The first week of January, our VP of Sales flew to New York and held a meeting with us. Since she was new to our company and wanted to get to know us, we were invited to throw a little self-introduction by answering a question “ What you might not know about me?” as the ice-breaking game of the day.
Everyone was very spontaneous.
When my turn came, I said that you might not know that living in the US changed the way I spend my free time. When I was in Hong Kong before moving to the US three years ago, shopping was my therapy against long hours and stress while working for a luxury hotel. And there were just too many shops on my way walking back home! Now, thanks to the two-hour commute every day, I spent my time on the train reading books. The more I read, the more I realized how little I knew. Then I became a bookworm that you could always find a book in my tote bag. It is true!
The stable 9-6 office hour and five-day workweek offer me more personal time. Living in the suburb away from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan not only allows me to embrace fresher air but also helps clear my mind. I have the personal space and time to contemplate. Besides, it is so easy to access to reading material or self-development resources. I borrow books from New York Public Library. I bought second-hand books and magazines at really low price online or from thrift stores. There are a lot of free audio books online that I could listen too. Last but not the least, because of the ethnic and cultural diversity of New York, I genuinely hope to connect with different people from every corner of the planet and add value to the conversations.
The feeling was pretty amazing at first. My inner curiosity was suddenly unlocked. I was eager to know more about my own country, China’s history, world history, different cultures, travel destinations and classic literature etc. They excited me a lot. I am not saying that I was completely ignorant before, but with certain life experience, I could immerse in what I read more deeply and develop new perspectives to my previous understanding. I used to read one book a month, mainly by using my commute time. Then, I completed two books monthly. I preferred to read a memoir or fiction during the commute and lunch break, and another intellectually demanding one in the evening.
However, recently, I suddenly realized that I beat myself really hard to take all my free time to do something “useful”. I enrolled myself in many social and cultural events, subscribed to business magazines, marked more books on my bucket list. It seemed that as long as I was doing something, I was safe. Otherwise, I would have felt guilty that I hadn’t taken full use of my time. It was like I was inside a sardine tornado with thousands of sardines around me. They hit my face and my body again and again but I couldn’t catch any of them. Every piece of industry news, every event, every bit of information that I learned from books or magazines was one sardine. I was so close to them but I eventually would forget them without remembering what they looked like!
From there, I started realizing that I should leave more time to digest, reflect or just relax rather than immersing myself in all the noises.
I started to understand it was not how many books I read or how much knowledge I’ve acquired, but rather what I’ve chosen to process, internalize and enjoyed.
Thus, I decided to filter the information with more purposes.
I want to come up with some questions before I approach any resources. And I need to review my notes to refresh my memory time to time. Hence, I set my yearly goal not by the total number of books but by themes. For example, I planned to spend my free time in the first quarter of 2018 to learn more about World War II, the related famous people, and Africa. I started collecting one or two key stories about hospitality industry trends every morning and reviewing them at the end of the month.
I am gradually building my own knowledge system with specific intentions. If my knowledge system is a house, every piece of information that I get from a book or other sources is a brick. Only when I know where to put them, they become useful. I am happy to see that my first two years in the US gave me the opportunity to develop my way of learning and growing. And I will be more patient with myself.