts with the realization that I live the life of an unhappy person.
I feel relieved to have finally been able to admit it.
For a very long time, I never felt like I had the right to be unhappy. I have been given so many blessings in my life, some of them are things that people I know would have to work really hard to achieve, and even then, it’s not guaranteed.
I’m about to sound like an ungrateful bitch.
I left Vietnam and came to Canada to study when I was 16, graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce from a renowned University in Canada, became a Canadian permanent resident, worked my way up to a Regional Sales Manager position at a marketing company, and had a long-term relationship with a boyfriend who loved me the best way he knew how. But I never truly felt happy. So I quit the job, ended the relationship, and came back to school to study what I have always wanted, Psychology and Theatre. I have been able to fund my studies with part-time jobs and financial assistance. I am surrounded with practices that inspire me and opportunities to do the things that matter. And still, I remain deeply unhappy.
Sometimes, the unhappiness gets worse, and it's given names: anxiety and/or depression. Sometimes, it gets better, and I'm just an unhappy person who frantically tries all possible ways to feel ease.
I returned to my studies a few months before the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, so I have been spending the past 3 years mostly in my apartment by myself figuring out reasons to justify my choice of Theatre as a career path to my parents and myself and ways to make it work. I'm an introvert, but I don't think anyone, even introverted people, should be subjected to the level of loneliness this pandemic has bestowed upon me. Fortunately, I have found methods that can help me find balance on this lonesome path: yoga, meditation, therapy, you name it and I have at least attempted it.
However, there seems to be a baseline that I keep being pulled back to no matter how happy I got. I continue to find myself slumping back on the floor of my apartment wailing and looking at the ceiling waiting for the anxiety attacks to leave. It's gotten so frustratingly agonizing and painfully lonely that at times I want to give up. I am exhausted from trying and keep being thrown back into the pit of my own mind. After a while, I don’t have that many friends left because all of my energy has been used on fighting unhappiness. I’m grateful for the people that still stick around, but even they would get tired and start asking: why are you always unhappy? They get frustrated, I get frustrated, and we all blame it on me.
I think out of all of my blessings, the biggest one is my standing belief that I, too, could one day be happy. So no matter how many times I have wanted to just let go and end the suffering, a voice at the back of my mind would always tell me: one more time, just one more time, I know you are strong enough, there are ways if you keep on looking and trying, I promise!
So that’s what this page is about, about me documenting ways that I learn and experiment in order to become a happy person.