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2024 ended as a year of loss for me — loss of relationships and sense of self. This year’s reflection is primarily a “show up as I am” post. See posts from 2023, 2022, and 2021.

What worries you most about the future? What change would you like to see?

• The future of America’s prosperity lies in continual population growth above the replacement rate of 2.1. This is achieved through birth (1.7 per woman in the US) or immigration rates. Birth rates have been falling, and legal immigration is slow and difficult.

• Colleges seem to be skewing too heavily against STEM. While grades are only a proxy for future success, it can disincentivize the brightest minds from pursuing subjects like physics and biochemistry. At Yale, 92% of grades in Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies are an A or A-, compared to only 55% in mathematics. I’m all for exposure to liberal arts, just not at the cost of dissuading students from “hard” majors.

What excites you about the future?

• Metabolic nutrition is gaining more popularity as an adjunct therapy for mental health conditions. Not to sound like a gym bro, but I’ve recently been tracking my blood ketone levels. In college, I did a tutorial on nutrition and metabolism and wrote a paper on how metabolism works during ketosis. I find that many of my interests have a way of coming back to me personally.

  

• I’ve spoken about the coming AI tsunami wave and hold views similar to last year's. The exponential curve continues to progress rapidly.

Is there something that doesn’t make sense to you? Maybe it’s even a bit funny?

I look back at old journal pages and think, who was this person really? I write to learn and articulate what I want to say at the time the best I can. But I do sometimes look back and see a different version of me that feels foreign to me now. Sometimes, past me sounds wiser than I am now, sometimes more naive. Either way, it helps to have a record.

What do you need to grieve about from the past year?

My partner of 9 years and I are in the process of separating. It’s been true heartbreak with a lot of tears. I wish him the best in this next chapter of our lives.

I’ve spent several days wondering, “What now?” and several more worrying about my future, especially given my strong desire to have kids. This has upended so much of what I was working toward and made me reconsider everything. It’s been a stressful, surreal, and lonely journey — one of the hardest things I’ve had to go through thus far. I’m left disoriented, unraveling many open questions that I had once settled about where to live, who to spend time with, and what to work on. At 28, it feels like life is starting over again.

Losing your partner is losing a part of yourself. I’m hopeful that over time I can transition through this life stage. For now, I’m still dealing with a rollercoaster of emotions and allowing myself grace and time to accept things as they are.

When did you fall in love with a new activity? Why did you fall in love with this?

I wouldn’t say love, but I finally went to therapy to help fix my head. It’s been a process of unraveling and then rebuilding — I got a whole lot worse before starting to feel better. Being the calmest person in the room only works for me if I’m unshakeable at my core. After several life detours this year, I realized my foundation was weak. Taking time to understand myself and heal has been about redefining my identity and who I want to be.

What wisdom did you gain this year and how did you gain it?

• Aim for sustainability and longevity — My grandfather was an architect in Taipei. He used to point out the buildings he designed and proudly say, “Look, it’s still standing 30 years later!” We should similarly design with the long-term future in mind, both for ourselves and the world in which we live. A personal goal of mine is to be as mentally sharp as I am in my 20s (while hopefully accumulating wisdom and experience) by the time I die. For the world at large, watching kids play makes me feel like there's a future to protect and fight for.

• Know if you’re driving an F1 or Prius — Your physical and mental state determines how well you can operate. If you find yourself with an F1, drive with caution and don’t spin out of control. Damage caused by speed can be irreversible. Similarly, don’t push a Prius to F1 levels. It’s better to focus on maintenance and repair than long-distance driving or performance racing. Consistency beats intensity. For various reasons, I experienced both modes this year. The difference is stark, and toggling between the two has been painful. I’m still figuring it out, but awareness and pattern-matching help.

• Weird is normal but channel it properly — Beyond maybe two standard deviations above the mean, I have yet to get to know someone who wasn’t exceptionally weird in their own way. Weirdness is like an amplification of normal circuitry in the brain. It’s each of our responsibilities to nurture and foster our weirdness in the best way possible.

  “It’s the weird that’s truly normal. It’s how people actually are — what they really care about. In a sense, you’re getting them out of the weird. The weird is the stage presence we put on — all the ‘puffery’ and unwillingness to say what you really think."

  - Tyler Cowen

• Silence can be either deafening or healing — Sometimes, the best thing to do is to remain silent. Know when it’s genuinely you who wants to speak and when it’s your ego talking. This especially applies to close relationships and what you would do to preserve ties.

• Operator vs. investor mode — If life were a 100-question exam, an operator would approach it differently than an investor might. As an operator, you must have an answer for every problem. Skipping questions is not an option. As an investor, you might be presented with many questions, but how well you do doesn’t depend on how many questions you answer. There’s no penalty for unanswered questions. Instead, it depends on how well your answers to the questions you decide to answer are. The penalty for wrong judgment on any given answer can be severe. These two mental frameworks are seemingly at odds with one another but are equally valid and true.

• Cherish real friends — Real friends are rare. They show up for you when they have nothing to gain but to see you become the best version of yourself. I’ve been private this season, retreating during difficult times, but I’ve still had some brave friends sit with me and help nudge me out of some really deep troughs. They’ve made the storms that much more bearable.

Happy New Year — I’m extending extra love to those who need it this year. I know the pain of fighting a battle no one knows about. May you appreciate your loved ones, pursue new endeavors, and live in health and harmony.

Christina