The Emotionally App

I’m imagining myself talking into a screen, like an astronaut doing space logs. And here is the script.

“Hello, Vee here, maker of the Emotionally App. This is day 1 of the mission. I just set up the logging system today, ” Pause, this doesn’t feel like much of an accomplishment. “Now that it’s up and running, I guess I will start logging my activities and progress of the project. Exciting times! Vee signing off “

Although this is my first log, it is not day 1 of the project. I’ve been having the idea for Emotionally for years. Like all “personal projects”, I’ve created the git repo for it years ago, only recently have I really started building it in a consistent-ish pace. It is still not where I spend the majority of my time, since I’m still with the startup I’ve been working with for the past year and half. But recently I’ve had a sit down with the founder, and voiced my intent to leave and build my own project. So I’m in a transition period until end of this year, but mentally, the work has already started.

Is it scary to start out on a new adventure all by myself? Not really, I’m an explorer, I love adventures! But gosh, the anxieties around money! I’m prepared to not make any income in the next 6 months at least. While I can “time-box” it, the anxieties don’t just go away.

However, this is not my first rodeo.

Back in 2020, during the covid period, the world had come to a halt. Coincidentally, I just finished my immigration process to the United States, I had no experience with the U.S. job market, I was burned out working in marketing, and just left the agency I built with a few friends back in China. So I decided to learn programming and data science.

For a whole year, I spent a few hours learning and writing code everyday, other than the holidays and a couple of times I went off the rail and played Maple Story for a few weeks. (We all have our weaknesses and guilty pleasures…) I wrote a Medium post about my data science learning journey. Of course, I wasn’t making any money during that time. I was incredibly lucky compare to a lot of others during Covid. My husband Dan has a movie-goer app called RunPee that tells you the best time to run and pee during the movie so you don’t miss the best scenes.

Don’t get me wrong, no one was going to the movies anymore of course, and RunPee’s income has come to a hard stop. We were financially struggling despite of some savings. If you’ve seen your savings account number getting smaller in digits without an income in sight, you know what I’m talking about. But again, luckily, we have a house with no mortgage. I was way more anxious than I am today. Back then, I managed it with distractions and the feeling of achievement from the regular learning of a new skill.

Soon after the world woke up from COVID, I was able to land a gig as a contractor software engineer. 6 months after that, I got a full-time job as a full-stack engineer for a climate-tech startup. A year after that job, I become the co-founder/CPO of an edtech startup. A year and half after that, I’m ready to start my own adventure and be in that self-inflicted uncomfortable, anxiety-inducing, insecure place again.

Why? Because I know if I put thoughts and effort in it, it’s only a matter of time. Because during the years since COVID, I’ve been learning on every job, and I will keep doing that. New skills, knowledge, for sure, but more importantly I’ve been learning more and more about myself.

I know I’m only scratching the surface on self-awareness. I can only see the door that exists in the distance. There’s a long journey ahead of me, this is the perfect time to start.