How Has Your Life Changed Five Years Ago?

Blogger's note: The Q&A blog entry is written with limited editing for grammar and content.

Today is the five year anniversary I realized I must grow up on Oct 4, 2008. I self-interview myself how life changed since.

How's your life now?

Life is good. The downside is I'm unemployed. I continue to meet new people. I have the most friends ever. I experience lots of new experiences such as food, new hobbies, and reading fiction books. I used to read non-fiction books before Oct 4, 2008. I seek new adventures. My life motto is, "get up and do something, anything".

Describe what it means to you being "grown up"?

Being a grown up is being a mature adult. Wise up. No more acting like a child complaining and hating. I'm responsible for myself. I'm responsible for my actions, surroundings, and interactions with people. I'm living life being mature. I live with an experience, a perspective, and a new viewpoint. I don't life as an immature, naive, asshole adult.

So it's like a wake-up call?

Yeah, good way of saying what's like finally realizing it was time to grow up. Another way of saying I must grow up is I must take my head out of my ass. I never went back to being a naive, immature adult. I have been getting better. I have been getting stronger, wiser, and smarter. I have been experiencing new experiences and seeking new adventures.

What were some of the immediate changes?

I downloaded new gym workout plans. My old workout was wrong. I donated all my old clothes. No more polo shirts and plain white t-shirts. I wear sports shirts and beautiful t-shirts. And I wear good gym shirts and shorts; no more t-shirts and cotton shorts.

I built a new PC for myself. I want to thank my dad and my friends Appu and gmontem for their help.

And I created my second blog "Finding Raymond Mar".

What were some of the lessons you learned?

Never take life for granted. Always meet new people and make new friends. Never stop learning, never stop innovating. I'm responsible for everything in my life. I must earn my successes. And find new things to do.

How did you feel losing your job at Cisco?

It was a blessing in disguise. It was the life reset I desperately needed. I took a break from my life. Reset, regroup myself, and refocus. Get my life back together. Find who the real Raymond Mar was. I didn't expect being unemployed for a long time.

Was going back to De Anza College planned or was it an opportunity that happened?

It was an opportunity that just happened. I was introduced to ballroom dancing from my sister. She encouraged me to take a class at De Anza College. My first quarter was ballroom dancing and strength training. The strength training class was a good opportunity to practice more workout plans. I continued ballroom dancing for most of my time at De Anza.

I continued enrollment at De Anza taking accounting classes starting at my second quarter. I finished with an AA degree in Accounting hoping I find a job with my BS in Economics at San Jose State and my AA combined. They look really good together with business knowledge and a field with analytical thinking on paper. As of now, I'm still looking for a job. Today's job market is an employer's market. Almost all jobs want a BA in Accounting and experience instead of an AA in Accounting.

Going back to college was a mulligan. I wanted to experience college life I should have experienced at San Jose State. I was more sociable. I met lots of new people and made new friends. I didn't take my classes seriously. A few of my classes I studied lightly. I participated in more study groups. I checked out DVDs from the library. De Anza was a significant part of my personal processes to grow up. Growing up involved living an active life in the 20s. I had an opportunity to experience living in my 20s again at a college environment.

You consider yourself lucky you grew up in your 30s. You missed a lot of your life in your 20s. Obviously De Anza helped you catch up what you missed.

Part of my motivation living the best life I can possible do is catching up what I should have experienced, learned, and done earlier in my life. The last five years I've been catching up what I failed to do in my 20s. De Anza was huge because, as mentioned before, I got to relive college life I should have experienced when I was at San Jose State. Moreover, technology today with emails, cell phones, smart phones, and social networking helped me keep in touch with the people I met. At San Jose State, email just started and only a handful had cell phones.

Anyways, I've done a lot in the last five years. I was living life as a 20 year old something. I took a class on ice skating. I visited the Charles Schulz museum. I played video games late night. I marathon TV shows in the late night. I went canoeing on the Russian River. I visited Carmel. I met lots of new people. I ate new foods, lots of new foods. The best example is I tried clam chowder for the first time this year. I went hiking. I shaved with a razor instead of an electric razor. I learned how to play Mahjong (Riichi). And I have a girlfriend.

When you see people act immature for their age, what are you thinking?

Good question. I believe there's going to be a moment, a situation, an event that wakes up that person. When that person wakes up, he or she says it's time to grow up. I believe no matter the age, a person still can grow up. The hatred, the stress about life treating them like shit, and the complaints disappear immediately. The person enjoys life as it's meant to be. I believe the world can be a better place for every human being if everyone just wise up and grow up.

The person's circumstances, personality, personal attributes, and life situations are taken into account. For example, if a person is a jerk, a loner, and can't hold a job, then the chances of him or her growing up is really, really slim. Part of my growing up self-discovery is being with people. How well do people treat me? I'm lucky I have good self-awareness to realize most people didn't treat me well. When I grew up, people started treating me well.

The bottom line is some people are more likely than others to realize they must grow up sooner instead of later. It depends on a number of factors to increase or decrease the likelihood. And there are some people who die not being a mature adult. I observe those immature people and make a guess.

What are you looking forward ahead?

Simply stated, find a job and live on my own. My life moves at normal speed. Currently, my life is either paused or moving in slow motion since I'm unemployed.

As we continue to live, mature people get wiser, smarter, and stronger. It's like we infinitely continue to grow up since we age and get older. We meet new people. We experience new experiences. We seek new adventures. We find new interests. People come and go in our lives. We make mistakes. We continue to make mistakes. We continue to learn from the mistakes. We continue to learn something new. We don't say grow up anymore because we commonly say growing up is good bye to the youth and hello to adulthood. We say wise up or growing older.

Life changes every day. We should change to be better. Change for a reason. I don't think I ever stop growing up. I continue to grow up every day when I experience new experiences, seek new adventures, learn something new, and discover a new attribute in Raymond Mar. I continue to grow up because I'm getting stronger, smarter, and wiser. I'm more open and I listen.