The Prime Years

For a few years now, I've been contemplative of the term "prime years" that generally refer to the "best years" of one's life. My encounters with this term has oftentimes been in the arena of professional sports, such as sports announcers or commentators talking about an athlete's prime. Prime, in the case of professional sports, refers to the the physical prime. 

But to me "prime years" is a reference that encompasses the psychological aspect as much as the physical - in short, it represents the point at which the sense of possibility is highest, the maximum potential. You can become whatever you wish to become. This isn't to say that life thereafter will all be downhill, only that one aspect or another will be diminished. If this seems a grandiose thought, then it could be be reduced to helping to view the world and one's life in a fresh perspective.

More recently, I came across this term "prime years" in the show Master of None on Netflix. The occasion was the climax of the show's first season, where the girl angrily stormed out of the boy's apartment after having lived together for 1-2 years. She accused him of wasting her prime years which, at first sounds weird, but upon reflection is very much true. The female character was in her very late twenties and probably crossed the 30-year age mark during the time she was with him. 

Not to ignite a debate about gender inequality, I do think we can all agree that for better or for worse, men have a slightly longer horizon than women when it comes to their "prime years". For example, a woman's optimal childbearing age is believed to be from her early to late twenties while a man's may extend into the early thirties. Our social norms reflect this as it is much more common to see a older man with a younger woman than the reverse. 

So how do I relate to all this? This year I'll be turning 28 and technically can no longer refer to myself as in my mid-twenties but rather in the "late twenties". It's not a huge difference on the surface, but it does mean that I'll be edging closer and closer to 30. And the number 30 conjures up this excellent TED talk I watched a while back: Meg Jay on why 30 is not the new 20. In short, I agree as much with Meg the speaker now as I did back then...if not more so. I'm a huge proponent that every age bring about something unique and the twenties is the defining decade where many decisions and habits are made and built that will reverberate across the rest of one's life. Borrowing a few of Meg's examples, most of life's major decisions such as choosing a career, a spouse, and a home are made in the decade of the twenties. The average human life expectancy may still be rising, but that we make our major life decisions in between the 20th and 30th years of our lives does not.

And boy do I have major plans for this year. Dating woes and wife-hunting uncertainties aside, I intend to start at least one business with a deeper sense of conviction that my first attempt back in 2012. I see it as an opportunity to potentially retire at the age of 40 if the business becomes successful and I'm able to grow it properly. The other side of this coin will be what to do with regards to my current employment - I'll likely be leaving to the private sector and hopefully working with a major tech company since, well, I am admittedly a huge nerd and sucker for new gadgetry. Along with both these things will come the decision on whether I'd like to move elsewhere or stay here in the DC area. I'm forever inspired by a good friend's past decision to challenger herself by moving to DC temporarily, as otherwise life back in California would been too "comfortable" and "easy".

I'd also like to build some good habits such as getting into optimal shape and having good sleep patterns. Funny-mixed-with-alarm, I have been feeling more tired as of late - at least not recovering as quickly from exhaustion or physical strain as in the past. This also aligns with a more pronounced commitment to giving back to society, not just becoming a consumer of its infinite offerings. 

Monetization of This Blog

I finished my finals exam a few days ago and have been relishing a class-free summer since. Amongst others small things, I do have personally-assigned projects like learning some programming language (SQL, TOAD, VBA) and playing the guitar.

Lately I have also begun exploring the idea of monetizing this blog -- after coming across an amalgam of success stories. Before you (the imaginary reader?) lash out against this practice, I must point out a few items concerning this monetization process:

• For now this is just a trial period as I test out the feasibility of including ads.
• I need some capital to fund blog-expansion methods outlined previously, such as buying a camera to take pictures.
• 99.9% of the time, the ads will be provided through Google Adsense and be located on the right hand-side of this blog. This means that it should not interfere at all with the posts.
• I also encourage anyone concerned or curious to contact me with any questions about this monetization process through placing ads on my blog.

The above being said, I encourage all readers to check out the ads if time or personal disposition permits. Some of the ads could be helpful -- and it would certainly help fund my blog-expansion projects.

On top of the things already noted, I also developed an outline to produce original content on a variety of topics. Capturing readers aside, I do want to better develop my writing skills through this blog. Thus I plan to categorize future posts into the following topics:

1. Young Professional -- this would include reflections about my daily routines, insight into the working world and potential challenges, and other issues related to work environment such as interactions with colleagues and bosses.
2. Cuisine -- I am certainly not the greatest chef in the world, but I do enjoy cooking and preparing meals to bring to work. My cuisine has a distinct Asian-flavor but are simple and quick to prepare. I will try to take pictures and recount how I prepared the food for anyone interested.
3. Spirituality/Religion -- I am a devout Christian, so I hope to share my experiences with others about living as a Christian. I will also be summarizing Sunday messages I hear from service and anything else related.
4. Personal Finance -- as demonstrated in a previous post about budget, I think this is a very important topic for young professionals. I will also be discussing things like planning from retirement and savings, which will be unique as it will be from my own perspective.
5. General Finance/ Economics -- I majored in Economics and currently pursing a graduate degree in finance, so I can draw from the knowledge I currently possess. I am also a shareholder in some companies, so this topic will be near and dear to me.
6. Technology -- I am a geek.
7. Politics/World News/Miscellaneous -- I like to keep track of world events and reflect on their significance. This will be topic I do so.
8. About This Blog -- I am pretty new to the world of blogging and this marks a new chapter in my attempt to become a better blogger. This topic will consist of any updates to about this blog, blogging in general, including any advice/tips.

Now after reading the breakdown of these topics, you may be wondering how frequent postings will be on these topics. The honest answer at the moment is I am not sure. But I will try to spend 1-2 hours each day blogging on a variety of topics. Some will be blogged more often than others -- for example, technology news may become a daily thing. I am thinking perhaps 4-5 times per day for now.

Thank you for reading! (And please consider checking the ads if interested...)

Upcoming Changes (to this Blog)

Namely due to work (testing for the next 3 weeks) and schoolwork (finals are next week), it has been fairly crappy week thus far. I haven't been sleeping much and I definitely have been feeling its effects. The heavy rain this morning also did not help, as I normally very much enjoy the morning bicycle commute to work. But sometimes it's about sucking it up and taking things in stride -- and in the process being mindful of the many blessings in our lives.

The above being said, I have been considering changing the content of this blog lately. This blog has thus far mainly functioned as a personal daily of sorts, in addition as a means to verbalize my streams of consciousness. Not that the aforementioned is bad, yet I think it deviates from the main purpose behind this blog. The main reason I started this blog was, as its title implies, chronicling the ups and downs of being a young professional in the Washington D.C. area. Although the location isn't important (I have only posted once about something specific to the D.C. area), so the point is to share my experiences with the (imaginary?) readers.

Anyway, here is a list (along with an elaboration) of changes I foresee making:

• More frequent postings. This is an Achilles' heel for me as I often go on for weeks without posting a single entry. It's not that I do not have things to blog about -- contrary to popular belief, I lead a very interesting life -- but I think most of the topics I blog are redundant. They centered mainly on personal issues (aka Mandy). My hope is to post about once a day, if not more.
• Revelations about experiences in the working world. True to the title of this blog, I am an employee for a sizable consulting company after all. This being the case, I have much insight to offer, such as interactions with coworkers and with the boss, workload fluctuations, career planning, etc.
• More (helpful?) discussions on other important topics, like personal finance. I already started doing this, but the goal here is to transform random postings into a series with a beginning and an end.
• Label blog entries better. I must admit that I just create whatever labels come to mind right now. This will change as I hope to streamline the labels into something more useful.
• Including multimedia onto the blog posts. Currently it's just a bunch of words from a newbie writer like myself. My writing can be humorous but it needs additional visualizations like pictures and videos to capture interest. Otherwise it's just another mundane blog full of streams-of-consciousness essays.

So that pretty much wraps it up. I have formulated a plan and shall, in good faith, execute the plan as best of possible. Not sure when the start date is (final exams are coming up) but definitely within the next two weeks.

In parting, I want to leave with a stream of consciousness (only fitting, right?). I have a friend from college who is an illegal immigrant currently working for a software company in Washington state. He's a nice person overall and was baptized as a Christian before graduation. Another friend told me that this person just received a substantial raise and now makes close to 100k a year -- not bad at all for a fresh college graduate! However, he seems to be dealing with some sort of personal issue that resembles a depression. At least his blog entries have become much darker and he just posted an alarming status update on facebook (something about someone should take a knife to him...). I bring this up because it seems contradicting to profess a Christian faith, make a (very) decent living, and fall into some kind of depression. I am going to try to reach out to him of course, yet psychological depressions confuse me overall.

While I understand it is a legitimate disease, I think that in most cases, it occurs due to unrealistic expectations, having goals but unwilling to work toward them, or just not maintaining perspective. Most of us overlook the "little things" like having good health, living in a peaceful environment, and comforts like public libraries and running water. Most others in the world do not have these conveniences -- can you imagine not having both your arms, or perhaps living in a war-ravaged country? At least for me, remembering how blessed I am to have these "little things" keeps me from dwelling on the negatives. In other words, this is how I "suck it up".