Confessions of a 23-Year-Old: Seeking Meaning
Today is June 6, 2020, and I am 23 years old. This age seems to be an awkward existence. If defined by life stages, my undergraduate graduation is already a year behind, yet it’s still too early for two zodiac years. My life experience is far from sufficient to offer advice to others, but I still want to write something to account for my past few years.
The three years of high school life are easy to summarize. Continuous learning to achieve better grades was enough to fill most of the meaning of life. Fortunately, I also gained a close friend and an unrequited love that was not perfect. The college entrance examination was more like a caesura, breaking the original balance of life without giving myself much chance to catch my breath, and then everything seemed to come to an abrupt end. I was afraid, what would be the meaning of life after that?
During the summer vacation after the college entrance examination, I joined an international volunteer teaching team with my close friend to teach in Hunan. During that time, I had the idea of studying journalism, but my score, which had just passed the line, only allowed me to pray for the former between English and Social Work at Wuhan University of Technology. Even before a new stage had arrived, I was already lost in confusion.
In September, I traveled alone with my luggage to Wuhan - a city I had no connection with for the past dozen years. The sense of unfamiliarity and novelty gradually turned into confusion and panic after the first few weeks. Not knowing what I was looking for, people often seek a simple alternative goal when they haven’t found what they’re pursuing. At that time, I chose student work.
To be honest, in terms of eloquence and personality, I was far inferior to many of my fellow department members. I was so nervous on stage that I tripped over myself, stuttered in meetings, and blushed when making new friends. Fortunately, after a few routine activities, I vaguely discovered that this was something I could spend energy and time to do well. So I started learning photo editing, poster design, PPT production, and video editing, striving for any task that had the opportunity to make a difference, and ultimately achieved good results.
Before I knew it, it was time to apply for a major change, but I hesitated again. If journalism was just a whim, and the choice I had worked hard to strive for wasn’t what I ultimately wanted, but just a form of escape, would it still be meaningful? In the end, I gave up applying, which now I think was also a kind of escape from the unknown.
In my sophomore and junior years, I gradually took on important roles in various student organizations at the school and college, becoming the deputy station master of the school’s Yiban, the president of the college’s Heart Association, and the head of the Student Union’s Learning Department. These became prominent labels on me. Three or four meetings a week, endless WeChat posts to review, staying up late to edit videos and plan events became the norm. It was truly hard work, but with it came the opportunity to meet many interesting companions and admirable mentoring teachers. To this day, I still feel that period was the highlight of my college years.
As courses gradually became boring and student work stabilized, my heart again fell into extreme anxiety and panic. My interest and effort in English could only sustain me to the end of my undergraduate studies, but I had no clue about job positions. I wanted to explore more possibilities for the future, but it was difficult to have enough competitiveness in various tracks, and I didn’t even know what goal to move forward for.
At that time, I had a habit of writing articles on various internet platforms. By chance, I met some blockchain industry practitioners, one of whom invited me for an interview. I was surprised but also afraid. After much hesitation, I decided to fly to Xiamen, opening a new journey. From then on, I visited various enterprises for internships, attended conferences, and gradually participated in the preparation and decision-making of some projects. I’m still good friends with many of the bosses and colleagues from that time, even though most of them are my father’s age. Looking back from my current perspective, I’m terrified of that “solo mission,” but I’m also secretly grateful for the experiences and changes that my impulsiveness brought at that time.
During this period, I bought a camera to record the scenery and state of mind along the way. For a very brief time, I felt this was my ideal state of life - enough freedom, enough growth. But as I gradually entered my senior year, the strong pressure from the uncertainty of the future brought me back to a state of questioning everything. Everything around me was telling me that I should quickly find a good job, to have a life that others would praise, but I still didn’t know where to go. So, I set about building my own online education startup. There were teachers who were very supportive of entrepreneurship, and junior students who collaborated on recording and editing. Everything was much smoother than expected. So I fell into a busy but avoidant state, often self-mocking, thinking that I was now an entrepreneur of sorts, big or small, and wondering if I could avoid facing the pressure from employment and uncertainty. My past experiences and my still commendable self-discipline habits allowed me to eliminate some impetuous thoughts and avoid seeking quick success, but they still couldn’t tell me where to go.
Three months before graduation, I suddenly realized that what I was doing was just hiding in my own world and being self-satisfied. There are many different ways of life, and I ultimately lacked the thinking process that comes from experience. Resigning, returning to Wuhan, applying for a master’s degree in computer science in Taiwan - these decisions weren’t actually as difficult as I had imagined. At the end of May, when I received an early lab invitation from a professor at National Taiwan University, I was truly happy, nervously happy, as if I was always favored by luck, even if I had taken many detours. The official result came out during a trip. Opening the application system, the three words “Not Admitted” were a bit glaring. I’m a bit fuzzy about my exact emotions at that time, but it was probably the feeling of despair falling from a high point. I emailed the professor but received no reply.
I didn’t really feel much about graduation, it just seemed like saying goodbye to some people, not knowing if I would see them again. I couldn’t escape the common sentiment either - unemployed, not in school, it seemed I was labeled a failure. I spent two months in depression. I returned to my original work, continued the business of the studio, prepared for IELTS, repeatedly revised my personal statement, and applied for studies in Hong Kong. When I received the offer from the Computer Science Department of the University of Hong Kong, I felt a mix of emotions, but with more certainty. So I was truly worthy after all.
I still don’t feel like I’ve touched the meaning I’ve been looking for. All the current successes and failures are just answers formed by compromise. Maybe I’ll never find it, but this process has given me the courage to move forward. Perhaps thinking itself is the process of constructing meaning, no longer expecting to have an epiphany at some moment, just hoping to continue forward, experiencing and pursuing my own life.
Wishing my 23-year-old self, happiness.
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