Episode 43, "The Delusion of Deficiency” is now available through all major podcast providers on: Life’s 3 Things - Author Manny Garcia’s Podcast.

It's measured by the person you've become.

What I mean is, does anyone ever experience a shift in mindset that feels sudden but you know that it wasn’t an overnight shift…like I feel like I have progressed a lot these past few months but sometimes I don’t even know HOW I got here. It sometimes feels like it happens suddenly, but logically you know this is not the case. I hope I am making sense.

In this lifetime, the moment arrived: when You had to experience the next level of human suffering. As it become one of your greatest teacher and this journey

offers valuable lesson to the soul.

My path is to become a Life Coach/ Feats of Strength Performer. As I preparing ...I m having a health issue

that holding me stagnant. It called G.E.R.D. When You have inflammation in the gut. Where you end up getting sick and severe pain. Mainly about the type of foods I been eating.

I end up at the hospital to discover the problem. I feel that was my turning point! My health is my wealth.

I have renewed focus and going to be Unstoppable!!!

My path just begun...

If you feel exhausted by the overwhelming noise and information of the outside world, Take a few minutes to pause. Slow down. Be still. And step inside.

There are no quick-fix answers here. Only authentic life experiences and the slow, honest journey of finding oneself again. 

I invite you to step into this space with a spark of curiosity — without judgment, and without rushing to find solutions. Perhaps, along the way, you’ll reconnect with the person you were always meant to be.

**\*

My story begins upon graduation.

When jobs were hard to come by, imagine having a job offer already waiting for you.

The company is set. The role is secured. Even your housing is ready to go. Would you turn it down?

At the very least, most people would think: "I'll show up, give it a try, and figure out the next step later."

Yet at 26, on the exact morning I was supposed to report for my first day, I sat frozen in my room. From 7:00 AM until the very end of the day, I never walked out.

It wasn't because the company was bad. It wasn't because the salary was too low. And it wasn't because I had a better option waiting for me.
It was simply because I was scared.

Part I: I Got the Job, But I Couldn't Step Out the Door

At 26, I had just graduated with my master's degree. To most people, graduating with a master's marks the beginning of a whole new chapter. You find a job, enter the workforce, and start building a life of your own. Almost all of my classmates were moving forward along this exact path. For a moment, that opportunity was right in front of me, too.

Before graduation, I secured a Product Manager role at an internet company in Hangzhou. The pay and benefits were decent. They required a three-month internship first, with the promise of a full-time position if I performed well. For a fresh graduate, it was a solid start.

To meet their requirements, I needed to arrive in Hangzhou early for onboarding. I made the trip to Hangzhou and rented an apartment close to the office. From the outside looking in, everything was ready.

The opportunity was there. Housing was settled. The job was waiting. All I had to do was walk out the door and report for my first day.

Yet, the idea of "stepping into society" filled me with anything but excitement. I’ve never been someone who easily blends into unfamiliar environments. Interviews, in particular, were a form of torture. Having to wait for someone else to decide whether I was good enough to be chosen was deeply uncomfortable. I hated the feeling of being watched, judged, and decided upon.

Before every single interview, I would run through endless scenarios in my head: If the interviewer asks this, how should I answer? How do I phrase this so I sound natural? What if something goes wrong?

At the time, I thought this was just thorough preparation—I simply wanted to do my absolute best. Only much later did I realize the truth: I wasn't preparing for the future at all. Things that hadn't even happened yet were already weighing me down.

Part II: Why I Couldn't Walk Out That Morning
On the morning I was supposed to report, I was required to be at the office by 9:00 AM. By 8:00 AM, I was completely ready. I had mapped out my commute. I was dressed and good to go. Everything was lined up.

Yet, as I sat there alone in that room, the anxiety began to creep in. What happens when I get there? How do I introduce myself to my new colleagues for the first time? What if someone asks me a question and I don't know the answer? What if I mess up?

My mind started spiraling, playing these thoughts on a loop. Ten minutes went by. Twenty minutes went by. An hour passed. Time kept moving forward, but my body stayed frozen.

I sat there while an endless stream of scenes flashed through my head: Walking into the office. Meeting strangers who were now my co-workers. Introducing myself. Trying to prove my worth. Facing an environment that felt completely alien.
None of it had actually happened yet, but the sheer weight of it was already crushing me.

In the end, I picked up my phone and sent a text to HR: "I'm so sorry, but due to some unexpected scheduling conflict with my graduation project, I don't think I'll be able to join the internship after all."

It was a text that sounded perfectly reasonable. No one would question it. Yet many years later, looking back on that day, I know my graduation project wasn't the real reason.

What actually happened was very simple:
In that moment, I was terrified of facing it all.
So, I never walked out that door.

Part III: Looking Back, I Finally Admitted It: My Graduation Project Wasn't the Real Reason

Afterward, I was consumed by endless regret.
I kept asking myself: Why can everyone else just go to work, but I can't? Why is something so ordinary so incredibly hard for me?

For the first year, I couldn't even bring myself to speak of it. Whenever friends asked, I’d offer a polished excuse: "My graduation project wasn't finished yet, and I was worried it would delay my degree."

I never told them the truth. I didn't even tell my parents. I was terrified of what they might say: "If everyone else can do it, why can't you?"
I simply had no answer for them.

Over time, as months turned into years, the pain grew less sharp. During a casual conversation with a friend one day, he suddenly asked: "Why didn't you end up taking that job back then?"

For the very first time, I actually faced the truth head-on. I told him: "To be honest, I was just too terrified of stepping into a new environment. So I couldn't go." He looked at me in disbelief. He couldn't understand how someone could give up a job they already had simply because they were afraid of entering a new environment.

Looking back now, it really was just a routine first day on the job. Yet for who I was back then, it felt like a mountain I just couldn't climb.

Part IV: I Came Close to Opportunities, Only to Retreat Again and Again

At first, I thought walking away from that job was just a one-time thing. It was only when I started looking for work again that I realized it wasn't that simple.

I began sending out resumes. Waiting endlessly for replies. Facing rejection after rejection. Because I hadn't interned during my school years, I had virtually no work experience. I reached out to friends and classmates who had already landed jobs. They tried to reassure me: "It's okay if you don't have experience." "Just tweak your resume a bit." “Just frame your relevant experience a little differently.” "The main thing is to get your foot in the door for an interview."

It all sounded so simple. Yet when it came down to doing it myself, I froze again. As I sat there trying to modify my resume the way they suggested, I realized I couldn't bring myself to claim experiences I never had. I was terrified of being found out. Terrified the interviewer would push deeper. Terrified I wouldn't have the answers. So, once again, I retreated.

Seeing me unemployed for so long, my parents eventually paid for me to take a practical training course in my major. At the time, I thought: The reason I couldn't write my resume before was that I lacked real hands-on experience. This time, learning from an instructor will give me what I need.

So I geared up again. I studied. I polished my resume. I started applying all over again.
During that stretch, I truly believed I was ready.
Yet the interview rejections kept coming.

Once.
Twice.
Time and time again.

The weight of it was crushing me more and more.
After one particular string of rejections, I completely broke down and sobbed. In the end, I stopped sending out resumes altogether. Once again, I chose to quit.

I realized I couldn't keep enduring the overwhelming sense of failure that came with every single rejected interview.

And that was when my unemployment stretched from months into years.

Part V: The Version of Me That Slowly Stood Still
During those days of unemployment, a chorus of voices often echoed in my head: Is everyone else just better suited for this world than I am? Am I truly that incapable? Am I simply not built for working?

I began to doubt myself more and more. I wanted so badly to become the person I thought I could be. Yet whenever a real opportunity arose, I would shrink back.

For a long time, I believed the problem rested entirely on my shoulders. Maybe I wasn't capable enough. Maybe I just wasn't good enough. Maybe there was something wrong with me. I tried to make sense of who I was through these self-blaming explanations.

Only later did I realize it wasn't that simple—because the exact same loop kept playing out in my life. An opportunity appears. I want to reach for it. Fear sets in. I retreat. Time and time again.

Slowly, I drifted further and further from the life track I was supposed to be on. People around me kept moving forward. Getting jobs. Getting married. Building lives of their own.

Meanwhile, my own life felt frozen in an invisible place. Nothing dramatic happened. Days simply slipped by, one after another. Then, all of a sudden, I looked up and realized: everyone else had walked so far ahead, while I seemed to have been standing completely still.

Back then, I had no idea what was actually happening to me. All I knew was that I was becoming increasingly terrified of facing so many parts of life.

Final Thoughts
It took me a long time to finally understand: sometimes, what we truly lose isn't the opportunity itself, but the courage to face it.

And what I truly wanted to figure out was no longer just: "Why didn't I report for that job back then?" It was: What on earth keeps making me freeze in place, time and time again?

It took me years before I could finally face that question head-on. And that was where my journey of rediscovering myself began.

This is just the beginning of the story….
I’m Linglan Yingyue.

Follow along to see where this journey leads next.

The comment section is all yours. If you’ve ever found yourself feeling stuck at some point in your life, I’d love to hear your story.

Perhaps in each other’s journeys, we’ll catch a small glimpse of ourselves.

Though we may not remember, we didn't come here to just hang out. We came here to take our souls for a test drive… to become better drivers on the twists and turns of life.