Dear Me, Future Psychologist. Yours truly, Dr. Y. Barry Chung

Dear Me, Future Psychologist. Yours truly, Dr. Y. Barry Chung: It’s time for the next installment of Dear me, future psychologist, a gradPSYCH Blog exclusive in which a prominent psychologist writes a letter to his/her 16-year-old self. We hope you enjoy these letters and glean some invaluable wisdom and guidance as you decide whether to enter graduate



An excerpt from his blog:

"Finally, it may be difficult to imagine your future when no one in your family tree has a college education, and you are growing up with very few resources. But looking back, I now understand that all of this experience is preparing you to be resilient, resourceful, independent, and self-motivated.  Your future achievements are built on the foundation of those who have paved your way, as well as your future mentors.  When in doubt of yourself, just trust others who see the potential in you, and say yes to them more often.  You will find out that you can do more than you thought you could."


I super relate with this blog post. As part of the minority (LGBT Community), a person who struggle for a long time to escape from poverty, and the only person who finished college (fortunately, even Master's degree), it's so hard to fight for your happiness when people around you keeps on telling you how to be someone. It's hard that you can't even eat 3 meals a day, to attend the school with all the materials and sufficient food, etc.


I am so happy that I surpassed those moments in my life (struggles in school, work, microaggressions, poverty, and other painful experiences). Indeed, nothing is permanent. You have to befriend those daily struggles for it only prepares you for something big in the future. Keep on moving forward, keep your head up, and keep your feet on the ground.

We can do this! <3

LOVE PSYCHOLOGY

We dive into the world of people. We are wounded, healers. People expect us to be in control of the situation and most of the time we adjust ourselves to them and to situations as always. It is difficult, right? Knowing that you are also human that needs some consideration, attention, and understanding.

It is even more difficult because, on your journey, you will experience some rough roads, you will encounter desolated places that need to be restored with your help and some even closed gates with big padlocks that you need to break and open. I know that on your journey, you will ask yourself multiple times if you are on the right path or will you even be successful in helping people in the future for you are not even successful in saving yourself because sometimes you feel lost and secluded in spite of various people that surround you.

Psychology field is not an easy task it takes patience, dedication, incessant development of skills, and above all, passion. I may not be able to calculate how difficult it is for you in struggling your academics, I may not be able to estimate how excruciating your experiences as students, but I just want you to know that there will be someone out there who experience almost the same thing, and I hope it somehow lessens the pain thinking that you are alone. I, too, as a teacher have sleepless nights and difficulties. I have my own struggles, we always have struggles... which made me think that all of us are somehow connected because of our experiences such as inner struggles and attaining some goals, etc.

But to alleviate more the struggle and difficulties, we have to think of the fulfilling outcomes of our actions as psychology majors. And what is the outcome?

We restore the heart of humanity. Can you imagine how amazing it is? We have the opportunity of restoring the heart of people because most of them forget where they came from, who they are, and what it is to be human. But we are here to help them. But to be able to do that I say, love our field despite all sleepless nights, stressful days, heartbreaks, mental breakdowns (?) and other painful experiences. Be passionate about understanding human behavior and view the world in a different perspective. It’s amazing. We need to sit in the gray areas of spectra to see the pulchritude of humans. We measure qualities of people by conceptualizing and operationalizing constructs, and transform those numbers into meaningful research or sometimes use other methods to captivate the real life experiences of amazing people…like what you just did in your course.

You already started your journey, and I hope you continue to move forward.

Be remarkable.