risks and breaking limits

Currently listening to: No Scrubs – TLC

Honolulu, Oahu.  2022. 
Chilli from TLC. 
I threw up a heart sign to her and she gave me one back. 🙂

My dad.  He had a simple motto: work hard…then work harder.  He’s got that old school Korean mentality that was a driving force in his life.  He always knew how to stay humble and hustle hard.  He took a lot of risks to get to where he was at.

When my parents immigrated to California, they faced a daunting challenge.  They didn’t speak English, but he had tenacity – armed with a Concise Oxford English dictionary and his unwavering determination to make a new life for them in America. 

He graduated from college and became a mechanical engineer, then later a director…all with his broken busted ass English that I used to relentlessly tease him about when I was a kid.  I’m fairly certain that I hurt his feelings but I didn’t know any better, which is still not an excuse.  He learned how to play piano and guitar, ride a bike, and swim by himself.  He was quite handy at home and fixed everything (cars, bikes, any mechanical gadget, and things around the house).

He was all about living minimally.  If there were toys, clothes, or anything on the floor, he would throw them away. He threw out my mom’s plants because she was cluttering the living room with them.  As gentle as he was curling my hair with a curling iron, he also had awful K-rage.  When my brother would act out or we would get poor grades on tests, corporal punishment was enacted.   

Beyond his career and family, he made time to help others.  Whether it was guiding new immigrants on how to get established, coworkers who needed help with x, y, and z, or anyone who needed help haggling with the salespeople at the car dealership. He also served as a deacon at the church.  Before he passed, he meticulously organized his affairs, sparing our family the burden of uncertainty…which I will forever be grateful for.

As I reflect on my own life, I realized that I followed his footsteps: studying diligently, highly organized, attempting to live as minimally as possible, attaining a directorial position (and later realizing I hated it), found a way to work smarter and not harder, and live life to the fullest. 

Like my dad, I give back to the community and have my affairs organized (everything is in a trust)…just in case.  I wouldn’t want to make a mess for anyone should something happen.  To be honest, I’m not afraid to die.  No, I’m not suicidal. I just know that everyone will go one day and I guess I’m at peace with that.  I’ve done a lot of things that I’ve wanted to do, lived my life the way I wanted to. Don’t worry, I still have so much more that I want to do and accomplish.  I think he would have wanted that for me.