My first 24 hours in Seoul were preposterously disastrous.
Maybe I should’ve learned basic Korean. I failed to communicate with a single taxi driver, eventually resorting to the overpriced International-Taxi to reach my hotel.
Google Maps doesn’t work in SK due to the country’s data security laws — I couldn’t find my way to the famed Namdaemun street market so close to sunset and had to settle for eating my dinner in Myeongdong’s clearly touristy food stalls.
Perhaps the most devastating: KTX High-Speed Rail refused to take my American credit card. I needed to book a train ticket to Gyeongju, where I planned to do a two-night stay at the Golgulsa Temple. By car, the trip was over 5 hours, and I would’ve had to leave on Buddha’s Birthday, a national holiday with famously horrible traffic.
I was heartbroken. I specifically came to Korea to do the temple stay, and now it was completely out of reach.
No plan. No grasp of the language. No trust in myself that I could make this leg of my trip worth, well, anything. Nothing.
I, an almost compulsive planner with a Google Calendar more colorful than the rainbow, was sent into a tailspin by the terrifying unknown.
This paralysis can be attributed to my self-diagnosis of recovering workaholic.
My sophomore year of college was spent running myself ragged. I took 6 credits of classes (for reference, the standard at Duke is 4), joined two new extracurriculars, and traveled out of the state 1-2 times a month. Despite learning more about myself than I’ve ever learned in my life, I was truly burnt out by the end.
Yea… doesn’t sound very recovered, right? Well, old habits die hard.
This obsession with productivity originated in my sophomore year of high school, disrupted by the pandemic. Work became my steady companion, soothing my anxiety about geopolitics, Asian hate, and impending college applications. I realized I thrived with more on my plate, compared to less. When the world slowed down, I sped up.
When you’re good at something, it’s like a drug. Dr. Sandra Chapman of UT Austin explains the brain can become addicted to productivity, just like gambling, alcohol, or sugar. The problem is over time, you need more and more to feel satisfied.
During my freshman year at Duke, I at least recognized the way I was living wasn’t healthy. I wanted more meaningful friendships, more deeply developed intellectual interests, and productivity alone simply wasn’t gonna cut it anymore. But, during my Switch Semester, which upends a Robertson Scholar’s support systems by moving them to their sister campus, I returned to the familiar.
Work. Work. More work.
My life became so planned. Structure is only meant to be the skeleton that you build a life upon. Instead, I’d let everything else atrophy — casting aside hobbies, spontaneity, small unproductive joys — leaving nothing but brittle bones behind.
Friends and mentors encouraged me to reset and prioritize rest during my Exploration Summer. Following in the footsteps of the wonderful Danica Bajaj, founder of Gratitude Wanders, I planned to stay in a Buddhist temple. I’d disconnect with the outside world, while having the opportunity to connect with a new Eastern kind of spirituality.
Though it would still be a structured experience, it would be unlike anything else I’d ever done.
I trusted this experience to be transformational, because I needed it.
Instead, a series of unfortunate events snatched that experience away from me. I sulked, but then again returned to what I do best: planning.
I booked a GetYourGuide tour for another street market, Gwangjang. If I couldn’t heal my soul, I could at least eat well.
This means nothing, I thought to myself as we wandered. This is useless. It wasn’t part of the life-changing trip I’d imagined for myself.
When a sudden downpour cascaded from the skies, our tour group headed for cover, which happened to be Jogyesa Temple.
It was beautifully lit with vibrant lanterns, all in preparation for Buddha’s Birthday. And it was chaos brought to life, with volunteers shuffling a thousand moving parts and a long line of worshippers stretching out its main gates.
It was the opposite of the quiet rumination I thought Golgulsa would provide me. But here, I was struck by sonder, a feeling of incredible smallness. I was but one woman, in one temple, in one city, in one country, on one planet.
This means nothing, I realized. And that’s a beautiful thing.
My best friend once told me that I have a talent for extracting meaning out of every experience. That was because I pursued experiences based on how much I thought they would serve me.
Jogyesa demonstrated to me: my desire for absolute productivity was prideful. I believed I could crack the code, game the system, and maximize my time on this Earth. I thought I knew what was best for me, so I planned it.
But, finding serenity was by chance. It required trusting something bigger and greater than myself, whether it be God, luck, or fate.
This post was born out of my personal experience, but the over-optimization phenomena has been on the rise. I swear, every pundit has something to say. Here’s my trust-driven take:
Optimization is driven by a lack of trust in ourselves and the world around us. We don’t believe that everything will eventually work out on its own… so, we have to make it work out ourselves.
We live in a hyper-competitive world, where it is harder to get into a good college, find a good job, marry a good partner, and save up for a good retirement. My generation has grown up in an age where politics is choosing between the lesser of two evils. Nearly every young American has been touched by gun violence, with an average of 57 shootings occurring near a school daily — in Chapel Hill, we already know that too well.
Of course we don’t trust the system. Mistrust is nearly always rooted in reality. To deny that, is to deny real pain.
Caring about trust is so hard. You can’t find a better way of being or relating until you right wrongs. Sometimes, those wrongs are bigger than just an individual. Then what?
I’ll keep thinking.
By the end of my time in Seoul, I had visited a historic palace, two temples, three night markets and three different districts of the city. I toured the DMZ (and took a picture with the North Korean flag in the background). I reconnected with my faith, tried a mochi pancake for the first time, got a haircut, saw Duke friends, and bonded with other tourists from the UK, Iran, Israel, and the US.
Pretty optimal, might I say, despite not being optimized.
And, as much as this piece preaches about moving away from hustle culture, I know I’ll personally never fully abandon it. As I write this piece in Washington D.C., I’ve scheduled my days full of work, socialization, exercise, and passion projects. Optimization is still a means to an end, and that end can be worth it.
But, now, I’m regularly attending church again. I’m leaving blank spaces in my calendar, and I’m practicing spontaneity. I trust my life will be a good one, so long as I strive to do good.
There’s no formula for a perfect existence, but you can make a worthwhile one. That should be enough.
Aristotle once wrote that virtue is a mean. So is living.
I hope we all can reconcile peace and ambition.
so beautiful as always. your writing reminds me of the essays of ross gay, especially his latest essay anthology “inciting joy.” you have the same essayist flair and way of making the human condition easier to recognize and make peace with.