Shanghai, China – March 2016
There are many things in my life that I would wish for others, but the one thing that I truly hope that everyone gets to experience at least once in their lives, is the power of a moment that changes everything.
I had such a moment in March of 2016, when I visited Shanghai for the first time as part of a study trip with Stanford. My attitudes towards China at that time were somewhat negative/ignorant (I only knew what media was telling me), and I didn’t know much about Shanghai itself either. But after just a few hours in the city, I suddenly had this overwhelming feeling.
The feeling was “I don’t know when, I don’t know how, but all I know is that I will live here one day.” It was a sudden conviction like I had never experienced before. It was starring into my eyes and I couldn’t look away. I knew it would happen, I just didn’t know when or how.
As some of you know, I went back to Stanford, started taking Mandarin classes, and then after graduating I moved to China. My goal was to be in Shanghai, but I spent the year in Beijing for work before I was eventually able to move to Shanghai.
I still look back on that experience, the strength of the conviction I felt, the certainty that my life was changing in that very moment, and the drive to take immediate action following that realization. I look back on that moment as one of the most powerful moments in my life. Rarely have I ever done something so big with so much conviction. There was no doubt in my mind, but only a burning desire to make it work, somehow.
Ever since that high, I yet have to feel that way about something or someone again. Like an addict coping with withdrawal, I sometimes come back to that moment and wish I get to experience that again in my life again. If that feeling was available as a drug on the market, I’d advertise it as the finest quality product out there.
While I have to feel that way again, it’s something that I wish everyone else at some points in their lives. To meet, experience, or see someone or something that suddenly flips a switch and changes everything. It’s one of the most powerful feelings and it’s a gem of an experience.