This is the story of how I was forced to set goals after pretending that just going with the flow was okay. That not knowing what I was going to do next and just letting myself be “guided” by others was fine. After all, they did want what was best? Didn’t they? After lots of self-reflection and forcing myself to sit down and actually write down goals, it came to my attention that I had been going with the flow for quite some time. It seems the last real decision I made was to study engineering rather than anything else. A decision that would seem to be a useful one at most.
I decided I was going to be an engineer after an ad informed me that there was a significantly lower percentage of girls and women in STEM, and thought that’s not okay, we are just as capable as men. I would show that ad, I would become an engineer. At first, I had decided I wanted to be a chemical engineer, but that only lasted a semester, after that I started civil engineering and for two years focused on that, I was a decent student at most, not particularly passionate about the subjects but passing them along. I met some really amazing people and was content enough. Then my parents separated, my boyfriend dumped me and I failed courses for the first time in my life, my world was falling apart. It was then I decided I would switch to mechatronics engineering, as the courses up to that point had been about the same. I graduated and started working, met some other set of people. Fell in love once more, got my heart broken again and kept moving forward.
It was after that last break up that I chanced upon meditation, and boy did it change my life. I was finally able to manage my anxiety and keep it from controlling me. I went to my first retreat in Guatemala, then came back and finished my contract with the place I was at. My friend told me that there were open scholarhips for a program in India, and so I decided that I would like to do that. So I did, I went to India for three months, had a wonderful time, and fell in love with the food, which remains my favorite to this day. I came back then got invited to a second meditation retreat in Jamaica and it was great as well. Finally my mom said I should start thinking about the future, perhaps about a masters degree. So I applied to schools and programs everywhere, and waited for the responses. In the mean time, I went to my retreat, and as the responses came back positive, I couldn’t make up my mind. So my family made the call and I came to Taiwan.
Taiwan has been a roller coaster type of situation, with days in which I am grateful to be here and others when I just want to run back home. It’s hard being so far from home, not really having any friends and having the ones you make being temporary as everyone comes and goes to and from the island. It has been as this point, when after a therapy session I was forced to accept that everything to this point has been basically chosen for me and I haven’t really taken the time to explore what it is that I want to accomplish with this life. So after some consideration, I’ve decided that this year will be the year I try my hand at being a writer. So now when people ask, who is Tatiana? I will quietly say I am a writer and be proud of it.
