| Back in uni, I wanted to be a motorcycle designer. I managed to get into Honda Japan's internship program, which was essentially a 3 day long interview process. They give you some design specs on the first day and then lock you in a room with 10 other kids to draw motorcycles non stop for three days. 4 years of effort all came down to these three days, and I couldn't draw anything on the first day. My mind went blank. I stayed up all night to catch up on the drawing. That was my first failure. The lack of sleep meant I couldn't focus much during the second day. I pushed through and kept drawing. My next failure that night was to again forgo any sleep just to keep pushing out designs. On the third day, I was so exhausted by the lack of sleep, all the stress I piled on myself after all those years of expectations, My mind went numb during the morning's final prep. I was so tired, I didn't even know what the hell I was talking about during the final presentation, I interrupted the judges, I talked back, I argued. Naturally, I failed to progress to the next stage. That failure was the beginning of a series of failures over the next several years. I broke up with my fiancee to 'focus on my studies/career'. I couldn't get a product/industrial design job because I was so focused on motorcycles during my studies that I was fairly terrible at most other products. Desperate for any job, I become a web designer for a company on the other side of the country. The job lasted six months. I wasted money moving again to another city to search for better opportunities but found little. After another six months, I was out of savings and my family wouldn't lend me anymore money. I gave up, I contemplated suicide for a while, but finally moved back home to work for a relative. About a year in, I got together with a couple of friends to set up our own design agency. One of them, talked the big talk but spent all his time playing games. Tried to rush work out the day before the deadline. The other worked really hard but wasn't particularly talented and decided to go back to his old job. I went back to work for my relative again. After several years, found a small dev shop willing to take me in for not very much money. Spent two years there. I'm in a better place now but those six years were terrible and whenever I look back at it, I've always felt that first failure at Honda just set a lot of things in motion. I was burnt out and depressed but I wouldn't admit it, so it just kept getting worst. I have much gratitude for that relative who put up with me the whole time and gave me the opportunity, namely time to heal and a place to rest, to turn things around. |