I love to tell stories, but I’ve always had a hard time telling this one. It’s a personal one that brings up some painful and hard memories, but through the years, I’ve learned that all of our stories are powerful and worth telling. So here’s mine.

Burnout

I was a senior research analyst at a well-known university with great benefits and a competitive salary. My work was considered important - often influencing the decisions that were being made at the highest levels of the university. I was good at what I did and I worked hard to get there. My boss was friendly, I had an office with a great view of NYC’s iconic SoHo area, and I got along great with my coworkers.

But still, I hated my job.

Not only did sitting in front of a computer all day feel soul-sucking, but I also hated dealing with office politics and I felt zero joy in what I was doing. While working full-time, I was also pursuing a PhD that started to feel the same way. I was dragging my feet through my dissertation proposal and kept wondering who and what I was doing this all for. I came home feeling exhausted and burnt out every day. My calendar was full, but I went to bed feeling empty every night.

I also started to develop some health issues during this time. I was dealing with symptoms like ulcers, indigestion, achy joints, skin rashes, swelling, and fatigue. In the span of a year, I went to doctor after doctor trying to figure out what was causing all of these symptoms, but none of them were able to diagnose me. After a frustrating year of battling these health issues without any diagnosis, I started to wonder if it was actually my stress and unhappiness that were causing me to become physically ill.

To be honest, I can’t remember what triggered things the day that I decided to quit my job, but I do remember coming home, sitting at my dining room table, and having a complete breakdown - full on ugly crying as my husband sat there and tried to console me.

It was in that moment that I had finally reached my breaking point and I realized I was stretching myself too thin, forcing myself to do things that brought me no joy, and it was ultimately taking a huge toll on my mind, body, and spirit. That night, I drafted my resignation letter and decided take a break from it all. But quitting was just the beginning.

Loss

One of the immediate things that I had to deal with after quitting my job was to tell my family about it.

I knew everyone else in my life would support me in my decision, but telling my parents was going to be hard. Being a first generation Korean-American who grew up with immigrant parents who worked 12+ hours a day and sacrificed everything to give me the life I had, I basically had to tell them that I was walking away from a stable, well-paying job and leaving my PhD program two years in, throwing away the two Ivy-League degrees that helped me get there. As you can imagine, that conversation did not go well.

My decision affected my relationship with my parents to the point where we were barely in contact for the following two years. And in the midst of all this, as a consequence of not being able to properly treat my health issues for so long, I ended up having to undergo two surgeries that put me on bedrest for over a month. Needless to say, it was one of the most difficult times in my life.

A Time to Heal, and a Time to Pause

Without much to turn to and feeling like I had lost so much, I tried to focus on doing more of the things that made me feel better. I prayed, journaled, rested, and read lots of books on creativity and leading a purposeful life. Looking back, I now realize that this painful time in my life somehow brought me back to nurturing a creative side in me that I had neglected for most of my adult life. And in doing so, I started to heal.

I spent my days practicing calligraphy, drawing and painting again, and I even dabbled in some design projects here and there. And after about a year of sharing my work online, I knew running my own creative business was something I wanted to explore more seriously.

In the beginning, I did all sorts of things - custom calligraphy, workshops, private lessons, event signage, and logo design. I even opened up an Etsy shop and built an online watercolor course for other artists. Then, in 2018, after learning about surface pattern design, I thought that was the path I was meant to pursue. But soon after, I gave birth to my first son, Ethan. Then just a few years after that, I got pregnant again and had my little Owen.

I tried hard for several years to figure out a healthy balance between building a business and being a stay at home mom, but eventually, things started to catch up and I knew I had to slow down before I completely burnt myself out again. You know the saying “old patterns die hard”? I could sense that I was falling back to my old ways of working on overdrive and putting unnecessary pressure on myself to do more than I could physically handle. So while I was frustrated and disappointed that I couldn’t move forward at the speed that I wanted to, I decided to embrace this time to pause and focus more on my family.

A New Start

After six long years of putting my creative dreams on hold, I’ve finally arrived at a place in my life where the kids are growing up and there is more space and time to start chipping away at this dream again. And as I work each day to bring me closer to the creative life I’ve been imagining all these years, I couldn’t be more excited.

Things have definitely taken longer than I expected (and I’m still figuring it all out as I go), but what I do know is that every step along this journey has brought me to where I am today - and for that, I couldn’t be more thankful. It hasn’t been the easiest road, but I’m no longer dragging my feet or going to bed feeling empty anymore. In fact, it’s the total opposite. I wake up and go to bed with a much fuller heart, knowing that I’m living a much more fulfilling life - raising my beautiful kids, pursuing something that I love, and figuring out the balance between the two.

Of course there are still many days that feel long and hard, but my past experiences have equipped me with strength to endure. They’ve also taught me to live each day with more intention and purpose than I ever have before. And while I don’t know exactly where this journey will take me, I know for sure that eventually I’ll look back and know that every step has lead me exactly where I was meant to be.

I hate being cheesy, but can I ask you something? How are you spending your days? Does it feel intentional and purposeful? Have you created space to pursue the things that bring joy and meaning to your life? Or are you also dragging your feet, wondering who and what you’re doing it all for?

I never had a chance to ask myself this question until I found myself so deeply unhappy that my body couldn’t physically take it anymore.

Today though, I share my story in hopes that it can encourage you, even in the tiniest way, to search your heart and take a step towards pursuing happy, whatever that may mean for you.

“The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn’t matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark.” ―Barbara Hall

Pursuing Happy

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