When you return home.

Today I thought… about when you return home.

I wonder if there is some kind of psychological study exploring the effects of frequently saying goodbye in one’s life. Yes, much of life is filled with beginnings and endings of various types. But I think there’s a limit to how good one can get in saying ‘goodbyes’. 

I think saying goodbye to my mother at 28 is much different than when I was 8. As I think about my last day in Vancouver after a nice three-week trip, it put me in this mode of reflection. It’s odd. Despite how much I dislike saying goodbye, I also love how concentrated/focused on family time it gets whenever I return. It’s as if I leave learning a little more about what my parents lived through in their 20s and 30s and some revelations they’ve had in life. 

I also happened to watch a three-hour lecture on Jungian psychology delivered by Jordan Peterson today. This was not the crux of the lecture (maybe I’ll return to it in the future if it becomes a major thought in the future) but there is a segment about Pinocchio that pricked at a thought. 

Peterson noted how we go out on a journey, much like Pinocchio did. We enter the ‘real world’ and to some, the university is the first extension of this adventure. Some embark on a journey to learn more about themselves (without knowing they are) and become ‘troubled adults’. This is especially the case when one seeks out to lead a life following one’s bliss. Apparently, Jung believed the search to do work resembling ‘passion/mission’ will lead to more heartache instead of some defined place of bliss. This seems to make perfect sense because to be able to do something one loves is actually a very difficult thing and the journey in search of it should be extremely difficult. 

I for one have never met anyone who does what they love (very few) whoever got there following the easy/obvious journey of study hard, good job, steady income, etc….. Most go through a ton of shit that most people will think is crazy. Such is the troubled existence of those who embark on the adventure like Pinocchio. 

But when they return home, they default to the innocent/naive adolescents they were before embarking on the journey. This part of Peterson’s lecture left me thinking about whether I too defaulted to the adolescent before leaving for university. 

It made me wonder if that had something to do with why I seemed to have mixed feelings every time I visited my parents back home. Especially during the last few years since starting the journey through OMD Ventures. A journey to try and design a career of my dreams. 

It’s as if I was struggling between two separate identities. An identity my parents were more familiar with, one they’d seen for some 18 years compared to the one that was getting his face punched by the world daily in his 20s. Just like saying goodbye gets slightly easier…. I think I’m now realizing that subsuming this ‘adult explorer’ identity gets easier over time. 

The young adolescent identity will never disappear when one returns home to their parents. However, it can become a smaller part of the experience when one decides to share what it’s like getting punched in the face while seeking one’s bliss. I think this trip was the first time I confided in my parents that I was extremely confused, tired, and had no idea what to do. It was scary thinking of sharing this. I had to think about it for a few days… but it led to a three-four hour conversation that didn’t necessarily lead to solutions but one where I may have invited them into my adult life. 

I still love the adolescent identity that trickles in when I get giddy tasting mom’s home-cooked meals. I’m sure my parents feel the same way when they visit my grandparents in South Korea. It really is on me to lessen the amount of time I default to the naive adolescent and bring home the exploring adult. It’s really the only way we will be able to evolve as a family.