my aunt is a devout Buddhist, but she wasn’t always that way. my family is grounded in Buddhist principles, but we’re not religious. when Auntie began to visit temples regularly, she was retired, experiencing menopause and deep bouts of loneliness and depression. i visited her one Mother’s Day to give her flowers. we started with a garden tour then entered the kitchen for juice.
i asked her about her meditation and her journey into religion. she attended her first silent retreat as a monk aide and coordinator. she prided herself in arranging orchids for the event, a gift for the monk who traveled all the way from East Asia. in her photos, she smiled with all her teeth, wrapped in bright scarves, sporting posh sunnies in the sunset desert, hugging people she called her sisters.
this kitchen conversation moved upstairs to her room. what used to be her son’s room became her dream space. she pulled out books, guiding me through diagrams that framed her meditation practice. i kept a distant perspective, observing this wondrous woman express what pulled her from her darkness towards her power, towards community. wanting to understand deeper, i quickly accepted her invitation to attend the next dharma sermon.
i lingered in the parking lot, gathering the courage to go inside. this was first time alone with my aunt in many years, let alone my first time visiting a temple for religious studies (usually, it’s for a funeral).
i did what my aunt told me. i met her monk teacher. i carried gifts to give to the Bodhi lecturing that day. people who built careers in Tech tend to be attracted to things like this. though it was no Burning Man, it does touch questions that arise when pursuing lucrative paths. “I make a great living, so why am I still unhappy?” “What’s the meaning of all this? Have I been working towards the wrong things?” to have money yet to be devoid of spiritual satisfaction…it’s a conundrum that’s hard to understand until you reach it.
then, i met Grace and Art. Grace was kind and enthusiastic woman who used to get paid a lot to work around the world. she thrived but encountered similar questions around meaning. she looked up at the C-suite positions and didn’t like what she saw. soon after, she left her job. two years later, Grace’s days are filled with volunteering and traveling with the Buddhist community.
her partner Art praised her, saying she does it sustainably by staying frugal and planning her expenses. he said he’s not there yet. he still likes fast cars and feels the need to earn money. but he too wants to get out of the “rat race” one day.
what does it look like to exit the rat race?
Grace and Art inspired me to looked to other people who have left their 9-to-5, i-have-a-boss jobs. my cousin Jaime runs a learning center she started just before the pandemic. freelancers who take their design or development chops to run their own services. people who quit to open an Etsy to sell their pottery.
the running theme is, to leave a 9-to-5 job, you have to create your own job, your own business, your own revenue-generating empire.
this spooked me. i don’t know how to run a business. most businesses fail. most business owners work constantly, forfeiting weekends and missing family events.
then i went to Japan. i couldn’t help but imagine what it’d be like to travel whenever i wanted without the limitations of PTO. with a business, i could do that any time as long as i could afford it.
i rabbitholed into the economics of having a business. turns out, you have a high chance of accumulating wealth, granted that your profit margins are positive. there’s a wide range of tax incentives, high solo-401K limits, forgiving business structures to reduce liabilities… i guess that’s why entrepreneurship is rampant in America. the tax and legal systems support it!
something that you would do for free
let’s say hypothetically i do own a business…what would it be about? i spent a lot of alone time this fall wondering what i could do. my ideas fell into two camps: sure fire ideas that were economical and riskier bets that involved uncertain paths. then i found this Pharrell Williams clip:
“Find something that you love to do.
Something that you would do for free
just because you’re happy to be there,
like you’d be happy to be an intern, right?
Well now, you have a dream job
that you wake up every day
like you get paid for free.That’s the reason why you start a business
if you’re going to start one.
despite me pushing the dream away, the visions kept coming. at that point, it’s no longer a dream…it’s a calling.
some ideas i explored: design guides, writing paid articles, selling art, hosting workshops, sharing my ferments, creating merch, building books and film.
imagining different realities pulled me in different directions, allowing internal dissonance to fester. with great relief i can now say, after six months of dreaming, i have finally chosen a dream worth pursing.
a dream to a calling
YUNNY STUDIOS, a creative practice and space to explore and enjoy.
though i am first focusing on building my own collections and sharing my body of work, my mission is to create space for expression and exploration by empowering people, ideas, and how people relate to ideas.
i am driven by discovery, questions, and the unknown. i get a high from enabling people to tend to their most creative selves, to be the hero of their own realities.
i will reveal more details as i advance this long journey. i’m grateful my parents, brothers, and partner are supportive of this unconventional ambition.
as for the future of this newsletter, my posts will explore deeper creative questions and share lessons around building a universe of a business. follow my day to day on Instagram @YUNNYSTUDIOS.
thank you for following my journey so far.
talk soon,
c
i find myself in a similar crossroads in life atm. so cool to see you take the leap and create your own thing. excited to see what you do with YUNNY!