I want to share my story in my own words (no AI for God’s sake 😂 I like how I even need to specify this in today’s era. How interesting! Time sure has changed… for the better, I believe! 🌸). Oh hey! This just gave me a brilliant idea!💡Readers beware, when Yixue says “brilliant idea”, it may not be that brilliant because she’s way too positive and thinks many ideas are brilliant (her husband calls it: “brilliant ideas” are inflated when it’s Yixue talking 😆). But anyway, I’ll let you be the judge.

Here’s the brilliant idea… 🥁🥁🥁
I have shared my story in a video format before (talked for over 1 hour!). I will feed the transcript to an AI tool (maybe both ChatGPT and Claude so that we can compare), and ask AI to write a similar blog like this one I’m writing right now. I will share the AI articles here on Substack once I get a chance to implement this “brilliant idea”. Stay tuned! We’ll do a voting session when it’s ready. That seems fun. 😄

Now, back to my story. If you want a spoiler, you can check out my website to see how things are standing right now. Believe it or not, I think I’m at a “local minimum” in my life (just a fancy way to say “relatively low point”. Sorry, I’m a nerd. 🤓), and I’m just SO excited! (and yes, I’m weird too. Told you. I’m way too positive. 😛). I feel like a blank canvas with a magical brush in my hands to paint my life however I want it. 🪄But it comes with great sacrifices along the way.

In this article, I don’t want to sugarcoat anything. I want to share the good, the bad, and the ugly of an untraditional career path where you decide to “throw everything away” (hmm, multiple times, actually). And those are not my words, but how some people perceive my career choices. It sounds dramatic, but if you ask me, I never felt I threw anything away. All my past experiences, knowledge, and accomplishments are never truly gone. They’re part of me and always come back to help me in my work whenever it is needed. For example, as a Mental Health researcher now, my past expertise in Software Engineering research surely comes in handy in so many ways! That’s how we’re able to build a reusable pipeline with a modular design for testing LLMs in the mental health domain (where most approaches are ad hoc without the “Software Engineering mindset”). Anyways, it’s just no longer part of my glory on paper. But who cares? I don’t need to prove myself to anybody. I know my value, and my close collaborators know my value, and that’s good enough for me. :)

I want to tell my story honestly and thoroughly to minimize misinterpretations out of context. April is my “quiet reflection month”™️ (my new annual tradition!), so I’ve got the time that the story deserves. So bear with me as this article can get really long… If you’re only interested in the career transition part, you may jump ahead to the “Crushed to Pieces” Chapter, where my PhD begins (after I publish it!). Or ask AI to summarize this blog series for you after it’s done. 😄 Do whatever you want. It’s a safe space here. No judgment, and I love you. 🥰

If you’re ready to dive in, buckle up, and I’ll take you on a ride all the way back to my childhood. To lower your expectations, it’s not a dramatic story like a novel, but just an honest story of a woman’s life so far. Many normal and mundane things are just like in your life. But all of those moments led to something magnificent later on (again, beware of Yixue’s inflated word choices 😛). Life is so beautiful that it makes me want to cry. I can no longer NOT pursue my dream(s). It’s like playing the Life Game, but you can rewrite the source code (sorry, the nerdy me came out again 😂).

Of course, I’ll try to be brief to avoid turning this into a book… Attention is the most precious resource in the modern world, and I don’t expect many people to invest the time in reading this. But I’m writing it for myself during my “quiet reflection month”™️. Writing is thinking. Maybe, just maybe, my reflection can benefit a few people who are on a similar path but are on the fence about their career choices.

Again, this path is not easy by definition, and you must walk certain parts alone. But IT IS POSSIBLE, and you won’t regret it when you’re on your deathbed. It has given me so much peace. So don’t worry. I’m here with you. 🤗

When you’re ready, let us begin…

Chapter 1: Early Glory

Kindergarten

I was born in Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan province in China. 🇨🇳 Believe it or not, my Generalist career started as early as when I was in kindergarten!

I was a very talkative and loud kid with the nickname “人来疯” (which means “goes crazy when there are people around,” in a good way, I hope!) I was always so excited when people came over to my house. Kinda like now, when I’m not on silent meditation retreats, I always like to share what I’m excited about. My husband can get burned out from my excitement (his words 🤣 sometimes he even cries for help: “You’re too bright! MY EYES MY EYES! Please stopppppp” lol). He says it with lovingkindness of course, and we find it pretty hilarious haha. So I’ve been training myself to take it easy for my husband’s well-being. 😂 My mindfulness skill surely comes in handy! Who would have thought? Now not only do I enjoy silent retreats, but I can also sit in silence for hours. Life is funny.

When I was in kindergarten, what I liked the most was telling people stories. I listened to many story recordings on cassette tapes, especially Journey to the West (“西游记”, which is one of the “Big 4” Classic Chinese Novels). I could memorize the stories very well, including the emotions and tones. You can imagine how excited I was when someone visited my house. I’d tell them the stories from Journey to the West nonstop with my dramatic performance (as a 5-year-old lol). Thank God I was pretty darn cute (at least in Chinese standards), so it was pretty entertaining to adults, and they found it adorable.

Not sure if it was because I looked cute back then, but somehow I was always popular among the teachers. Oh, not that popular with my peers (those kindergarten drama… 😂 I still have vivid memories of being isolated by a popular group of girls). Being popular among teachers had given me many “jobs”, so I always had some special schedule to prepare for those “jobs” while other kids were taking a nap or something. Just to name a few:

1. Taking my whole family (including my parents and grandparents) to the local TV station to play a game and compete with another kid’s family from another city. It was some local show on TV, and my family was joking that thanks to me, they got to be on the television lol. So for a while, my whole family had to come to my kindergarten to practice those games (something involved throwing balls, and there were many different mini games. We had to practice all of them and get better and better at it! Yep, we Chinese people take competitions very seriously. 🤣). Of course, my family won in the end. All that hard work paid off!

2. Being the kid host of some sort of celebration for the entire kindergarten. I had to memorize so many lines and worked very hard, but when it was my time to speak, I completely forgot everything. No memory of how that turned out afterwards. PTSD, eh?! I guess I had my stage fright young, so I no longer experience it now. Paid my dues early. :)

3. Being one of the kid dancers for a performance filmed at the TV station again. Sorry, family, this time I couldn’t take you. I forgot if it was the same TV station as when we were filming the game competition, but my mom’s friend was working there at the station, so I ended up with a few close-up shots because of this connection. I guess early on, I already learned the importance of networking lol.

4. Being on the radio to tell a story called “Pink Rain Boots”. It was about some animals (e.g., rabbits, ants) who need to cross the river on a rainy day. Crazy I still remember one line and the exact tone!

These all seemed so random, but it did kick-start my Generalist “career”. Ah, it all makes sense now! 😆 Funny how it was all related to the entertainment industry. As a matter of fact, later on I learned from my mom that she turned down multiple offers from TV shows because she thought being a child actress with early fame was a bad idea. Hmm, probably a wise decision. If you’re also an anime fan, “Oshi no Ko” will give you some ideas... Oh well, just like that, my career in the entertainment industry never really took off.

Elementary School

When I entered elementary school, a similar pattern continued. I caught my home room teacher’s eye on day 1 (maybe it was because I was crying so hard? I remember I really didn’t want to go to school!). Then, somehow, I was picked by the teacher as the class representative and eventually went all the way to the top of the “leadership” lol.

The elementary schools in China have a student leadership system with 3 different ranks. It’s literally called “one-bar”, “two-bar”, and “three-bar”… In each class (~60 students), a few students are chosen as junior leaders (one bar), a smaller number are promoted to higher-level leaders (two bar), and eventually an even smaller number of students (I remember I was one of the 2 students) are promoted to the highest level of the leadership (three bar). We wear the “bar thing” on our sleeves, and kids do take pride in that!

With great power comes great responsibility. All these student leaders were given certain jobs, such as checking whether the kids lined up properly when leaving school. And of course, there’s always a point system. The student leaders will deduct points of the entire class and write down the names of those “naughty” kids. This kinda reminds me of the book 1984 haha, but way more benign. I don’t remember any real punishments, so maybe it was just their way of teaching discipline. Discipline was always a big part of our educational system. We even had “military training” before school started to prepare a “tough mindset” for the school year. The one I had in middle school was in a real military base with very poor conditions, and it crushed me. I remember going to the very dirty bathrooms in the middle of the night just to cry, since if the military coaches hear it, the whole dorm (around 10 of us?) would get punished, often by being sent outside to run endlessly. It was brutal. Not only did these early experiences teach us discipline, it also taught us responsibility, where if one person messed up, it also affected the entire group.
💡Pro Tip: You may consider teaming up with native Chinese students in your group projects. lol

Besides my leadership role, the entertainer role never really stopped. I was also the “song leader” in my class, leading everyone to sing before afternoon classes. This is typical in China to sing together before the afternoon classes start. It does lift up the energy and makes people less sleepy. The songs are supposed to be children’s songs suitable for our age, but I was always a rebellious kid, and I didn’t play by the rules...

There was a very popular TV show when I was in elementary school called 还珠格格 (My Fair Princess), and I would secretly lead the theme songs from the show and get the whole class super excited. The songs are mostly about romance, so of course, it wasn’t allowed. Not sure what I was thinking since you can’t really hide it when a whole class is singing it. 😂 But somehow I have memories of singing them successfully with my class (including which songs), and also memories of being scolded by the teacher lol. I guess that’s when I learned:

I don’t remember any serious punishments by my home room teacher, and this is likely because of my high grades. High grades in China always get you away with many things, and give you privileges from the teachers and popularity among your peers. I was always the top 1 or 2 among the entire class (yes, we like to rank everything…), and studying was very effortless to me (spoiler alert: I had to pay the price later on 😂). I was always very focused in class and could easily understand everything, so I spent very little time studying or preparing for exams. Instead, I spent a lot of time playing. Computer games were my favorite and always the best birthday gifts ever! BTW, this is why I chose “Software Engineering” as my major in college, because I suddenly remembered all those good memories of playing computer games when I was in elementary school (but this hobby got lost over time). It only took me 5 minutes to pick my major. Easy peasy! Little did I know it would come to become one of the most sought-after fields later on...

Not only did I play a lot of computer games, but I also played a lot of physical games with other kids. I really enjoyed playing with boys as they could match my energy level in those games that require running all over the place. Oh yes, I could sprint fast and was always selected to represent the class for 50m or 100m running races, but I was never good enough to get the gold medal. Other favorite games include acting out Harry Potter and playing 毽球 (Jianqiu) almost every day after school. I was also in a 4-girl group with a cool group name that was taken out of each one of our names. I also played a lot of typical girly games with my girl friends, like doll houses.

Oh right! I did not forget about being a Generalist, and I took diverse classes after school. After-school classes are popular in China. Yep, learning never really ends after school, and almost every kid takes after-school classes (not associated with the schools). I was lucky enough to pick after-school classes based on my free will, while many kids had to listen to their parents. So I picked drawing classes, Latin dance, Mathematical Olympiad classes, English, swimming (I was tramatized and refused to go after a few classes), and piano (which came late because I thought piano was for rich kids and only told my mom when I was in 5th grade. I still remember being laughed at by kindergarten kids for being too “old” in the class 😂).

Not all of the after-school classes were fruitful. But if you diversify, you do end up finding out what you’re good at. This is what we often forget as adults: the pure joy of doing what you enjoy based on your own choices. And if you don’t put all the eggs in one basket (as if you do, it often changes to obligation instead of pure joy), it’s very difficult not to end up with some rewards. But do note that all phases are impermanent. Your talents can change over time depending on conditions, such as what you learn and who you meet. No need to hold onto old talents too tightly.

That’s why we keep Generalising to embrace all the unknown possibilities. ✨

So my rewards outside of school include winning first place in a kids’ drawing competition held in Japan, and getting the highest score in the first exam held at the Mathematical Olympiad class to determine one’s level. I was actually shocked because the Mathematical Olympiad type of math is very different from what we learn in school, and I had never learned about it. But somehow I was always good with math when I was a kid, and could quickly answer those tricky math problems that require you to think outside of the box. Ah, how much have I fallen! 🤣 Now thinking too hard on math can give me headaches! And drawing? Oh, I have fallen too… If you don’t believe me, check out my art skills below as someone in their 30s. 😂 That’s what I was saying. Talents can change, and it’s OK!

I graduated from my elementary school with flying colors and went to a boarding school in middle school. The story continues…

Until next time! 🥰

Here’s a sneak peek of potential future chapters. Like anything, they’re subject to change and decay, so I have no promises. We shall see… 👀

Potential Upcoming Chapters:

Fighting Injustice

The Downfall

Resurrection

Crushed to Pieces

Sharp Turn

Free Solo

One of these two people is James Mickens, a Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at Harvard University, according to the all-mighty Internet. Oh Internet, where we find the “truth” for everything these days. Can you imagine if one day, some sneaky computer virus rewrites all the information on the Internet? Actually, that might be too dramatic; let’s just say it rewrites whatever information is shown to you for just a week. For example, James Mickens is no longer a Professor at Harvard, but a fisherman in Peru (yes, I was watching Planet Earth III last night, and it was great 😊). Then what is “truth” to you now? The views and opinions you hold so dear (that you learned from the Internet) can disappear overnight, as a puff of smoke. 💨 Just like that. Nowhere to be traced. No way for you to prove you’re right. How does that feel?

You know, this thought experiment is not as far-fetched as you may think. For all I know, I wouldn’t be surprised if Professor James Mickens decides to become a fisherman in Peru. If that’s the case, would you still want to read this blog to see where things are going? Subconsciously, are you more interested in what a Harvard Professor has to say, compared to a fisherman in Peru? 🐠 Some fishermen are wiser than some professors, I’m telling you. If you don’t believe me, I’ll throw in a story of a fisherman for free in the end. I keep my word. 😎

The Seriousness Trap

So what did James Mickens do? For one thing, his mere existence left a big impression on me. He’s the most hilarious professor I’ve ever met! Oh my goodness, just hearing him talk brings so much laughter haha. Looking back, that’s when a seed was planted 🌱—science is serious work, but we don’t have to be serious!

I don’t know where this “serious” culture comes from, as if you don’t seem serious, people don’t take you seriously. This culture does more harm than good. We have to wear layers of masks and pretend in order to be taken seriously. Then of course, imposter syndrome happens! 😂 You get recognition from the “masks” you show to the world, and this mismatch can make you question whether you actually deserve all the glory. Ironically, when I’m more true to myself and show more vulnerabilities, is when my imposter syndrome fades away. BTW, this is considered “weak” or “soft” in some people’s dictionary (who often have imposter syndrome…), but I don’t really care. In reality, softness possesses immense power, but invisible most of the time, just like water. 🌊

🌸 Side Note: For those of you who love scientific evidence on everything, you can check out Brené Brown’s work on vulnerability. She has a TED talk too.

Little did I know that just by knowing “you don’t have to be serious”, it carried me that far in life. One tangible benefit is that my research talks at conferences are always very well received! I try to communicate with the audience about how cool my research is, using casual language as much as possible to make it easier to understand, instead of using fancy words to sound smart. And when people can actually understand your talk (when they couldn’t understand most talks 😂), you stand out, and it leads to so many amazing collaboration opportunities! See? You don’t have to pretend to be serious to be taken seriously :) Of course, some people wouldn’t take you seriously, but I don’t like hanging out with people who “judge the book by its cover,” so it automatically filters out people I don’t want to talk to! Two birds with one stone, people! 🐤🐦 I’d call it productivity. 😎

🌸 Side Note: You can find my past research talks on YouTube here. Starting from October 2025, my YouTube channel focuses more on mental health, meditation, and positivity. 😊

More importantly, not taking life too seriously isn’t just a fun thing to do — it’s liberating. I believe this is one of the most important principles in living a happy and fulfilling life. For example, in my recent video, I talked about two types of desire and how “not being too serious” can help you achieve your dreams happier and faster. In retrospect, this light-hearted attitude also laid a very strong foundation for me to have a breakthrough in my very first meditation retreat. I still vividly remember that major shift moment with tears running down my face. And I can still hear how my meditation retreat teacher describes it.

It’s been 5 years, and it still holds true. Whatever challenges Life throws at me (oh yes, Life still does do that, of course lol), I know I can overcome whatever, and the “intensity” of suffering is much less than before. This simple principle’s profundity is often overlooked, and I invite you to dive deeper into our Happiness Buffet™️ Podcast. It has lots of laughers throughout (we do what we say! 😉) and you can listen to it while you’re driving. Here’s a sneak peek of our Happy Chef Callan’s take on “being too serious”:

• The Sneaky Disease We All Have… Being Too Serious! 😆🪷

• The BEST Way to Meditate (Most People Get This Wrong!) 🤯🧘‍♀️

Everyone Is Deeply Confused

In case you forgot, I’m not done with Professor James Mickens yet! The second thing he did that left a profound impression on me goes like this. I don’t remember exactly how he phrased it, but it’s along the lines of the best advice he’s ever heard.

It triggered a lot of laughter in the room (which is always a good thing!), and a lot of relief. Doesn’t it give you relief to know we’re all humans and we’re all the same in some way? Yes, I’m just like you too. I have all the worries and concerns, and I don’t know what I’m doing (I don’t even know what this blog will end up with 😆). But what’s the problem? Do you have any problems right here, right now?

I don’t, as long as I have functional fingers to type (on my beloved Totoro mechanical keyboard, mua! 💋). And I doubt you do, at this particular moment. At least you have the time, the all-mighty Internet, and working eyes or ears to enjoy this blog. 😊 So, yep, I’m totally fine with my confusion and worries, and I make do with the conditioned clarity that I have at the moment (that may disappear later for all I know…). What’s the big deal? Life is just like that, haven’t you noticed? C’est la vie!

I don’t know if you have connected the “dots” yet, but as scattered as this article may seem, I have been talking about the same thing. For example, one of the reasons we put on layers of masks to pretend to be serious is due to our confusion, or rather, we couldn’t make peace with our confusion. When confused, what do we do? We are afraid of showing our confusion, and we mimic others who seem to have figured it all out. Nobody, I’m telling you, nobody has figured it all out. Everyone is deeply confused. It’s only years later that I start to appreciate why Professor James Mickens said it was the best advice he’s ever got. There is just so much wisdom in it. Ironically, it takes a certain level of clarity (ego-shattering) to appreciate the depth of it, similar to the Dunning–Kruger effect. Nobody lives a Life exactly like yours with the exact same conditions, so I’m sorry to break this to you, but you have to figure it out on your own. Be an island unto yourself, but it doesn’t mean aloof. You must walk your own path alone, but it’s not meant to be lonely. You can still learn a lot from others. Use others as your guides (on a particular route in your Life journey, not entirely), but never as crutches. These short videos explain this point:

• Don’t Listen to Me 😜 Pick Your Favorite from the Happiness Buffet 💖🍰

• You Are Your Own Best Teacher & Here’s Why 😊🪷

A Plot Twist

I think that’s enough for today. 😊 This article is far from what I planned to write. Originally, I titled it “The Irony of Human Mind” and wanted to write about the ironic nature of the human mind that causes confusion, such as we always want to solve our problems, but the mind cannot be content with “no problems”. Imagine if you have no problems to solve, instead of feeling happy, you would “invent” problems to solve. The same goes for our complaints on “I don’t have time”, “I’m too busy”. But as soon as we get some time with nothing to do, the mind will look for things to fill the time and keep us busy. Short videos, anyone? lol Yes, suddenly, we want to be busy again! The list goes on and on… Seems to be a fun topic!

Why am I telling you this? I’m being transparent about this process because instead of talking the talk, I want to show you the “truth”. Seriously, every single experience teaches us SO MUCH every single day, if you could just slow down and reflect. 🪷 Let’s take a look at this blog writing example, shall we?

• First, Life never goes exactly according to your plan, and it’s OK. I’m still gonna publish this article, and it’s not the end of the world. :) I don’t beat myself up for not meeting my goal, but I try to stay open to whatever Life brings to the table. Life is more fun this way, don’t you think? What’s the fun in knowing exactly what’s gonna happen? Way to spoil our “personalized movie” (you’ll get why this short video is relevant if you realize there’s no difference between Life and Meditation). 🍿

• Second, I didn’t lie when I said I was also deeply confused, and I didn’t even know how my blog would turn out. Being confused is OK, and you can still do it anyway. So many of us always wait for the perfect moment, the big idea, the inspiration, or even the sign from the Universe. “I don’t know if I’m ready”, “What if I fail and people laugh at me”, “There are still things I don’t know”, “I don’t have a perfect plan”, “I want to learn more”, “What if XYZ happens and I don’t know how to deal with it.”

  “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.”

  —Mark Twain

  These patterns above are all valid, but please notice how long these thoughts last and how you feel about them. You’re the best judge to see whether it has become a trap for yourself. There’s a distinction between wholesome intention and obsessive craving. Don’t ask me how I know it. OK fineeeee, if you have to ask, check out my video on “Two Types of Desire: How to Achieve Your Dreams Happier & Faster 🌈✨”.

• Finally, here comes the secret sauce to beat imposter syndrome that we’ve all been waiting for! Oh we loooove secret sauce! 🍝 In case it’s not obvious to you yet, by being honest and transparent (less pretending in other words), it’s already enough to beat your imposter syndrome. It’s that simple. Imagine if I don’t tell you the process behind writing this blog, and I write an article according to my perfect plan titled “The Irony of Human Mind”, although it’s not how I want to write anymore when I’m actually typing on my Totoro keyboard. Then I write something that’s not completely honest to the moment, and I may even need to ask for ChatGPT’s help to finish this blog because I want to publish an article every month, and my Christmas vacation is coming up in 2 days.
  
  Let’s say in a parallel universe, that’s what I did. Now, imagine this “The Irony of Human Mind” blog that I managed to publish before my vacation has gone viral, and maybe even worse, it has led to a Nobel Prize for all I care. Then, when people congratulate me, it’s only natural for me to have imposter syndrome, isn’t it? After all, I rushed to write something that’s not true to myself at the moment (although true at the moment when I planned it), and I even used the “forbidden fruit” ChatGPT to fill the pages (bad girl!). People congratulate something that’s not me, and I don’t deserve it! You can expect me to keep my “ChatGPT secret” to my grave and enjoy the company of my imposter syndrome for the rest of my life. 😂 This is a funny example for dramatic effect, haha. How much imposter syndrome you feel is proportional to how much you pretend and how big the consequences are (e.g., how much I use ChatGPT and how viral the blog becomes).

There you have it! The SECRET SAUCE~~~🍝 Simple, not easy, I know. But at least now you’re aware of it and can start pretending less (if you want). 🎭 Bonus point, just by doing this one single thing, you will experience a completely new world beyond what you could ever imagine. It can take you that far. Magnificent life awaits! 🌈🦄✨

May you beat imposter syndrome once and for all.

With Love,

~Yixue

Bonus Story of a Fisherman 🎣

As promised, here’s the fisherman story! I do keep my word. 😎

Thus have I heard. On one occasion, a businessman was on vacation by a small coastal village. He noticed a fisherman returning to shore with a modest catch, just enough fish for the day.

The businessman asked,
“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?”

The fisherman replied,
“This is enough to feed my family and enjoy my life.”

The businessman smiled.
“But clearly, there’s an abundant resource here for you to catch more fish! If you do, you could sell them, buy a bigger boat, hire more fishermen, and expand your business.”

The fisherman nodded politely.
“Then what?”

“Well,” the businessman continued, getting excited,
“Then you could turn it into a company. Maybe Happy Fisherman LLC to start with. You will have more people working together with you and catch more fish, generating more revenue to go bigger!”

Listening, the fisherman asked again,
“Then what?”

The businessman continues,
“Then expand to a big corporation! You could go IPO, scale, optimize, even go global.”

The fisherman is amazed and asks again.
“Then what?”

The businessman said,
“Then you could sell the company, make a lot of money, retire early…”

The fisherman looked up from mending his nets and smiled.
“And then what?”

The businessman said,
“Then you could relax, do your hobbies, spend time with your family, and enjoy life by the sea.”

The fisherman smiled softly and said,
“But… I’m already doing that.”

HellooOooo my favorite people! 🥰 I have some exciting news to share with you all—my NEW Podcast Happiness Buffet™️ is born! 🎉

Here’s the behind-the-scenes that you don’t see on YouTube. I want to share the intention behind it, based on my decade-long journey to pursue happiness. Exclusive for my beloved Substack community! Here we go! 🤫💖🤗

Story behind Happiness Buffet

Inspired by a major mental breakdown during my PhD, I was determined to find my happiness (this moment was mentioned in the “Happiness Buffet Ep.1” as well). It’s the moment where you can’t take it anymore, and you’re determined to prioritize happiness above EVERYTHING else. Mindfulness practices, meditation, campus classes, online courses, self-help books, spiritual teachings, psychotherapy, occupational therapy, affirmations, law of attraction, visualization, manifestation, you name it, I’ve tried it all (some well-being classes I took before can be found on my website here).

The journey of happiness is a long story for another time, but to give you some hope in the mix of everything happening around the world, let me just say—It’s a huge success, and it is very much POSSIBLE FOR EVERYONE if you choose to prioritize happiness. Many people say they want happiness, but if you look at their actions, they simply don’t prioritize happiness. Just like if you say you want money, but you don’t take actions to make money, you don’t get it. Even winning the lottery requires you to buy a lottery ticket. 😂 It’s that simple.

Don’t get me wrong. Your life is your choice, and you absolutely don’t have to prioritize happiness. Many people who say they want to be happy don’t realize they actually don’t want it that badly. They want other things more than happiness, such as money, career, success (however you want to define it), and it’s reflected in how you spend your time (including your thoughts—this is very important). This is totally fine. Life is a fluid thing and changes dynamically based on causes and conditions. You’ll notice your priorities change over time in different phases of your life, and even as quickly as an instant, such as when you get a layoff notice (like me lol) or a dream job offer, when diagnosed with a serious disease or fully healed from cancer, the news of the loss of someone you deeply love or the birth of your beautiful baby, a heartbroken breakup or being proposed to by the person of your dream. Your priorities can change as quickly as the snap of a finger. 🫰 Life really is that interesting. :)

While there’s nothing wrong with prioritizing other things over happiness, I do have a small tip for you. ☺️ You need to be clear on your why and be aware of the “ironic trap” you may fall into. The funny thing is, some of us want those things (e.g., money, career, success) in the hope of feeling happy afterwards. Well, we all know how that’s gonna go haha. 😂 The conditional happiness (dependent on XYZ) simply doesn’t last, and it’s a never-ending game. I say, if that’s your ultimate goal, why not treat happiness as a first-class citizen? I don’t know about you, but it sounds like a shortcut to me. 😄

Another very interesting case is that the priorities reflected in how you spend your time (again, including your thoughts) are actually not your priorities! If you fall into this case, you’re likely to feel drained every day. This is simply because you didn’t consciously choose your priorities to align with your values, but are pushed and pulled by other people’s priorities (e.g., expectations from parents, spouse, friends, society, culture, or even your boss— yes, sometimes one single person can affect your life that much). When your day-to-day doesn’t align with your core values, things get done with great effort (kudos to you BTW! it’s not easy, I know), so you often feel drained. This is really common, and I’ve been there too. That’s another topic I’d love to write about, but this post is already going on a tangent, and I’ve used up my “tangent point”. 😆 But for starters, you may find this “Checklist for Personal Values.pdf” helpful, as knowing your values is the very first step! 😎

OK OK, let’s get back to our Happiness Buffet™️! 😋🍱 As you can probably already tell, happiness has many aspects, and there’s just so much to it that can be helpful! I feel the “happiness toolbox” in me is about to explode if I don’t share. 🤣 Everyone’s situation is different, and even for the same person, what works for them can change over time. How do we offer something helpful that’s adaptive to all of these (impermanent) changes? This naturally calls for…… WAIT FOR IT……🥁🥁🥁 a Podcast!

Our intention behind the Happiness Buffet™️ Podcast is very simple ✨

1. If you choose to start prioritizing happiness, we want to offer you a wide variety of “happiness dishes” for you to choose from! 🍱🍔🥗🍜🍕🌮🍣🥟🍝🥘🍲🥞🍩 The world is your oyster, and we hope you can find your favorite dishes here! ALL YOU CAN EAT 😋 When your “taste” changes (it’s called “habituation effect”, and it’s normal), no worries! Our “Happy Chefs” specialize in all kinds of “world cuisine” with fresh ingredients, and there’s always something new for you to try. 👩‍🍳🧑‍🍳 You will never run out of options when you’re hungry for happiness! 😉 But don’t overeat 😆 Only find the “dishes” that work for you and trust your gut! (This short video explains this point more.)

2. If you choose to prioritize other things (such as during a deadline season), we hope our Podcast can be a small moment of relaxation for you. 🥰 If it brings even one smile while you’re driving or taking a quick break, we consider our job well done! ✅ Wishing you all the best with your other priorities — and may our Podcast give you a gentle refresher to support your productivity and wellbeing. ✨

Bon Appétit! 🍽️😋

Happiness Buffet Ep. 1

Welcome to our VERY FIRST episode of the Happiness Buffet Podcast with Happy Chef Callan! 👨‍🍳✨🎉 Join us as we build your personalized Happiness Plate — with lots of smiles, simple tools, and plenty of laughter! 😄 Yum yum enjoy! 😋