People tend to sit down and make a list of resolutions each new year, but I prefer looking back to see how much I have grown. 2022 has been one of the most eventful years of my life and marked an important milestone in my self-love journey. I have learned many valuable lessons from which I started treating myself differently. In other words, I am kinder and more patient with myself, and more willing to make changes.

I am Vietnamese. Although I have a genuine love and respect for my family and my roots, I must admit that my life has been so stressful that I have to keep calm every time I look back. I usually felt like a loser. I could not stop comparing myself with other friends. While I was struggling to find myself the right career path, most of my friends started to accomplish everything one is supposed to do: stepping up the ladders at work from junior positions to senior or managing positions, having stable sources of income generation, travelling everywhere across the country or even abroad, getting decent accommodation and private vehicles, getting married, becoming parents, and the list goes on.

To me, they 100% fit in the general lifestyle in Vietnam, while I do not. I found myself lost in an invisible race in which I would never succeed – a race to become a typical Vietnamese of whom my parents would be proud and from whom society would praise. If I had tried harder, I might have succeeded like my friends and other people. Unfortunately, I got exhausted and gave up. 

I still remember how hard I tried to live up to family and social expectations, since I was just a primary school student. At home, I was asked to listen to what my parents said without arguing back, adjust my stubbornness or boyish behaviours, and focus on my studies. At school, I was asked to arrive on time, wear a uniform, use the right compulsory ink colour in class, use the right required type of pen, write carefully, finish all my homework, and so on. There was no sign of freedom. All were obligations. However, at that time, I still enjoyed going to school because at least I had friends to study and play with me, while I only had myself as I was an only child at home. My parents were busy with their work and other problems arising in their marriage, so they could not spend quality time with me. I had very few bright memories of my childhood, especially after witnessing my parents’ big argument in our living room one day and finding a piece of paper with the word “divorce” they put on the table. 

As a little girl, I could not understand what happened but since then, I have always felt insecure. I lived with my mum and rarely saw my dad. She kept telling me that my dad was away on a business trip, so I grew up with an ongoing yearning for his presence. I could not even remember when I started to tell myself that maybe I was the reason for my parents’ separation, but it haunted me for so long that I tried to compensate for their loss by making them proud in many ways. I started to fully dedicate my time and energy to being a top student in middle school and high school, taking care of myself, learning how to cook, and doing the housework so my mum could focus on her work. I even quit playing basketball and other hobbies because she did not support me. I did everything I could and achieved my goals. Nevertheless, I was not satisfied. It took me two long periods of anxiety disorder, a new pair of glasses for short-sighted eyes, and a diagnosis of arrhythmia to realise that I needed to change. 

Soon after getting to university, besides my studies, I participated in as many extra-curriculum activities as possible to make new friends and acquire new skills. I founded a music club and led a team of about twenty members to organise several music shows in my second and third years. I coordinated a career orientation program for high school students in Hanoi in my senior year. Everything seemed great but in fact, I struggled with my career choice. Despite my passion for English, I was not motivated enough to become an English teacher or an interpreter. As a result, I graduated and started working in Marketing – a different field from what I was educated at university. I could catch up with the job pretty well thanks to some transferable skills I gained from my on-campus activities, making good impressions on my managers and completing all the tasks. However, something was still missing. That is why I had to switch jobs four times in three years, making my parents worried.

After all those years, these questions popped up in my mind: 

• Why did I have to put so much pressure on myself? 
• Why did I have to put what people think about me above what I truly desire and believe in myself?
• Why did I not let myself have a well-deserved rest and plan the future on my own? 

I spent so much time answering each of them and decided to leap. I realised I had enough of living my life as if it was for someone else. I had enough of seeking my parents’ attention and recognition by achieving titles such as “good daughter”, “top student” or “diligent employee” yet were all meaningless to me. And I also had enough of a silly competitive life in which I had to look around and try to do the same as other people did, even at the same pace as theirs. Thus, I no longer identified myself with those titles or identified my values only with superficial things. I took a gap year in 2021 to redirect my future. I applied to a postgraduate programme in the UK and fortunately, I started coming back to student life last year at Leeds Beckett University with my new favourite major: Media and Culture.  

Indeed, my life has not been easy, but I am grateful for not giving up on myself. I am grateful for my courage to step back and give myself the necessary time to relax and listen to my inner voice. And I am grateful for having followed that voice to get out of my comfort zone and make the seemingly impossible possible. 

I do not buy the idea that the youth are supposed to be full of passion and energy like a steady flame. Since any flame could be in danger of being extinguished if it is not refuelled and sheltered from winds or rainstorms, any passion could be in danger of being vanished if the body and the mind do not get enough rest. Everyone has gone through their battles, and it is understandable to move on at one’s suitable pace. It is okay to slow down, take a deep breath, and give ourselves some more time to prepare for the next steps. Head up for the future, but do not forget to live in the present.