Category: essays

My Love of Reading

As a kid my mom took me to the library a lot growing up. I have always enjoyed libraries since I was young. The feel of a physical book, the smell of those crisp pages, the way the sentences formed in curls of black ink on the pages. Reading was a magical experience for me growing up, and books have always been great companions. There is a really awesome chapter in this book I love called Discussions on Youth by Daisaku Ikeda and in this chapter he talks about developing a love of reading in his youth and why it’s so important to get into the habit of reading. In high school I remember reading a lot especially. It was just so awesome to just go home and just read my book. I took a world geography class and I decided to read more literatures by writers from around the world, such as Isabel Allende, Giles Foden, and many other authors. Reading these books exposed me to so many new worlds and new ways of thinking, and experiences. It helped me find solace when I felt so lost and uncertain in the ups and downs of society. I think that’s why I have fond memories of ninth grade because I read books all the time and it was just so relaxing. I remember I had a friend from middle school who loved to read just as much as I did, and we would have our conversations but then we would sit afterwards and read our books in silence. It was very peaceful much of the time. In sophomore year, I started to somehow become ashamed of my love of books. I thought it was the reason I didn’t have any friends, but looking back, 30 year old me would have just said, “Look, it’s high school, it’s hormones. Not every scowl you encounter in the hallway is about you or the purple jeans and the Murkmere book you were carrying with you down the hall.” And to be honest, I had fellow friends who loved reading like me. I had one friend who loved Twilight and she and I would bond over Twilight together, and I went over to her birthday party and everyone was just as much a nerd as I was, and we watched New Moon and ate puppy chow together on her couch and made all sorts of commentaries throughout the movie. I always enjoy reading the book before seeing the movie, because then you can compare how well the movie stayed true to the book. I remember not being a fan of the film adaptation of The Nanny Diaries for some reason. I think just because the ending was different in the movie from the book. Mrs. X wasn’t nice even well at the end of the book, but in the movie she becomes a nice person to the nanny.

When I was younger one of my favorite memories was going to the bookstore and ordering hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows and chilling out in the kids section with a book. It was a magical experience and I love holiday breaks because then I get to read a lot. In college, winter and summer breaks were something I looked forward to a lot because I got to read for fun, which I didn’t have much time to do during the school year because I was juggling extracurriculars on top of studying and adjusting to a new environment. I remember devouring books like The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, books about Buddhism, and so many other books. The summer before ninth grade, I remember reading a few books. I don’t know how I was able to squeeze in so much time to read because I spent about eighty percent of my summer watching MTV, knitting and eating waffles. When I was working at Starbucks, I always looked forward to my lunch breaks because then I could read for fun. I remember one of the books I read was called The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, and I think after that I became hooked on his writing. So then I went and read The Yiddish Policeman’s Union because I think I saw my math teacher was reading it one time, and I got curious about it, and later on Telegraph Avenue and Moonglow. I think in general reading is one of those activities I need to slow down and not rush through, because I have rushed through books before but then I forget the plot. If you asked me, Can you remember the plot of this book or that book that I read in high school, I wouldn’t be able to tell you because most of those books I read quickly, so I often forgot the plot. I think it was hard especially to rush through any of Michael Chabon’s books because not only is his writing good, but also he uses a lot of big words, so I had to often write down on a piece of paper the vocabulary words I wanted to look up as I read the book. Spoiler alert: every time I did this–write down all the vocabulary words and then finally look them up–I almost never looked up the words. Or maybe looked up a handful. But I would always end up throwing the list of words I needed to look up in the trash because I was just collecting little strips of paper at that point, and it was starting to clutter my living space.

I remember taking a class in my junior year called Literatures of the African Diaspora, and I would just rush through the books we were reading: NW by Zadie Smith, Open City by Teju Cole, Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The only book I can vividly remember I didn’t speed through was Small Island by Andrea Levy. If you haven’t read it, it is a must. While I haven’t watched the entire series, the little clip I did see was really good. It takes place in England during World War II, and it is about Jamaican immigrants navigating life in England. Hortense and Gilbert are a Jamaican couple navigating life in England and living in a racist society. Queenie is waiting until her husband comes back from war, and while he is away she falls in love with a Jamaican serviceman and has a child with him. Her relationship with Hortense and Gilbert is complicated, and even though she seems to be supportive of Black people she is really not that progressive and still looks down on and treats Hortense especially very poorly. I remember developing so much ire towards Queenie throughout the novel, and it got to the point where during my presentation on the book I just wouldn’t shut up about how much I loathed Queenie’s character. My poor classmates, bless their hearts, listened calmly to my rants. I love them forever. I still have yet to read NW to be honest. I seriously thought I had read it but I was confusing it with another book she wrote called On Beauty. This time when I read NW, I am not going to speed through it. I am going to savor every word, every plot point, every character’s struggle. I am going to fully immerse myself in the book, not just speed through it like I did when I took that class. I mean, I know I was pressed for time and had other assignments, but I could have at least given myself the pleasure of enjoying the book rather than feeling like I had to mark up every little sentence, every little plot point, every little syntax and detail. I remember during my senior year of high school this girl I sat with always bugged me about making too many annotations in the books I was reading for fun. I wanted to tackle the classics, so I read Jane Eyre and other books. I would dissect each book as if it was a frog during science class, and to be honest reading had become something I wasn’t doing for fun but rather to impress my peers with “Look at how many Bic highlighters I can wear out while reading this 400 page tome.” This well-meaning girl told me to first read the book and then mark it up later. To be honest, this was great advice. I absorbed a lot more when I wasn’t so busy critiquing every little thing that Charlotte Bronte was trying to get at with Jane’s character. Of course, taking notes is helpful, especially if you read a big ass book like War and Peace. Now that’s a freaking tome right there. But I’m learning that it’s also okay to just read the book. I will say, though, I still have a pocket dictionary to look up those big words and I still find it helpful.

A list of values and what they mean to me

  • Acceptance: it’s important to accept yourself because then you can accept others. Everyone, including me, has strengths and weaknesses and living true to myself means accepting my strengths and weaknesses and working to get better each day.
  • Altruism: giving to others feels good because I’m helping brighten someone else’s day
  • Autonomy: it’s important to ask for help but I’m learning, too, that it helps to do things by yourself, too.
  • Balance: you don’t want to have a life that is completely all work and no play or all play and no work. I’m learning to take care of myself when I get stressed, like exercising, eating well, spending time with family and friends and doing hobbies like reading and knitting. I think maintaining my hobbies and interests is helping me balance out a lot of stress I feel at work.
  • Challenge: challenges hep me grow. It’s hard sometimes to believe because sometimes I think if things were easy I would be fine but then without challenges I couldn’t grow and become resilient.
  • Community: I can’t do everything by myself. It’s nice to have a group of people you can feel comfortable being around. I think joining extracurriculars and volunteering has helped me find a sense of purpose.
  • Compassion: it’s important to understand what others go through because I think that’s how we create connection. I have learned that it’s important to check in on friends and family to see how they are once in a while. It’s taken me out of getting caught up in my own problems.
  • Connection: John Donne said it best. “No man is an island.” I’m an introvert so I do enjoy spending time alone but like any human being I need to connect and interact with others.
  • Consistency: when working on my goals, consistency is important because if I quit after a week of working on something, I can’t see results. I’m working on still writing the book, blogging, chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and exercising every day. Just putting on a calendar each day that I need to do these things is helping me stay motivated. There are days when I miss exercise or don’t feel like writing, many days. But when I finally do the action I want to take towards my goal, I feel good about the little progress I am making each day.
  • Contribution: I want to give something to people that brings them hope in some way.
  • Cooperation: I’ve learned that anywhere I’m with people I need to work well with them. I often let my ego or emotions get in the way and it’s still a work in progress but through practice I have learned to get along with others on projects and other things.
  • Courage: I chant Nam myoho renge kyo everyday for courage because it’s not easy to do things you are uncomfortable with but in order to go for those big dreams I need to push past my fears of not being good enough to take action to write that book, practice my cello or even go up and talk to people.
  • Courtesy: I am not perfect, I admit, and I sometimes forget to use my manners, but it’s important to respect people, especially at work. I need to be better at respectfully addressing people, whether my coworkers or people on the phone.
  • Creativity: this is a big value for me because creativity is how I express my joys and sufferings, the entirety of the human condition. Whether I am writing, playing my cello or listening to music, it stimulates my brain and in general helps me destress. I don’t know where I would be without some sort of creative outlet to keep me busy. It’s really helped me get through my ups and downs, especially during my depressive episodes.
  • Dependability: I’ve learned that it’s important to show up on time to things and look nice at work because when you make those efforts, people come to trust you. Building trust takes times, and it starts with my behavior. I haven’t always been the most dependable to be honest, but I am again working on it.
  • Dignity: I practice a philosophy that believes in respect for the dignity of each person’s life. When I practice this, it helps me see the inherent value of my own life. Too many people’s lives are trampled on and disrespected in society.
  • Encouragement: Encouragement motivates me to do my best and giving others encouragement helps me stay motivated, too. I always love reading Buddhist study materials like The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin and Daisaku Ikeda’s writings because Daisaku Ikeda encourages me to not give up on my dreams, to do my best and to live true to myself. Every time I feel stuck, I read these writings to remind myself that I have to keep pushing through.
  • Equality: A lot of human rights aren’t respected or acknowledged in society. I think that’s why equality is important. I think I started to think about the inequalities in society more around the pandemic and the murder of George Floyd, and I am still thinking about how to address inequality in society. I think it can take many forms–donating to organizations that support racial and economic justice, writing to the people in government positions, or even writing poetry about injustice. I remember writing a poem in the wake of Breonna Taylor’s death because it really shook me, and even as a quiet person who didn’t know what to do, writing this poem was my small contribution to the racial justice movement. Of course, I can always do more to fight inequality, but I’ve learned that even just educating myself on justice and equality and learning from others’ experiences is a step in becoming more aware and inspiring me to take further action.
  • Ethics: It’s important for me to be aware of whether I am behaving ethically or not, because then I can reflect on whether my actions help or harm others. I remember studying about ethics as a philosophy major in college, but to actually put it into practice is harder because it requires you to reflect on your own behavior and what you can do better.
  • Faith: belief in some sort of cause is important for me to keep going in an uncertain and chaotic world. I practice Buddhism with an organization of other Buddhist practitioners, and we chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and study Buddhist concepts together and discuss how we apply them to our daily lives. Having faith in Buddhism has kept me grounded when I felt my purpose in life was lost. I’m learning how to also be more open to having more dialogues with people of other faith organizations as well, because sometimes I can only get focused on my own beliefs, but I think learning from others and listening to their perspectives, whether I agree with them or not, is a step in finding common ground with others. In Buddhism faith means believing in our unlimited potential. It’s challenging to believe in this every day, but that’s why I try to chant and study as much as I can so that no matter what challenges I go through, I have a steady compass to navigate those stormy times. By developing my faith in Buddhism, I have grown much stronger and have been able to create profound meaning from my challenges. Like these past couple years I had a very strong crush on someone, and I was really consumed by these feelings, and it was painful because I just couldn’t face the reality that he was with someone else. But I think through practicing Buddhism, I became much stronger and was able to create value from going through this painful challenge. It wasn’t easy at all, and there were times I fell into despair. But I think practicing Buddhism also helped me see clearly how this crush wasn’t super healthy and that I was making this guy the center of my entire life. Had I not gone through this challenge, though, I would not have deepened my faith. I would not have known how worthy I am deep down even if I don’t always feel worthy. Developing my faith over these past few years has helped me develop immense self love, and it is still a process to develop that self-love but I always have my faith to keep me from getting easily swayed.
  • Family: I love spending time with my parents and I love to stay in touch with my other family members even if I cannot physically be there for them. I am still not sure if I want kids or a husband yet, but I’m glad for the time being I can at least live together with my parents. We spend time together and it’s nice. I want to enjoy it while I can.
  • Freedom: It is something I have come to appreciate over the years. I can practice my religion freely, I can leave my house. I live comfortably, I live in a place where there is access to restaurants, grocery stores, movie theaters, and if I don’t want to go to the theater I can stream my movie online. The list of freedoms I have are endless, but with freedom requires taking responsibility for my life. I have learned I can’t just live carelessly. I am responsible for my actions and behaviors. It took me a long time to realize this, to be honest. But I have been thinking about what I take for granted all the time, and freedom is one of these things. Many people can’t practice their religion freely, many people don’t live in places where they have easy convenient access to grocery stores and restaurants, many people can’t marry who they want. I never used to think about freedom a lot but it’s something I cannot take for granted because it can easily be taken away any day.
  • Friendship: As someone who isn’t in a romantic relationship or marriage I have been relying on friendships a lot. My friendships are constantly evolving over time though, and I have learned that friendships change and people move on, but you never actually forget the impact that the person had on your life, even if the friendship didn’t last forever. Staying in touch with even just a few friends has been important to my well being. Most of my friends live far away but staying in touch with them is something I am working on doing more of. It can be challenging because I don’t use Facebook but I love writing letters and emails and making phone calls. People in my Buddhist community have also been great friends because we are working together to encourage each other in our personal goals and for world peace.
  • Fulfillment: it’s nice to have a sense of meaning, that what you do each day creates some sort of good value. Doing my Buddhist center activities gives me a sense of fulfillment because it gives me a larger purpose in life. Setting goals and determinations has also brought me fulfillment, whether it is praying each day, exercising, knitting or reading. I have lately been thinking about what my purpose in the world is, and have also been contemplating what work I find fulfilling.
  • Fun: It’s important to have fun because without fun I would get stressed all the time. In college I thought I wasn’t supposed to have fun and I got stressed all the time. My fellow students always had to remind me to make time in my schedule to do activities I loved. Looking back, though, I need to cut myself some slack (at least a teaspoon of slack if not the entire tablespoon of salt). I did do things for fun. I wrote in my journal, I did Buddhist activities, I read for fun during my winter and summer breaks, and I watched movies with my friends. I completely have them to thank for always texting me to meet up even when I kept making the excuse, “I’m busy, I’m busy.” We still managed to squeeze a few nights out at the local Indian restaurant for some delicious biryani.

My History of Social Media and Phone Use

A few months ago I listened to a New York Times podcast episode about a young woman in high school who started a club called The Luddite Club. She started the club because she was checking and posting on social media apps to keep up with her peers, but her mental health and self-esteem suffered because she was always comparing herself with her peers and got overwhelmed, especially when kids had to go to school online during the pandemic. She decided to give up her smartphone, and she started a club at school for kids who also wanted to use their smartphones less, and she called it the Luddite Club. Even though people gave her a lot of criticism for it, she tells the interviewer that she felt more at peace with herself and more present in her life when she wasn’t on her phone all the time. She did say it was really hard at first though because she had invented this persona on these social media apps about who she was, and she earned a lot of approval from her peer group, but then when she no longer used social media her peers no longer gave her that approval. If you get a chance to listen to this episode it is really good:

I’ve gotta admit: growing up I was a huge Luddite. I didn’t get my first smartphone until I was around 22. Up until then I had a flip phone and I didn’t even get that until I was 16. Before that I was always asking my teachers and fellow students if I could use their phone. The teachers had landlines but my fellow students had cell phones. At the time I just didn’t really care about getting one because it didn’t seem like a big deal. I could just use my teacher’s landline to call my parents if I needed to stay after school or needed to be picked up. When I was in the 5th grade my dad got me my first laptop, a silver Dell computer. I didn’t use it the first couple of weeks, but he encouraged me to use it more often. I ended up spending my entire seventh grade year battling an Internet addiction. I would be on YouTube constantly and because I was spending more time online than spending time studying, I suffered academically. My grades plummeted and I developed terrible self-esteem. I was irritable and upset with everyone in my environment. I had really low self-esteem. I don’t think technology was the only cause of my depression of course, but it played a pretty huge role in my life because I often isolated in my bedroom staying up late on YouTube and procrastinating on my homework assignments. Then in the summer before eighth grade, I traveled abroad and my dad got me a Nokia phone for international calls. There was a girl on the trip who I became good friends with and she asked to use my phone every day to call her family. As much as I complained to her about using my phone all the time, I think I had every reason to let her use my phone because I had used people’s phones so many times when I didn’t have my own phone. When I went to India for three weeks, my dad got me my first smartphone. I only used it to call my parents during the trip, but funny enough the place we stayed at didn’t have much cell reception so I ended up not calling my parents. But somehow this was a blessing in disguise because I was able to be fully present on the trip. I did take a lot of pictures with the phone though, so that was probably another good thing about having that smartphone.

Whenever I check my smartphone I do it whenever I am feeling lonely, bored or anxious. These past few weeks I kept checking my phone to see if one of my friends texted and it was agonizing, dealing with my own impatience. I wish I could just let him live his life. In the summer of 2016 I went on a program for philosophy students, and on the final day I was leaving my dorm to go downstairs to drop off my key at the front desk, and I was texting my parents to let them know I was going downstairs. I had my two suitcases and my backpack, lugging it all down the stairs while trying to fumble around with the digital keyboard on my phone. Because I was so used to dropping my flip phone and not breaking it, I was so horrified when I realized smartphones don’t get those kinds of easy second chances and can break in a heartbeat. So I tripped and fell. And crash went my phone on the steps before dying a quick painful death. I broke down in tears at the airport. How could I have been so stupid, so careless?!? I chanted Nam-myoho-renge-kyo until the flight attendant snapped me out of my self-pity and told me the plane was leaving. Oh gosh, I thought, another stupid thing I did that proves how stupid I am! I cried the whole flight home. It was an overnight flight with a layover in Chicago O’Hare. I dragged my defeated self through the O’Hare airport. There were a lot of cancellations and I wasn’t going to make it back in time. I got out my laptop and put in the little SD card from my phone, hoping that I could revive the little baby by transferring my files. All my pictures, videos, shared memories…

Gone. Vamos. Nada. Dead.

I spiraled further into a painful panic. What if this happens to me later in life? What if my kids get stuck at the airport overnight and they can’t text me because they broke their smartphones while walking down steps? I bought myself some snacks at an expensive looking boutique and finally caught a flight back home. When I arrived, it’s no surprise that my family freaked. I apologized but my empty apologies got lost in a sea of “We thought you died!” I remember stewing in guilt and shame all throughout the ride home and well after that. I went to the phone store with my dad and the salesperson told me, after I held out one last ounce of hope that my dumb mistake of texting, while walking down stairs, could be forgiven, that I needed to get a new phone and that there was no hope of reviving the broken smartphone. I was angry with myself, but I needed a phone to stay in touch with people so I returned to my old flip phone days and got a little red flip phone before finally getting a new smartphone. I definitely noticed the differences. With my flip phone I didn’t have tons of apps and notifications to distract me but I also couldn’t take selfies big enough for viewing purposes and it took me more patience to type text messages, whereas with a smartphone I can send a long winded text in under a minute because my fingers have gotten used to texting a lot. Yet with my flip phone I didn’t have YouTube or apps to distract me, but with my smartphone I could listen to YouTube music at work or show my coworkers a funny video, and join multiple texting groups like GroupMe and WhatsApp to get updates on events I wanted to attend.

I don’t have lots of social media accounts either. During my high school years many of my peers used Facebook but I didn’t. So when I graduated and was saying goodbye to everyone, a lot of people asked if I was on Facebook and I told them casually that I wasn’t. It really didn’t seem like a big deal. But then in college I got mixed responses to not having Facebook. Some people respected my decision to not use the site, but others gave me side eyes. After having a nice conversation with one of my classmates, she told me, “We should stay in touch!” And then asked the inevitable question:

Are you on Facebook?”

“Oh no, I’m not,” I said without hesitation, laughing because I was so used to getting this question. She gave me a side eye, like “Are you kidding me? Girl, keep up with the times!” And then another time, I was waiting for a professor’s class to start and I and a couple of other students were waiting in the hallway and talking and somehow Facebook popped up in the conversation, and I casually mentioned, “I don’t have Facebook.”

“You don’t have Facebook?” they laughed.

I didn’t really think it was a big deal. But when I took a college course over the summer in 2013, it was a huge deal for the program coordinator, who insisted throughout the program that I should get a Facebook. Even after I left the program, I emailed her to check in and she said, “It’s great hearing from you. If you are now on Facebook I will add you to our group.” I felt bad but I still didn’t want to get a Facebook account because of privacy concerns (then again, that statement is ironic because I ended up getting Facebook later on) and because I worried it would get in the way of my studies. I told people on the program I didn’t have Facebook; interestingly enough I later found other people who didn’t use Facebook, like one of my classmates and a cello instructor at a camp I went to. Some people told me that I didn’t have to put my full name or a photo of me on my profile and one of the young ladies in the class said that she had a fake name and a profile photo that didn’t show her face. I insisted though that I didn’t want to get one, and gave everyone my email. I went on that entire year to email this one guy in the class and then obsess and cry and complain to my friends and family how he never emailed me back. I had gotten an email response from a couple of people, but I spent the year feeling like I made a bad decision by not getting a Facebook because no one had emailed me back. I scribbled my complaints in my journal every evening about how upset I was for not getting a response. Looking back, I probably could have given those kids more grace.

“Then just get a Facebook,” my friend told me one time at dinner. But in my mind, I couldn’t just get a Facebook. Somehow, not having a Facebook felt freeing. Plus I saw people on campus all the time. It was only when my boyfriend at the time persuaded me to stay in touch with him over Facebook that I actually got one. I remember being at lunch with some friends and they were so proud of me and saying, “Yay! You finally got Facebook” as if it was a monumental achievement akin to getting married or landing a dream job. I was glad that people were happy with me, but I still felt lonely. I struggled to feel as if I was making a genuine connection with the friends and acquaintances I followed on Facebook. When I posted things, I had this naïve idea that I was going to get thousands of likes and people were going to engage with my posts because I saw that on a lot of my other friends’ posts. But that wasn’t the case, and it dealt a really horrible blow to my self-esteem, so I deleted my account. Then time passed and I got a new one, then deleted that one. Every time there was a privacy concern with the social network (Cambridge Analytica was a major one) I freaked out and deleted my account. I found out that no one really noticed that I left, and even my boyfriend assumed I had left because of Cambridge Analytica (which I did.) But I found out that even though I got Facebook only to keep in touch with him, we lost touch after a couple of years and he stopped responding to my messages. I did get upset with him, but by this time I was so busy with work and my SGI activities that even though I hadn’t moved on completely when he didn’t write back, I had stuff to do. When I didn’t get a lot of likes on my Facebook posts, I felt bad, but then my sister told me it’s because of the Facebook algorithm, which shows posts based on popularity and other complicated metrics. In late 2020 I began to feel lonely and I also started thinking about this girl who I met in my senior year. We didn’t become friends, but I was stuck in quarantine and was bored so I figured I would look up to see how this girl was doing and wanted to see if she wanted to reconnect or would remember me. That definitely didn’t work out. I sent her this long DM about how sweet and kind she was and how I didn’t get to know her that well because I was an introvert. Anyway, the note was long winded and sappy and I was crushed and took it personally when I didn’t get a response. I was stuck in this idea that friendships had to last forever but that experience taught me that I can’t take everything personally and that people don’t respond for various reasons that I may never know about (e.g. they’re busy, they don’t check Facebook anymore, or they’re just not interested in friending you period.)

I also found out that a lot of people didn’t really notice that I had left Facebook for two consecutive years . I befriended many of the same people from college, but again, I ended up using it as a sort of channel to earn approval. Theses people were my friends right? I sent lots of DMs to lots of people so I could be a good friend but weirdly enough getting Facebook didn’t make me feel any less lonely. In fact, by looking at other people’s photos I got even lonelier and developed FOMO. I had hobbies I could continue to pursue like reading, watching movies, cleaning my room, even writing on this here blog. But I think checking Facebook made it hard for me to feel proud of my friends for enjoying their lives. Of course, as I started to talk with more people and read more studies I realized that Facebook (or really any social media) itself isn’t bad. It just depends on how you use it. I am currently reading a book called Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World by Vivek H. Murthy, MD, and in one of the chapters he talks about how he got a Facebook to keep in touch with friends but I found myself resonating with him because he talks about how he didn’t get to have these deep conversations on Facebook and when he posted thoughtful articles he didn’t get likes and often kept checking to see if he got likes on his posts. But he also says Facebook can be used in ways that help foster connection, like this woman who started a group for physicians who were also moms and helped connect so many women who were struggling with their kids and navigating motherhood while working full-time. Writing this reflection made me reflect on my purpose for getting Facebook and has made me want to be more intentional about how I connect with other people on the site. I’m sure I’ll have many more stories to share about my journey with technology though because my journey with tech is always evolving.