If your life looks great on paper (and that's as far as it goes)...

I've been following the blueprint that my parents laid out for me for decades.

You know the drill: go to school, get good grades, get into a top-tier university, major in the right (most lucrative) discipline, network, graduate, build a career, start a family, make a ton of money, retire, die.

Excuse me as my once and future life flashes before my eyes.

What I tried (that didn’t work out all that well)

Growing up, I had many interests and hobbies ranging from music to martial arts to dance.

I loved every moment sharing the stage and performing with others. It lead to a double life of pursuing academic achievement and the well-rounded image that college applications demanded. By day, I was a model student. By night, I honed my talents through practice, rehearsals, or sparring rounds. They gave me perspective — that there was more to life than the boiler plate of success I was following.

But not enough to make me take the exit ramp.

It wasn't until I was laid off of my dream job to realize that I was delaying the inevitable. Standing there in the parking lot with everything that had only moments before resided in my cubicle, I felt…numb. I couldn't believe that it happened. It forced me to realize three hard truths:

1. The world wasn't fair.

2. Working hard wasn’t the ultimate metric in life.

3. Everything wouldn’t simply fall into place no matter how diligent or helpful I was.

I didn't know the game as well as I thought.

That LinkedIn profile I had worked so hard to polish? It listed everything that I'd accomplished in life professionally. From the degrees to the jobs across my five year career, I had built quite a name for myself…

It looked absurdly foreign.

So I started looking around for something different.

Finding my voice

My first attempt was actually back in 2016 on LinkedIn. I started writing articles in an attempt to be more visible to potential employers. I networked for leads. I got a taste for content creation. I gained hundreds of followers and one viral post. After a few months of side gigs and contract work, it all paid off. I landed my next job…and shelved all my progress.

It was years before I would circle back to writing. It would take another few years to realize the obvious…

Who you are is not your job or your degree.

As a technical introvert, you've probably benefited greatly from the system while living beneath the radar. But you know something always feels…off. You question why others go about their lives, oblivious to the full picture of what’s happening. You're doing fine, but you're aware that there's more to the game…that what you thought was the sky was actually a large, painted wall.

You live within your perceived limits, but you aspire to push past them. You enjoy owning your knowledge and expertise, sharing your thoughts and interests in ways that are profound yet accessible. To kindred spirits, you are articulate, witty, deep. Outside of your circle, you are quiet, reserved.

You want to leave a dent in the universe and see the challenge of the times.

How did we get here?

You know what they say about the road to Hell.

Society always starts with the intent of serving its members by providing goods, services, structures meant to nurture and support everyone who sacrifices a bit of their autonomy for the community.

Success has its own prison, though. Over time, people build gilded cages because they want more safety, better security, and quality subsistence. It's in our nature to want these things immediately and permanently. Once secured, we lose the motivation to move forward. The truth of that isn't lost on the system or those who regulate it.

Gradually, it stratifies into something that takes on a life of its own.

Those at the top, whether by chance or industry, start to bend the framework to benefit them. At first, it’s just enough to widen the wealth gap without anyone noticing. Then, they do it again. And again. And again. Each time emboldened by the lack of awareness of what was happening. The metrics become the purpose. The numbers keep increasing. The wealth keeps growing. All the while, everyone else relying on the infrastructure remains ignorant.

Until it’s too late.

Suddenly, participants are the ones serving the system. They become the resource, the commodity, the product. They, you, we become trapped on paper. We let the external prizes become the aspirations, the awards, the accolades. The more we fill our social media accounts, the less accomplished we feel. Our peers, our classmates, our friends…they become “the competition”.

We have become trained animals, anchoring ourselves to the massive machine that now only serves itself at our expense — an extractive construct fueled by our industry.

What’s the play then?

I'm starting my fourth year of writing across the internet.

In the past year alone, I've written over 200,000 words across four platforms, one of which I shut down. It was no small decision, but I'm glad I did it. It didn't align with my values, and it left a very bad taste in my mouth. That was the beginning of my realization of what I truly want to write about:

• Clear thinking - seeing the bigger picture of society and how it really works, and has operated for decades.

• Anchored writing - words that are authentic to my experience as a 9-5 parent, an Asian American, and a person with a well-rounded education.

• Digital footprinting - creating content in the form of a newsletter, articles, and more to articulate my thoughts and ideas.

“Digitally Decoupled” is where I take these three pillars and apply them to build a solid foundation based in identity — expanding to critical thinking, self-mastery, and digital presence — creating a digital life that is centered around you, not the other way around. It’s about defining you without social ascriptions.

I write to share systems and tools to help on this journey.

It’s about stepping back from the extractive social construct, seeing it for what it is without falling into nihilism, building something that represents you in the digital realm. It’s about learning the unwritten rules — freedom within the system, acknowledging its flaws, and avoiding the depression that the realization brings.

Here’s the starting point (if you choose to begin)

Who are you when you are alone?

At the core, you are your values — the ones you choose, not what society dictates.

In this first 90-day sprint, I’m going to write mainly about how to expand your self-awareness. You are going to reclaim the “you” that is unassailable and non-negotiable from the system. This is how you start to become a digitally decoupled individual.

To start unravelling this ball of yarn, do an audit of your identity.

• Your job

• Your elevator pitch

• Nicknames or labels from family and friends

For each of these for points, figure out two things:

1. Where they came from.

2. What does and doesn’t feel right.

You’re going to tease these apart like owl pellets as we move forward. Time to start debugging and rebuilding your sense of self apart from the externals. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, this can get intense.

Those of you who have been reading my work know that I started by mining my mind for months before making progress. Once you start, it’s a lifelong process, but the benefits compound and affect every aspect of your life.

Even if it was just in your head, I hope you did the exercise above. If you did, share a label that jumped out at you. Just one word is all you need. The rest of the story grows from there…

Also, I’m laying the groundwork for a small community focused around sharing this journey —one that build a foundation, resistant to external influence, that has the potential to grow into a resilient digital presence.

Interested in joining? Check it out here. (I will link to the Skool community here.)