"Why are you here, far away from home? Are you working on a book?" An older Thai guy asked me when we met randomly at a restaurant in Sai Gon. "I work online.", I replied.
A thought struck me that, from his point of view, people who spend time in a foreign land, not travelling, but really immersing themselves, might be either searching for something or searching for themselves. I was both.
What are my struggles?
Let's begin with this. In 2024, the 28-year-old me realised my life back then was lacking meaning. I liked my life, but it was lacking some foundational elements.
- I met a lot of people, but the nature of the people I met was "They come and go". So, forming a long-term stable relationship was challenging.
- I had been active — going out, a lot of exercise, and dance. But at the end of the day, it consumed most of my energy and made me feel unfulfilled.
- Work, will we be stuck here forever? (I've been working for the same company for almost 5 years)
So I made a deal and promised myself that in 2025 I would get away from my routine for 6 months — that meant changing an environment and being away from home. In this, I hope that it could give me inspiration and some findings to my doubts.
Change the water in the tank
I'm a noob in changes. For me, changes are scary because they push me out of my comfort zone. It's true for everybody tho. But the water of the tank needed a change, so the fish could survive. So the fish booked tickets to Sai Gon and was looking forward to the trip.
March 2025, I started my journey in Vietnam for 1.5 months. It was my second time in the country. Still, the experiences were fresh and fascinating. There were some ups, downs, fun, and dull moments. I was at my happiest when I went dancing, when I made a new meaningful connection, and when I reunited with familiar faces. I felt low when I was sick, when I missed talking to people or wanted to share a meal with someone. It was overall a full immersive experience — except it was real, and I felt alive.
When the water is changed, of course, the fish will take time to adjust. If the water is well prepared (calculated risk), the fish won't die. Because in the end, it's just water, and the fish already knew how to swim.
Learnings After 1.5 Months
When I got back, it took me 2 weeks to decompress from this experience and to be able to list down the learnings. We are now in June 2025. Here is what 1.5 months in Vietnam taught me and why the struggles of my 20s are almost over.
- Filtering — You have to filter, otherwise you'll end up doing things you didn't sign up for. This is a very good learning for me to filter what I want for my body, my mind, and my social life. I have to repeat it to myself, "Don't just go with the flow." Because, as a fish, you need to know if the current is too strong, it will take you to where you're not planning to go. Or if there's no current at all, you will not get anywhere. I cannot change the current of the water. All I can do is to find the right flow.
- Know the different levels of importance — related to the first point, when you filter out or filter in, you'll have a clearer idea of "important things". And for me, some of them are:
- Personal time — This is the only time when I use to create, to grow, to learn, and most importantly, to rest.
- Family — Family is important, isn't this cool? Asians would understand how strong is a family bond. In my case, it's a realisation that we have a limited time together, so we should make it worth it and cherish each other as much as possible. Therefore, I set a goal to do an annual family trip. Our last trip was in Bangkok in May 2025.
- Career — Career is important to a certain level, but it is not your whole life. My life, I want to create, and that is my main goal. So if my career allows me to create and make money at the same time, that's already good enough.
- "Make the heart sweet" — there's no term for this but I'd like to borrow this phrase from the book, How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures by Robin Dunbar.* In my understanding, it means to open your heart, to create space for good things to happen. So I made my heart tender and felt an immediate effect. Some tension inside me had loosened up and I became 2x happier. When I came back to Chiang Mai, 4 people told me that I looked happier. 2 of them even thought I met someone, some kind of boyfriend effect haha.
I came back from Vietnam with a bag full of clothes and a mind full with good energy. I did what I could in these 1.5 months. The heavy struggles are somehow lifted, and the wind of change is blowing them away. However, the cheat code is…. even though these struggles continue in my 30s, it's a different story because it's gonna be the struggle of 30s instead of 20s! Plot twist! 😝
I hope you find peace and may the sweetness find your heart too.
Cheers,
Maprang