Upon Return: An Abrupt Lesson About Life and Blogs

I thought a while about never blogging again. But I returned anyhow. Here is my account of why pausing, reflecting, and stepping away from work really does matter.

Hello again! It’s been seven weeks since I last posted here… and it feels slightly weird to be writing again. Writing is a like a muscle— the more you routinely exercise it, the more it builds up such that two-thousand word blog posts become second-nature. But given the absence of such exercise, much of what I say in this blogpost might read as complete nonsense. So I guess my first grand ask of you is— please forgive me.

Though despite how clunky these next few posts will feel, I do feel relieved to be writing again. These past six weeks of my life, although fulfilling, have promptly woken me up to a couple lessons in life… shifting the way I think about work, success, and balance.

Truth is, this seven-week absence of mine had the possibility of turning into eight, perhaps even nine. There seemed to be no real stop to it at; in fact, had I not resolutely put myself together today to deliver this post, I perhaps never may have.

My primary excuse, detailed in my temporary “good-bye” post, was in business and work. Heading off to a very busy and intense summer of debate and projects… I was determined to have a focused summer. My assumption was that blogging, although also important, was a side-hustle… not anything to be especially concerned about at the moment, let alone prioritized. This wasn’t an illegitimate excuse for not writing here; in fact, it was more than reasonable. Set your priorities.

Besides, just a week before, I spent a couple tumultuous weeks in eastern Europe, where, despite the grander sights around me, I had some ungrand moments myself: nearly getting COVID, burning alive in 400 degree Celsius Vienna weather, and most effectively…. accidently ingesting a mix of cough medicine, throat drops, and painkillers that amounted to hallucinations and “mood swings".

It was accidental, I promise.

And the cherry on top… ironically, I sit here today positive for COVID. This summer’s been full circle.

If anything, I seem to have conjured up enough excuses to stop blogging. Taking a second to step away was not the worst plan of action.

But really though, upon reflection, there are deeper considerations to be made. A lot my time in Michigan brought me to some really tough places; I was not only jumbled, stressed, and just outright chaotic, focusing on what was directly in front of me no longer seemed that possible. And moreover, whatever productive thing it was, attempting to focus on it backfired…. and ended up being unproductive.

How did I end up there? I traced this back to my first mindset approaching camp.

Walking into the last week of June, I locked my suitcase, checked in my bags at LAX, sat down at the terminal’s Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf whilst waiting for my mobile-order to hopefully bypass the 400-person physical line, and jotted down a very brief farewell to all of my blog’s audience. Sayonara, see you in seven weeks.

What I discovered three weeks into camp was that life required not only commitment to one’s career-oriented ambitions… but also one’s personal ones. I came to an understanding with myself that, albeit a strong dedication to improving myself at debate, it would actually run counterproductive to my goals if I attempted to throw all other considerations away.

This was something I thought I always knew and understood, yet fell into the same trap of believing the exact opposite whenever time rolled by. It was a principle so deeply ingrained… yet hard to follow. When pressure wasn’t damning and temperature wasn’t hot, my gut intuitions would recognize that an effective and successful lifestyle necessitated breaks, rests, and recharges. Yet when push came to shove, big opportunities for success and change awaited at front gates, and summer hard work seemed priority, my sole focal point became attached to whatever career-oriented goal I had in mind, all else reduced to mere “distractions”.

My intent to “focus in” was magnified by my innate love for the activity of debate itself. Researching random pieces of evidence on fiscally redistributive policy, doing reading on critical literature and postmodernist books, and packaging knowledge into Word documents of organized argumentation… all of this would seem like sketchy business at best. But for some strange reason, I’ve gotten closer and closer to policy debate these past couple years, and consequently, I arrived at camp with the very excitement and hyperfocus I had been brewing. Debate camp was for mastering one thing: debate. Lock in.

Despite discovering such a truth three weeks in, I gave a friendly reminder to myself that camp was not three, but seven weeks long. There were four weeks left of debate camp, and certainly time to change. And beyond that, more than twenty weeks left of the year, and certainly hundreds left in my life.

So why not simply change? Take breaks, rests, recharges?

My habits were reluctant. I remained tied to this ultimate goal of improving myself as much as possible in my activity, because it seemed innately important in the moment. To restrain myself, I often locked myself in my dormitory and stayed up during quiet hours to do work and improve my skills in the activity. I was determined to make the absolute most of camp… and deemed all other forces against my will as total rubbish.

So ironically, as my mental state increasingly asked for a temporary hiatus from the runaway train of debate camp, I shelved those concerns away and pushed the gas pedal harder.

Towards weeks six and seven, I found myself starting to do other things than just work… I tried more of local restaurants, visited museums, and had conversations that weren’t always centered around debate. I became acquainted with a local Korean barbeque chef who offered me a free meal for going to his place so much. But despite finding more balance towards the end, much of my debate camp experience gathered around a sprint for as much mileage as possible, yet lacked any attention to the surrounding view. I spent seven weeks speeding down a train, with my only memory being the railroad beneath my feet.

Before debate camp, I wrote down a question for myself. Addressed to my post-camp self, it read: did you feel like you became substantially more threatening as a debater? My answer to that question would be a yes… but not a resolved or settled one. Because I sometimes wonder… how much more of life and debate could I have gotten if I had not focused so specifically on the sprint behind each day, but rather the enjoyment of the sprint itself?

Or maybe it wasn’t a sprint, but a marathon.

My lab leader sat with me on the last day and had a conversation with me. He told me, “The things you remember from debate won’t be the wins or losses, it’ll be the memorable times you spend with teammates, coaches, and friends.”

It has been a week since my return from Michigan. I’ve caught up on the new films: Oppenheimer and the new Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, finally finished some books I’ve been procrastinating, and regained my pace in violin practice.

Truth is, I didn’t realize how important blogging was to me… that innately, it was actually a form of break that I had needed all along. Especially in the later weeks of camp, whereby I became increasingly exhausted, I found myself back to this Substack page, not in my editing dashboard, but rather as an audience member. I selected the Time Machine link, scrolled to the very bottom, and read my first post.

This was when I was reminded of the sheer worth of blogging. My first post contained a brief yet meaningful explanation of why I blogging was important to me. I couldn’t just throw away its reflective capacity, its ability to preserve and document all facets of my life as they went on. Sure, there were more “important” things to do… but I realized that to remain so deadlocked on those and drop all else… was not a smart gambit, but a mistake. Blogging was more to me than just writing pieces of nothingness every few interval of days… it was a period of self-care, trust, communication, and reflection. Blogging consisted of components that were not optional to achieve whatever career-oriented vision in mind, but in fact necessary to remain sane to do so.

I also never put forth enough respect to my blog’s impact on others. I began it not in any way for a wider audience, but rather as a journal for myself and my own thoughts. I urged my closest circle to subscribe and see if they liked it… but my intention was never to grow a platform. The small community my Substack did reach however, was a genuine and touching community. As much as people didn’t take the extra work to sign up, create accounts, and like posts… people sent me DMs and messages concerning how they related to different aspects of what I explained here. Truthfully and from the bottom of my heart, that’s something I’m really thankful for— to know that there are several of you out there who value the connections this blog is making with life, work, and everything in between.

So when I sat blankly in my window-seat on the flight back from Michigan, I stared out to a blank slate of clouds and asked myself candidly: did I want to continue this blog? I had taken seven weeks off from it, perhaps more. I was entering into junior year, the hardest crux of high school, approaching a debate season with the highest stakes and goals, and preparing for the SAT and my final couple years of high-school violin performance. I had all the excuses and could stop my blog anytime.

I thought about it for a while. I pulled out my laptop… and decided to write about those thoughts. They are the ones you are reading right now.

My conclusion was a firm yes. Because I realized blogging is a form of life… a reflection period, a way to share smiles and tears, a method to find value in the things I was doing. Blogging is my journal of the darker parts of the tunnel prior to seeing the light. So as we hit junior year… my goal is not to “lock-in” and “drop everything possible for work”. It’s to step back, brace myself, and find openings to enjoy the ride. And I am overjoyed that my blog will be a part of that.