Stages of Life

I touched ground in PDX on May 27^th, 2010. That means I’ve officially been here for twelve whole months. If that sounds familiar it’s because I started the “I’ve been here for 6 months” post with the same sentence. Congrats on noticing! This post may or may not be similar.

Anyways, I recently decided that a year is a good unit of time to label as a stage, so I labeled my last year as: the stage Ken goes off into the wilderness to pray/think/meditate/write.

The last four years of my life I was in college, so I was basically surrounded with people non-stop. Going from roommates, to classes, to the dining hall, to the study lounge, to track practice, even as an introvert I couldn’t avoid being with people all the time.

The biggest difference in my life since then is that it’s a lot more solitary. Since I didn’t know anyone living in Portland, I chose to live in a studio. On top of that, I thought I would save some money and live sans TV and internet. And surprisingly, or maybe not, the alone time has been life-changing.

With no roommates, constant community, or distractions like ESPN or gmail chat I’ve had a lot more time to analyze my life to an unnecessary level, and read more books than ever before.

Sidenote: here are the top 5 books I’ve read in the last 12 months in the order I’d suggest them:

1) The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – Super heart-warming and inspiring, you could read it in a day.

2) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie – A novel written from the perspective of a teenager growing up on the reservation but going to a white school.

3) Bird by Bird by Anne Lammott – Readable book about writing and being honest with yourself.

4) The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons – Absolutely hilarious, breaks down the history of the NBA, would be #1 by a moonshot but it’s about 800 pgs long.

5) The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown – Self-help/addiction recovery book about accepting your flaws.

But of course, the practical question: has all that alone time really changed anything?

I think my set of beliefs is about the same as it’s ever been in my adult life. Some mix of: serve people, follow your dreams, relationships are the point of life, and work hard. I would say the biggest intangible I’ve developed is the ability to be honest with myself and allow myself to be guided by my internal GPS.

I’ve used this newfound ability to debunk old life goals I had for myself, be the next Paul Farmer (global health icon), and replaced them with new ones, be the next Atul Gawande (surgeon and NYT best-selling author) or Siddhartha Mukherjee (physcian-scientist and Pulitzer Prize winner). I decided this based on a key realization: my new favorite stress-relieving activity, showering, is hard to come by in a doctors-without-borders setting.

Sidenote: I thought my all-time favorite showering setting would be post-practice locker room showering with ten other distance runners, but I’ve actually taken a liking to the peace of showering by myself.

I’ve also used this newfound ability to change how I behave now. I’ve learned that I don’t need to transform myself into a socialite to cultivate community. I can be the same awkward introvert I’ve always been and still contribute in my own niche way.

So I guess what I’ve learned can be summed up as: you do what you can.

Top 3 predictions for next stage of life:

1) Ken moves to Texas, buys a Texas flag, loves irrationally talking about how awesome Texas is

2) Ken moves to California, learns to surf, becomes a beach bum/scientist

3) Ken changes his mind about life, again

from ken

Are you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com