Journal #5 – 4/3/2024
Commentary
This is still when I was cleaning my room out. This is when the cleaning process got a bit complicated because I decided to be “noble” and fully wash out all the recyclables before throwing them out. Looking back, that was a good decision. I wasn’t doing everything I could at this point simply due to lack of knowledge, but still, it was the right decision.
This is also the point when I began realizing different elements of my personalities; before assimilation began. I still, do have many versions of me (I believe), such as “English-thinking Jin” and “Korean-thinking Jin”, etc. But here in this day I mention “child Jin”, the aloof, fun version of my personality.
I never got around finishing this “website audit” for my best friend because throughout this transformation I came to the realization that unsolicited help isn’t useful and if given inconsiderate of the other person’s perspective and intention, it almost always backfires. I still have the document like 80% done. Maybe I’ll just upload it on the blog as a practice for my auditing skill. But to him, once he hits the exit I may bring it up and tell him that these were my thoughts before.
The mods I made for the game Darkest Dungeon, I just copied the mod files to my cloud and removed the game itself.
I still am dealing with the blister on my sole of my feet even though a month passed. It’s gotten a lot better (it’s now only on the sole of my right foot; my left foot is all good now) though.
I like the voice in this journal entry because it feels more like a casual conversation. I know some of the later journal entries are very dry (like 3 weeks in it gets a bit dry and shorter; you will see).
Anyway, below is the actual Journal Entry.
Journal Entry
Ahhh so much done already without opening the journal. I hope I can recall everything and not miss a single thing I did.
I got back home at 5:30am. And the first thing I did was not turning on the laptop, but pick through the pile of trash (which, really, is my room lol), to take out a handful of food containers from delivery that’s been sitting there for months at worst. Took them to the bathroom to rinse and flush the trash out which is disgusting but necessary. I could skip this process and just throw it out but then that’d be such a disgusting mess for the people working at the trash/recycling depot.
Took about 30 minutes. Then I packed them up in plastic bags so they can be thrown out. I went outside, and on the way, I saw that old lady I befriended doing her morning taichi exercise. I opened the door to the balcony and I yelled Hello! She said Hi!
I was going to go to the convenience store with the previously grumpy old man (just to see how he reacts now) but then I decided that I was going to take a short walk around the commercial district. The first one that I tried to visit, apparently the employee went to the bathroom, so I took a bit longer walk. That’s when I realized that there’s surprising a lot of laughter in the morning than I thought. I was always convinced that the morning streets were calm, quiet and serene, but even at he brisk of sunlight there’s people living. Trying to enjoy and make sense of life itself. I thought it was beautiful. There were two girls sitting in front of a café (not yet opened) chatting and laughing. Just the sight of that somehow made me smile.
Talking about smile, I do want to report on my day at work today. On my way to work on the shuttle bus, I asked my best friend why he cancelled my order of the sleeping aid device. He said he sent me one but didn’t want to take my money. I wrote to him I appreciate and thanked him but I also told him that I no longer want to become that guy who just takes free stuffs. Especially that I know that he’s spent so much effort into the creation of it. And I told him I was going to sentence him a punishment. Punishment being that he’ll receive a book from someone he cares wherein he is forced to read it.
Yeaaahh I know it was a bit over the top dramatic lol. But I received his shipping address.
Had a bit of trouble converting it into English address, and I had to reregister the address with my name and not his because Amazon requested that I provide the recipient’s 개인통관고유부호. I was first going to just buy a paperback, but I did an upgrade to hard cover, then I made another upgrade for faster delivery. He will get the book on April 9th.
Oh and the book is “How to live” by Derek Sivers. I hope he enjoys it. If he could read beyond the irony of the book, then I am certain he will be blown away.
I got off the shuttle bus, and I headed towards the girl who’s selling Kimbap. I told her I am here as I promised and I am here to buy. She no doubt doesn’t remember me. But perhaps just a glimpse of the memory passed through her mind, for her thanking me did feel genuine. She sells two different type of Kimbap, I asked her for a recommendation and she recommended me the basic version. I hade to manually type in her bank account to make the wire transfer. And I sent her 4,000 won, which is 1,000 more than the asking price.
I showed her my phone as proof of payment, and she asked me, in utter confusion (really wasn’t the reaction I expected) why I did that. I told her that I like seeing people working hard. She thanked me as she handed me the Kimbap.
I ate a few pieces before entering work. It’s actually pretty good. Way better than KimbapCheonguk crap. Today I am actually going buy 3, since that 1 I bought actually reallllly made me hungry today at work (I don’t eat at the cafeteria for many various reasons. One day I’ll uncover why). But damn, 9,000 won for a day’s meal is so much cheaper than how much I currently spend on food.
The work itself today was a bit… unpleasant. Started out okay, greeting my fellow coworkers; sharing some chatters here and there. Oh, and the girl who I bantered about my hairstyle; her name, now I know, but for privacy’s sake, I’ll call her MJ. We bantered a bit; we laughed; she gave me a candy.
Anyway, that was as good as it got. The rest of the working hours were daunting. The reason? Two reasons. One. I have blisters on the sole of my both feet. I’ve not had blisters since like 2 months into work. Every step I made was a bit painful. And I make on an average about 70,000 steps on work. Ouch. But I blisters weren’t that big of a deal; those were like reminders of my earlier days at work. The pain was nostalgic.
The second reason, the biggest pain of all, were the people I worked with. Our department is partitioned into 3 floors. When work begins, you are assigned to either one of them; and you don’t know with who you are assigned to the floor with. One hard working, friendly colleague is all I need to have a good day at work. If the girl I like is also assigned together? I’m super pumped whether I talk to her or not.
Today, I had none, other than MJ. Even her I couldn’t see much. The rest of the people I worked with today, ah… sigh…
They don’t clean up their mess; inconsiderate for the others, and are so selfish… And that’s the norm here. The very norm I wish to see change. I thought about what Seth Godin said when he defined what work is in the Podcast I listened before going to work, on the spectrum of “specs”. I feel the specs specified for the work we are required to do here is too low. Bare minimum is the norm here and if the bar is raised just even a tiny bit, then I think everyone will benefit. I am coming to realization that perhaps it is my decision to give hyper value for work, even though 90% that value may go by unnoticed, is what actually dredged me out of my living death.
I think it was around 2 months in when I realized that our work place has this little system called “employee of the month”. It’s more of a joke to everyone here because the system they use too gauge who that employee is just absurd As in, it’s decided and given to an employee who simply processes the most amount of items. No regards to the weight of the item, no regards to the total distance travelled, no regards too tidying up the pick up sites, nothing that actually is important, especially in the department like ours where we at most occasions deal with heavy weight goods.
They pay you like extra $100 that month if you get picked. Everyone who works here knows that it is impossible for anyone to receive that reward due to the flaw in the system. However, back then I entertained the thought that it’d be a funny sight if I became that employee of the month despite the systemic limits.
So I think it was around then when I started overdelivering. I forgot who, but I think it was also around then when I saw a YouTube shorts of a segment of a motivational speech by someone from long time ago, where he said the lesson he learned from his father was “always do more than what you are paid to do”
That is precisely what I have began doing and what I do even to this day. Believe when I say the temptation to just toss this idea aside and return to just doing the “norm” comes to me every single day. ‘No one cares’, ‘even if anyone notices it, they only see the surface of what you do’, ‘nothing you do gets registered in the system, it’s the # of items processed that’s going into the system, isn’t it?’ ‘you work so hard and fast now so if you ditch this overdelivering, then it will get you closer to that ironic goal of becoming the employee of the month’ ‘people who work here doesn’t deserve the hard work you do for them for the sake of their convenience and efficiency.’
So. Many. Temptations.
Today was one of those days when that temptation was at its peak. It is one of those days when sudden surge of anger rises within me.
But did I say that even through all this, I learned something new today? One thing I learned was how quickly I caught myself seeping into anger. I can now catch myself being consumed by emotion so that I can put a stop to it and calm myself down.
I had those angry moments, of course, but I kept my cool for the most parts. Me, a week ago, didn’t have that kind of power. In comparison, out of all the past days under similar circumstances, today was the easiest. Keep in mind, too, that my feet were screaming because of the blisters.
Somewhere along the work, I too, kind of found that when I work, there are several different modes that take me over. It’s kind of hard to explain, but sometimes when I work, I am a coolheaded, super efficient working machine. Sometimes, I am this anger driven, power house that blazes through work. Sometimes, I am working as if I am dancing as I maneuver the carts where we load the totes. Sometimes, I am such a calculative workers who is devising methods to improve work efficiency. I noticed that my favorite is this child like version of me who kind of turns the work into a game.
After consistently catching my angry version from coming out, I realized that for this work it is best for my childlike self to take over. So I tried that, and… it worked? I tried to tune in to the child self and I decided that I’ll kind of be like a supervising parent seeing his kid play. Surprisingly, work started becoming a bit more exciting than before.
I couldn’t keep that mode up for too long, though. The child kind of went away as if he exhausted his way to sleep. But I was surprised that this switching of modes (and in essence, the personality) worked. What surprised me the most is that I have witnessed that it can be done on-demand.
I am going to experiment with it today. This is worth it.
Those are the two things that I learned today. Other than that, like I said, the work was dull and draining. I didn’t get to see the girl I liked. We passed by but she didn’t say hello. It was more like both of us were pretending to not notice each other. Maybe my compliment I gave her held such dissonance against her self-perception that she found it awkward to greet me as time passed. I don’t know if that is the case, but I suspect so. So I will give her the time to process it. I will not force on conversations. If we do get to interact in any sort of form, I think I know few things I can say to bridge that dissonance, but until then, I want to respect the distance she chose to make. Last thing I want is her to believe I have some ulterior motives. I don’t. Regardless, at the end of work, while waiting at the queue to exit the building (there’s so many people working here that we actually need to line up to use the stairs to get out), we bumped into each other, and I said see you tomorrow (In Korean, there’s this phrase we say to each other after day’s at work. Just a lightly praise for a good day’s work. There isn’t really a fitting line like that in English). She naturally said it back. I think that’s more than good enough, for now.
I did, however, complimented one coworker. He’s an older man and he’s been working here for two months now. I figured that out from a little chat we had after work when I found him at the smoking spot (just before I approached the girl I like for the second time). Today, I don’t know, I told him that at first I didn’t think he’d last that long working here, for I’ve seen many who quit before their first month. I told him that I find his perseverance commendable. I don’t remember his response, but I hoped that was a little ray of acknowledgement that I think everyone here working (even the ones I don’t like) needs.
I think it in the bathroom when I was cleaning out the food containers that I realized that hey, I am actually thinking of finding the most effective way to compliment someone. I truly believe the right kind of compliment can seriously alter someone’s course of action to bring out the good qualities in someone. Who, that I know, in my life goes through this thought? Who, do I know, besides myself, actively seeks to better the world by learning how to compliment someone?
So… wow, from trying to talk about smiles to this. Well, let me get back to what I wanted to talk about smiling. Despite all these conditions from work, when I got on the elevator back to my flat, I saw myself in the mirror, and I noticed that I was smiling. Unconsciously, I was smiling even after all that dreading work and unsatisfactory social interactions. I was surprised that I was smiling, and honestly, bro, it looked good to me.
Oh, and my walk to a new convenience store. I should tell the ending to that story. So, after walking around for some time, I ended up walking into this convenience store where at night shift a tall, handsome looking guy works at. I don’t like going there because this guy is so condescending. Back in earlier working days I’d visit this place because it was on my way home. He carries that aura of “I am so much better than you” that it seeps out through every word he says. I just wanted to try that give away the buy one get one free routine on him, so I did. As I was picking the goods, I called him out and asked him “do you like hotsix?” he said with an awkward smile (so fakeeeee), “please don’t mind about me and pick what you want” and I said, “no, you don’t understand, I just need one hotsix but it’s on buy one get one free deal.” To which he said, “I mean, if you insist…”
So I gave one to him after the checkout.
Man, only if I had recording of his previous times when he said “thank you for the service, please come again” so I can compare the difference. I guess this routine works. It can penetrate the ego of even such a stalwart supremacy.
I guess this marks everything I did today. When I was walking back home I was worried that I had nothing to write; but turns out even in that nothingness I can write 2600 words.
Oh, and videos and youtube and stuff. Well, I have to come up with a system to make this work. Right now, it’s 8:37 am, which means I’ve been writing this journal for over 2 hours. Without a journal I can’t make a script, and without a script the video is meh. Surely, my previous plan of journal -> script -> video isn’t going to work at this rate.
Maybe I’ll just shoot a shot of me talking bits about my day from bus stop to home. Then just upload that as a daily thing. Barely need editing; there’s enough movement throughout the scene. It vibes real (for it is real, duh). Maybe, I should make a newsletter with my journal. Video -> newsletter for details. I don’t know. But that’s something I can make and try.
Podcast listening time and sleep time. See you when I wake up!
I’m going to watch 16 Life-Changing Ideas You’ve Never Heard Of – George Mack by Chris Williamson!
Oh, and the website audit thing for my friend. It’s half way done; and when it’s done, I’m not going to send it to him. I think I want to let it sink a bit more before I transfer it to him. Give him some time to reaccept me back into his life. Just like how I am giving that girl the time she needs.
Man, I think the real lesson I learned today is “be patient”
9:43, woke up because my dad called me. Well, he called me back because I called him at around 8 but didn’t pick up.
He asked me why I called; so I told him that I called my sister. He asked if I called my mom, and I said of course. She’s coming back today, apparently. Anyway, I told him that I dream of that day when we all meet together in person, and that I want to see that dream come true. He told me to take it slow and work out the issues in my life in the order of my priority, and it will happen.
He’s playing golf right now (that’s why he couldn’t pick up the call). I told him I love him, and that he should win.
How long did I sleep? I don’t think I slept more than an hour. I think I dreamt a bit, but I don’t recall a single piece of it because I woke up abrupt by a phone call. But I don’t think it’s a bad dream.
Oh, just now I removed my porn folder.
Game folder is a little tough though. I mod games… well.. I mod the mods for games to be exact. I don’t want the work I did to go to waste.
Solution is pretty simple: upload them on steam workshop!
In my hallway of my flat, there’s a room where outside there’s a stack of some random assortment of goods. I always wondered what that was for, but just now after shower, I went out for a cigarette and met a guy taking a bag of it out. So I asked him what it is for, he said he works at a vegitable store downstairs and he’s keeping the containers here because there’s no space for it at the store, and that he’s paying extra for keeping the goods outside in the hallway.
I just realized what I said to my best friend about not wanting to be that kind of person who takes free stuffs. I just signed up for YouTube Premium.
Just watched Dan Koe’s video on his daily routine. The part where he describes discipline, rings true in me. “Rather than focusing on being more disciplined you need to focus on making better decisions on the small scale so that those condition yourself into adopting the identity that just does those things.” And “I don’t think it’s about discipline, I think it’s about becoming the person that automatically does those things and they don’t even have to think about it.” Really drives it home for me. Because I feel it. How am I taking out trash everyday when I haven’t done that for past 36 years of my life? I am becoming that person, for this image of myself in the future that I want to be, I do these things automatically.
It’s been a while since I last visited Evan Charmichael. This time he made a video for Dr. Joe Dispenza. The video started off with him saying you need to become nobody in order to create from the field. I feel that the nightmare of a life that I went through in the past seven years was the process of me losing myself. My ego. Life had to take it off me layer by layer, and it took a long time.
I have truly missed the point where I should have began documenting my changes. It should have been before the apology letter I sent to my best friend. The moment that I decided that I should document was already too good of a point for me to resonate with the people that I want to help. Now I need to rely on my memory of those days leading up to that moment, and I need to get good with storytelling to make it convincing.
The sleep helper device arrived. I have work soon so I can’t try it just now, but I’m so excited to use it when I get home today.
가위 방지기.
자다가 눈을 뜨면 몸에 전류를 흘려 보내서 몸을 깨운다.