American dream vs. Your dream
Even as an immigrant who only came to the US for graduate school 10 years ago, I have always known what the “American dream” is about. But is the American dream your dream? Do you know what your dream is? Do you actually still dream? That is the topic of today’s blog. Go grab some tea, come back and let’s chat.
I thought my American dream was to get an MBA (it turns out I didn’t think one MBA was enough, so Gabriel and I each got one), work for corporate America and hustle your way up. Right after I graduated from business school in DC, I started working for a Fortune 500 company in Detroit, I found myself mentors and studied others’ career maps, I worked hard and liked the colleagues I worked with and the overall corporate culture. I had my career mapped out—all the teams I need to work at in order to climb the corporate ladder, and when and where to take international assignments. On a personal level, we bought a big house and was ready to try for a baby. From the outside, I was solid, living the American dream so many have aspired. But I wasn’t happy or fulfilled—there are hints of my unhappiness, I didn’t bother to decorate our house, I spent my weekends watching Netflix at home, I didn’t seem to get excited about anything, and I had severe Sunday blues. It wasn’t the job’s fault, it wasn’t the company’s fault. It was my fault. Actually, I don’t know if “fault” is the right word, it’s more like my misunderstanding of what I wanted in life.
The pandemic changed everything. I took a sabbatical from work in March 2021 to care for my son Freddy full time—before that Gabriel and I were both working from home and caring for Freddy without any help (our families all lived aboard and we didn’t want him to go to daycare before he’s vaccinated against COVID)— “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” It was great because we were privileged to WFH and spend so much time together, it was also horrible because you can’t really focus on work with a toddler in sight. On top of that, taking care of a 4-bedroom 3-bathroom single family house was pure hell, we are not handy people to begin with, and there seemed to be a house project every other week. Those months of WFH and caring for Freddy was crushing, instead of having Sunday blues, I think I was having everyday blues. While I was on sabbatical, I talked about not being fulfilled with Gabriel and wanting a change in our life. Since I had more free time, I started thinking more and asking myself what kind of lifestyle I want for myself and my family, what exactly is my dream?
I dreamt of culturally diverse city-living, adventures, making our world bigger not smaller, having flexibility so I can spend as much time with Freddy as possible, living in a new place with mild weather so we can be outdoors as much as we’d like. We looked at a few different cities in the US and Seattle came on top (read my blog “So Why Seattle?” for details), Gabriel started applying for jobs in the city and by Christmas Day 2021 we took that fateful one way flight to our new home.
We now live in a 3-bedroom townhome which costs us twice as much as our big single family house from Michigan (Seattle real estate, IYKYK), but we love love love our little cozy townhome, which is perfect for our little family. We are free from endless house projects because the HOA hires landscapers and contractors. We decorate our home with paintings and souvenirs we collected from our trips. We go out every weekend to explore the city and nearby areas—because you never run out of things to do here, whether it’s Ukrainian folk festival downtown, or a new Indonesian exhibition at the art museum, or a new Ethiopian restaurant grand opening, or hiking along the coastline outside of the city.
Did I go back to my 9-5 corporate America job you ask? No, I discovered my passion through living my dream and am now a full-time digital creator. I also have a few other projects lined up—that’s what living your dream does to you—it fuels you with creativity.
We moved from the suburb to the city, from a big house to a small home, uprooted our life from the midwest to the west coast after having a kid— it all sounds so unconventional. It’s because we are not living the American dream, we are finally living our dream. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the suburb or big house or any particular geographic location in the US—I wanted to write this blog to encourage you to dream your dream so that one day you can live your dream. Even after getting married or having kids, it’s never too late to realize your dream and make changes. Don’t let social standards or group thinking tell you what your dream life should be. Because there is absolutely nothing more worthy than living your own dream.
Me graduating from business school in Washington DC, spring 2016
Me working 9-5 in Detroit, Michigan, summer 2017
Freddy saying goodbye to our neighborhood in Michigan
This Seattle waterfront picture was taking in January 2022, a few weeks after we moved here. I will never forget how I felt when I saw a ferry for the first time gliding across the winter Salish sea