This is Not a How-To Story
by Jo Chiang
When you are tasked to write about where you are and how you got there, (ostensibly for an audience of new graduates, or almost graduates, or first years who are panicking trying to decide what extracurriculars will form them into societally creditable human beings so that a company with a missing vowel in its name will give them an equally creditable internship), the assumption is that you have a path to share that can get you and anyone else to where they hope to go.
I don’t have those answers. The last five years have been a study of figuring out what works for the brain I was given and searching for alternatives for the things that don’t. I have worked 9 to 5, I have freelanced, I have made friends, I have lost them, I have made work that I was proud of and some that I try very hard to forget about. Through all of that, I have found community for myself and a growing understanding of what brings me joy and satisfaction. And so below are not steps to get from point A to point B. Below are the things I’ve done and things I’ve learned that have helped me lay a foundation for myself as I continue to learn and continue to do.
1) Older friends gave me much needed perspective
Right out of school, I was terrified of losing people, to distance, to time, to drifts in common interests. I held on to friendships that were more work than care, more exhausting than invigorating. And then I learned to let them go. I found new people, incredible people, who lead with warmth and kindness and curiosity.
My community includes, yes, friends I still love from college whose lives I’ve only ever been thrilled to follow and watch change, but also my seventy-year old upstairs neighbor who dropped off a jug of water at my door while we shelter in place, because she thought I could use it (in return I help turn off spam notifications on her browser or figure out why her Yahoo Mail isn’t working). It includes the South Slope Dykes, who show me that your 30s are full of book exchanges and queer movie nights and handing out candy to kids on Halloween. It’s talking to a friend who’s a sixty year old screenwriter and who reminds you that you can do all the right things, meet all the right people, and that’s still no guarantee that you’ll find professional success, so just keep telling the stories that drive you, because that’s what will find you these many years later without regret.
2) There’s a lot of noise, and tuning it out can save a lot of energy
I left Facebook. I deleted the Twitter app. I use Snapchat only to see pictures of my friends’ dogs, and I’ve muted a lot of people on Instagram. A lot of people. This doesn’t mean I’m not curious about people’s lives and their thoughts and the feelings they wish to express over the internet. But, social media is not where I want to experience them. I’ve found that I want to focus on the people in my life, whose journeys are currently intertwined with mine. I’ve found that any sort of discourse is best had in person. And I’ve discovered, for me, that any sort of impact that I would make by spending all my time reacting to things online is far exceeded by the impact I can make taking all of that energy and putting them into the people I see in real life and the actions I take in my communities. Which leads to —
3) Energy put into the community comes back tenfold
I’ve found happiness to be a contagious thing. In times where everything seems stacked against us (for being women, for being queer, for not being white, for looking to unconventional ways of making a living), and in a city where the hustle can break you down, moments of joy are life-saving. And so I reap the rewards of looking for ways to create that joy where I can. Sometimes it’s checking in to see if my upstairs neighbor (her name is Jimmie), needs me to bring her a copy of the New York Times from the corner store as an excuse to stay and talk about her family for a couple hours. Sometimes it’s producing small benefit concerts for grassroots organizers fighting the good and weary fight and seeing them enjoy, for a night, the music and the support of people who believe in their work. Sometimes it’s playing Dungeons & Dragons and making silly voices for your friends.
I feel tired a lot in New York City. It’s a place being held together by neuroses, ambition, fear and immense structural inequality. And so when I brace myself to climb that rock face, I’m braced by those moments of joy I find with the people I love. And in turn, they are braced as well.
4) It takes time to figure out what works, and there’s no point in feeling bad about not knowing yet
The last five years have been a never-ending discovery of what works for me and what doesn’t. Hustling for opportunities and institutions I feel lukewarm about but I’m told are time-honored steps to prestige or success? Doesn’t work. Writing every morning (as Octavia Butler did) or journaling three pages a day (as Julia Cameron teaches)? Can’t do it.
What works for me? Keeping a note app on my phone to jot down the story ideas that come to me when I’m out walking or on an errand or listening to music and figuring out later how to work it all together. Scheduling regular creative hangs with one or two friends (small enough for scheduling to not become just another cross to bear) where we can write together in silence or throw ideas at each other to see what sticks. Watching shows or playing video games and trusting that if I want to binge two seasons in a weekend, it’s because my body needed the break, and I should listen.
5) Therapy
I talk about my therapist all the time, as my friends can attest. And they talk to me about their therapists all the time. Having a professional who has the perspective of not only actual scientific research, but the combined body of experiences of all of their clients, is incredibly helpful when you need to pop the bubble you inevitably create around yourself of your own thoughts and feelings. It’s made me a better communicator, kinder to myself, more thoughtful about my relationships, and it offers a regular way to check in on how I’m doing and what I’m thinking. Therapy is far more accessible and less stigmatized these days than it used to be. There are therapists who work on a sliding scale, school programs that match you with someone still getting their final degree so that you can pay a much lower fee, and apps where you can text a therapist whenever you need to instead of committing to talking to one in person once a week. Sometimes this requires shopping around and finding the right therapist, but the most important first step is knowing that it’s not just okay to have professional care when it comes to managing your mental health, but that it’s straight up good for you.
BONUS. Hobbies!!
This is by no means a sweeping judgment about all students who are spit out by the Barnard machine, but it would be hard to argue that most of us don’t want very much to find some measure of success in our lives, whatever that might look like or mean. In pursuit of that, especially in the grind of a city like New York, it’s easy to forget to make the time to do things that don’t offer some sort of tangible company-approved value. This is especially difficult for those of us who spend much of our free time fighting for change in a city and a country loathed to it. The question I resent getting the most from my therapist is “what do you do to relax.” I don’t relax, Cheryl! I work for a living! But Cheryl’s right, obviously. So I paint table-top miniatures. Or I join a book club (or two — I’m in two book clubs now). I go visit the turtles in Prospect Park. I take naps. And I don’t succumb to the pressure of having to document my life all the time. I often just settle with letting these moments sit in my own personal memory bank, relieved that they’re untouched by how many likes or comments they can theoretically get.
So that’s that. I’ll leave you with the reminders I always leave myself.
Consider kindness. It’s harder than it sounds (life is complicated, shades of gray, yadi yada), but as long as kindness remains the throughline, the means will always outweigh the ends.
Look for the things that make you hopeful. Hope feeds. And it’s renewable. When you find them, fight for them.
And reach out. You’ll be surprised by who reaches back.
It’s June 9th, and I’d like to offer an update to all that I’ve written above, pertaining specifically to my last point. A lot of people are feeling activated for the first time against the immense injustices perpetrated by a system designed to dehumanize Black people, Indigneous people, and all other People of Color. If you are one of them and would like to do more, please reach out to me. I will personally sit down and brainstorm with you what sustainable activism can look like beyond donating and beyond demonstrating, and how you can help in the movement for racial justice and so many other societal changes we struggle for.
About the author
Jo Chiang is a queer Taiwanese-American storyteller/agitator based in Brooklyn. Her film work has been featured by Women & Hollywood, Wifey.tv, Everyday Feminism, and Upworthy. Her work as a performer has mostly fallen into two categories– that is, really weird experimental theatre and Shakespeare, while as a writer she plays jumprope with the line between the dystopic/utopic. She has been seen onstage at Dixon Place, 13th Street Repertory Company, and La Mama ETC. She finds herself misgendered about as often as her cat.
