Simplex @ericjmlee - Tumblr Blog

Dear 25 year old me

It's weird that you started to write this because you found someone's tumblr and were inspired to write openly. There's a voyeur feeling when it comes to seeing other people's thoughts, and I guess I'm contributing to future me and anyone else who happens to read this.

It's okay if you're having a quarter-life crisis.

Every day is tough, and life is a process, not an end result.

I hope you have been able to trust in God more than ever.

Remember the time when you were hanging out with several friends going to Amy's Ice cream, and you mentioned you were 23, but then a friend called you out and said you were 24. And you stared in disbelief at the Google search result calculating your age to be 24 instead of 23. Wild.

Now you're 25. Even wilder. I hope you are more yourself and who God calls you to be.

Hopefully you have discovered more of what you care about, as well as what you want to do. At the time of writing this, you were going through a lot of trials and had some bearing but also had no idea where you were going.

I hope you are enjoying the season you're in - whether you're happily single, or committed in a relationship, or somehow surprisingly enough engaged (you crazy man).

I hope you are living in integrity, and trying to live daily towards becoming a man of God, even knowing how broken you are.

I hope your newsletter has grown to 500 or even 1000 people. As of writing, you are almost at 200 people, and rethinking your strategy on how you approach in sharing everything. Honestly, you're already way ahead of the game, and you need to relax and enjoy the moment.

I hope you have not lost your heart for God's specific mission. Secret Church by David Platt was a radical shift in your mindset at the time you went through it, and you were considering many big changes in your life, whether mindset or even how you pray, give, and go.

I hope you are praying more. But I also hope that you are relying on God's grace everyday. God means a lot to you.

I hope you are counting others more significant than yourself.

Are you working at RetailMeNot still? Did you get the job at Airtable, or even at another company that is more in line with your passions?

Are you satisfied in life? I hope that you know that whether you're satisfied with your job or not, that everything will be okay. There is an eternal life to consider, and so I hope you are living with eternity in mind.

Are you still crushing on that girl? You like people too easily man, and I'm amazed by how you've changed in the people you liked, or revisiting past feelings. I hope you were able to work through your baggage and recognize it's okay not being perfect or being at a certain level when considering dating. You are doing your best. I hope you fall in love with someone that loves God and lives in the same surrender as you strive to go for. Don't fret man.

Pray that prayer that Scott from that Lunchclub meeting said - Pray the 3 words boldly.

"Make it Obvious"

Anyways, I hope you're still doing Lunchclub, but I understand if you're meeting people outside now, or even being more focused with work.

I wonder if you're still meeting with Keith, your counselor. He's a great guy, and though it's not as specific as you hoped, he really listened and helped guide you through many different ups and downs in life.

I'm glad and proud of you Eric. 25 is a crazy age, and whether you're celebrating by yourself, with family, with friends, or a combination of those 3 (of course you'll be with yourself), I hope you know that God loves you and cares for you, and your identity is set in Him. Live in confidence, even though the truth is you're a very timid boy not certain of what the future as in store at all.

I have high hopes for you, and I want you to know that me, 24 year old guy who's trying to figure out financial structures and direction, and currently staying with family for a week before mom yeets into Taiwan and dad goes on couple month long trips, loves and appreciates you. You aren't perfect, but God's love and my love and care for you is still present. And I hope you can believe even when it's hard that you are worthy, and you have self-worth and you can make a difference in people's lives, whether it's 1 person or 100 people.

Keep it up man.

(also I wonder if your bet on Bitcoin and Ethereum paid off... those capital gain taxes though are kinda wild)

Anyways happy birthday man. Keep on fighting that fight and running that race (I almost wrote rice lol). You've grown a lot over the past several years, and I'm excited to see how you grow in the coming year!

#pearsonall #birthday

Dear 22 year old me…

Man, when you wrote this, it was 5 months past your birthday (5/12/2018). Also you completely forgot about your 21 year old post... Probably will forget about this post also :P

Anyways happy birthday dude! Feeling 22~! (man idk how you feel about this age. Probably feel old haha. You already felt old 21).

Tbh, you didn’t drink on your birthday. You only had a sip of champagne on New Years (and you hated it). And given the opportunity to drink later at an Empire + Aftershock hangout, you planned to, but chickened out and stuck to your conviction to not drink. *claps. I hope you continue to not drink, but if you do... drink responsibly.

I’m not sure if you’ll be a graduate by the time you read this at 22, but if you are, congrats. I think though you may not think of it as a big accomplishment, it is an accomplishment. You were going to fail CV (computer vision), and you were kind of in a low moment where you didn’t care about grades, and were more focused on building your own business as well as invest into friendships/relationships. You’d do everything you could this semester to not do school work. Even now, you’re procrastinating on studying for your AI exam (which I’m sure you passed).

Anyways, hope you don’t forget what this 21 year old season was all about - community and discipleship. That fall/winter before you turned 21 was rough. I’m glad that you were able to get through that mumbo jumbo of a time. Remember that God was the one who pulled you through, not yourself. Even now, every day, moment, and time is ordained by that God who loves you so deeply and wants to pour out His Grace for you.

You’re different right now than before. Before you were all about faith and did so much for God. You went on missions, you worked really hard for a relationship with Joanne, and you wrestled everyday to give all the Glory to God.

Now, you’re trying to be more in control.

It’s interesting seeing what’s happening through that process. You’ve taken huge steps since the breakup to be more mature, less insecure, and consistent. You’re trying to create healthy habits like working out and playing basketball (which you got good at... and hope you’re good at it, if not better).

You’re learning a lot, and honestly it’s a huge life stage upgrade.

But I hope you don’t forget the reasons for you life. This life is not your own. Remember the convictions God gave you for brothers in Christ. You got really close to some younger brothers (Bernard and Channnnn), and you worked to develop more on some other friendships you neglected before (Lewis). It definitely makes celibacy seem very possible (though deep down inside, you hope God brings someone for you). Hope you’re able to continue loving them. Maybe even discipling a younger brother.

You’re not really relying on God so much, right now, and I want to see change. You listen to sermons and podcasts while you workout, but you don’t pray much. Where is God in your life?

I don’t want to bash on you for what is my own fault though - it’s more of a preaching to myself.

You wrote several faith blog posts, and I hope you continue to, while also growing in your own faith, prayer life, devotions, as well as love for others.

You joined TC, and there’s a lot of responsibility in that. You may not feel completely prepared now, but I hope you learn from the experience. God is going to grow you in many ways, so be prepared. Sacrifice and learn to live no more for yourself, but for others. Don’t be so into money or your looks, even though routines are good. Make people and God’s love and Jesus your priority.

I hope you become a Jesus freak again.

Anyways, here’s the final point of the whole letter. Happy birthday you doofus. Hope you still stay true to yourself and remain goofy and loving. Improved yet still yourself. Ultimately, fuller in the love of God, with more prayer, better priorities, and some more life changes in God. Keep on living brother, and don’t give up the fight!

#pearsonall #birthday

Dear 21 year old me...

Happy birthday man! You’ve finally reached drinking age... I wonder if you’ve already had your first drink yet. Around the time you wrote this, you were actually in Taiwan, where the drinking age is below 21.... hope you made a smart decision...

Anyways, congrats on making it through another year! You were really worried about a lot of things at age 20... Internships, your heart condition, girls... lol. and you were pretty unmotivated at the end of the year. you spent most of your winter break watching korean dramas and that korean game show called ‘The Genius’. I wonder if they created a new season....

I hope you remember your 20th birthday. You weren’t expecting much. Dinner with some select friends, if not just dinner with your Pastor. He really trolled you. Man, I still can’t believe he got you, making you think that Jimmy had a serious situation, and hesitating mid-drive on not inviting Bryan. You were pretty sad initially thinking you weren’t able to hang out with the full gang of people who was there on your 19th birthday, especially Tyler. I know you were really grateful just to have any sort of celebration with friends, and you were looking forward to one-on-one time with Ptouf.

Man, you were so surprised when you saw everyone. Both high school and college friends there at Little Sichuan. If you don’t remember, I’m going to be pretty mad, but I’ll remind you just in case (since you’ve always had really suckish memory). There was Gina, Maria, Lizzy, Patrick, Matthew, Jesse, Bryan, Sharon, Jasmine, Tyler, Jackson, Caton, Ptouf, and Jimmy. I hope you’re still really good friends with them, if not even more so.

You were pretty blessed. That was probably, at time, the best birthday you’ve ever got to celebrate. That was the first birthday you really experienced, and especially a surprise one. You started shedding some tears, which was pretty funny, cause you’ve always wanted to cry when you were sad, but you ended up crying when you were filled with joy. (also you had allergies, so your eyes became really swollen and red). I hope you are spending your birthday with them (but not drinking too much, if at all).

I don’t know what experiences you’ve gone through from your 20th to 21st birthday.

Whether you got an internship or not, or managed to get the courage to communicate better with certain people (or stayed your goofy awkward self), or ever got to be a better programmer (in your standards), I hope you remained in God.

I hope that through it all you’ve thought a lot about God throughout this whole year. What your life means with/without Him. I hope you’ve been trying to glorify Him in everything you’ve done, and that you’ve at least attempted many times to read the Word and get closer to Him. I know it was hard, and will continue to be hard, but you deserve better than just surviving daily. You deserve to live. And there’s nothing better than living for God

Anyways, I don’t want to hold you up on your bday, or whatever day you read this. I’m not even sure if you’ll remember to read this letter to yourself. I trust God will watch over you though, no matter where you are. Hope for the best! God Bless, and Happy birthday 21 year old me :)

#pearsonall #birthday

#pearsonall

Fall 2016

This past semester was probably one of the roughest college semesters I ever had, both spiritually and academically... I knew I had it coming, but my mind wasn’t ready for it.

Going into the semester, I knew my faith was shaky. After spending the summer up in the North independently for an internship, I realized that maintaining faith while in the workplace was hard... With a 9-5 job, it’s easy to end the day off by going home and wanting to potato, rather than commuting for 1+hrs to someone’s house or spending Sunday morning on a train to NY for service.

Furthermore, I was taking some of the hardest courses for my major. Operating Systems was a class that took up about 40hrs a week (basically a full time job) while another class took about 10 hrs a week. With this, I literally had no time to do any extracurricular activities. Unfortunately, with the little free time I had, I used it to go to 24hr hackathons over the weekends or do interview preparation for the fall recruiting season.

One thing I wish I could’ve done this semester was spend more time in fellowship, growing with the spiritual community I had at college. During the weekdays, I couldn’t meet up for life group nights because I had to spend time with my project groups. As much as I wanted to sacrifice my time towards school, I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave behind/abandon the people I was working with. Group projects and solo projects are different. You can sacrifice your own project, but when it comes to other people’s time/grade, it’s a lot harder.

I would say that overall, i learned a lot from this semester.

I learned not to be prideful - I had interned over the summer, and I was a bit full of myself, even though I didn’t say it outright. With that mindset, I was not fully committed/serious over my preparation for the recruiting season. Out of the 40+ companies I applied to, and 20+ companies I interviewed at, I got rejected by all of them.... I can remember throughout those days, I cried out wondering why I was rejected. What qualifications was I missing? Looking back, I realized I had focused too much on my own strength, and possibly even took for granted what strength I thought I had. I never trusted in the strength God had to provide for me. I needed to rely more on God’s strength and sovereignty in everything I do.

I learned how much I missed spiritual community - Thought I didn’t grow spiritually, not being able to be with the community I saw rarely made me have a curated yearning that I couldn’t fully grasp throughout the semester. Now looking back, I can see what I felt I was missing, and I look forward to next semester where I’ll have more chances to be able to fellowship with my other brothers/sisters in Christ.

I learned that my insecurities can really bring me down, that tough times/trials can be confusing (and hard), and that I’m pretty weak/unmotivated in many aspects of my life.... but these verses really invigorate me...

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

“9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Though my heart may not always be aligned to what God’s word says, and I may fail continuously, I hope that in my hope to grow closer to God, wanting to glorify Him in everything I do, that I will be able to say those words with conviction. I am weak, but because of Christ’s grace, and my dependence on Him, I am strong.

Fall 2016, it was tough, but I learned a lot. Hopefully it won’t just be another fleeting experience, but I’ll take what God wanted to show me this semester into the new year. God Bless.

#pearsonall

Baptism Day

It’s 9 in the morning, and I’m standing in the laundry room, practicing my testimony while holding a water bottle upside down as a pretend mic and speaking to all the dryers and washers as if they were the church... Praise the Lord :)

I’d rather have the courage to do something and be ignored/not noticed than to not have the courage to do anything.

I failed my first exam in college.

It was faster than I expected it to happen. In fact I thought that I would never fail an exam. I thought that I could take the exam with just 2 days of studying, but I realized I was wrong. It’s kind of interestingly sad because the weekend before the exam, I was on a retreat for church. Spending spiritual time with God meant sacrificing my time on my studies. Even though it was an obvious fact, through first-hand experience It hit me that the sacrifice we have to give to God can really have a drastic impact on our lives.

I definitely could’ve planned out better on how to study before the retreat, and I could’ve taken more time to learn better rather than just to survive through the class. The past few days, I was struck by how vulnerable, helpless, and depressed I felt, and it was such a horrible time, but I realized that I was thinking too much into the moment. These trials and tribulations that I go through are only a small part of a bigger picture in life, and I need to continually remind myself every day and relearn what God did for us and remember the love that he gave us.

#pearsonall

I'm such an inconsiderate ignorant person at times...

#pearsonall

Living as a Christian isn’t about receiving, but giving

#pearsonall

i’m going to play a game with myself. Whenever I tell my friends to go sleep after midnight, I’ll go sleep (or to my bed) too within 5 mins.

#pearsonall

A rant to God and myself

Yesterday (because it’s 2 AM in the morning already), I was supposed to have small group with some of my friends at a teahouse. I arrived late with a friend of mine I worked out with, and we didn’t get to do it.

Later, I was asked to help out on my own grad banquet, which was unexpected, and the group of people were working diligently, but 5 mins later, a friend not from our church came to the teahouse, and everyone ended up splitting up and playing a card game called Spades.

How much focus do we have in our lives.

Why do I even bother to make a post about it? Is it because I sense some importance in the absence of God?

Matthew 7:1-5 ““Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

I am grateful for my helplessness at times in knowledge. I try to have humility as I ask more questions about things I do not know more openly, and it allows me to learn, or understand more of what people say.

Why is living for God so hard though?

Storms and trials. Nothing is easy.

Matthew 7:13-14

13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

It amazes me how much we don’t know. It also amazes me the fragility at times of what we do know. Most of all, the it amazes me at whether we attempt to seek the truth of something said, heard, or learned, or just satisfied in what it is.

Do we want to exist, or live?

And if we want to live, what should we live for?

I will admit, that I am truly glad for what God has done for me in my life these past few monthes. Whenever I was on Tumblr, I would post about how sad I was... a selfish pitying. But now, I feel like I’m talking and sharing and learning about God. I want to trust in Him more.

Even when I lost a big part of my yearning for God, his grace never fails, and he comes into my life through the people I know.

Glory to God. I hope I can say that one day, and truly mean it. Not any bit of the glory would go to me, or anyone else, but to God, and God alone.

#pearsonall #rant #God

Lord I feel so empty inside.

I’m vacationing, ate good food, working on a worship set for you God, but I feel empty. WHy.

Why... am i lonely. Am I not easily satisfied? Why am I so empty...

Maybe its lack of sleep, even though I get 8+ hours of sleep...

I’m so... sad God. Death is scary. And yet it shouldn’t because I know you God, but it’s still scary.

Old habits are hard to die, and so is a mindset...

I feel like I’m on the edge of depression, but at the same time, I might just be selfishly pitying myself

Storms.

Trials

I need you God.

#pearsonall

what am I supposed to do?

#pearsonall

Recently, I’ve been asking myself if having a Tumblr is good for God. I don’t know. I think it’s leaning towards no.

Honestly, even the posts where I am praying to God or ranting to/about God feel like they’re just for my own selfish gains.

What is right.

#pearsonall

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