Take a break from family duties to travel occasionally and rediscover your motivation to strive!

Shila

An 8-day trip to New York and Toronto let me take a short break from my usual routine.

My cousin had been assigned to work at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York for three years. My aunt, missing her daughter dearly and with her other children too busy, asked my husband to book plane tickets three months in advance for a three-month period. The tickets cost thirty-four thousand.

Just as I posted on my fan page “Wang Lili Shila – Ignite the Attraction of Your Dreams” about starting a live series for a new book, my husband casually asked, “Are you going to New York with your aunt at the end of May?” Coincidentally, the author of the book also lived in New York for quite some time, making it feel like an extra gift on this journey.

However, I didn’t decide right away because my mother-in-law needed to go to the hospital for a 20-minute treatment from Monday to Friday. I mentioned to my husband that we should go after that. But my family all encouraged me to go, considering it as accompanying my elderly aunt, and besides, my husband could stay to help look after my mother-in-law. I’m also grateful to my mother-in-law, husband, and other family members for taking turns looking after Gai, who’s almost two years old.

Parents always worry that their children might miss home-cooked food when abroad. My aunt packed a lot of vegetarian food in Styrofoam containers for my cousin and asked me to translate the labels into English at the airport to help customs officers understand quickly. But we were extremely lucky — the U.S. customs didn’t even open the packages for inspection. As a result, we arrived at the airport even earlier than my sister who was picking us up. (Apparently, she once waited for three hours for a friend to clear customs.)

I feel I’m quite suited to traveling because I barely experience jet lag: New York is 12 hours behind Taiwan. When I arrived, it was past 10 PM there, and after settling in, it was already midnight. After a few hours of sleep, my cousin had to go to a Federal Reserve class in the Wall Street area at 8 AM the next day, so my schedule could be easily adjusted. On the return trip, I took a flight that left New York at midnight and arrived back home in Taiwan at around 7:30 AM. After a quick shower, I could hop in my husband’s car to visit the kids at my in-laws’ before heading to work — no need for much extra sleep.

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Speaking of this trip, it reminded me a bit of my time nine years ago when I was an English instructor in Macau, leading students on a three-month study tour in Seattle: for example, an unexpected side trip to Canada popped up in the middle. Whether it was the previous U.S. West Coast stops of Seattle & Vancouver or this time’s U.S. East Coast additions of New York & Toronto, several parts of both trips involved taking boats of various sizes.

In fact, the expenses for this trip could also be seen as a kind of alternative government subsidy because every new mother is entitled to six months of childcare allowance. Last year, I took on the role of General Manager at another company, so I only received it for four months before it was interrupted. Later, I resigned due to difficulty adapting, but after returning to my own company, I learned that the remaining two months could be applied for retroactively.

But through a series of twists and turns, although I applied in January, the remaining two months of allowance were not disbursed until the end of May, just before our trip to the U.S. On the bright side, calculated at 60% of the labor insurance salary, it gave me an extra fifty thousand or so for travel expenses.

Buying a plane ticket and staying in Manhattan, where rent can be over seventy thousand a month, is actually quite a bargain. My cousin’s rental place was just right for one person, but the only bed was naturally for my aunt and her to share. So, for the first time in my life, I packed a sleeping bag in my luggage to use as a makeshift bed in New York — pretty upscale for a floor bed!(The only nights I had an actual bed were the two in Canada.)

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The place I stayed was just minutes away from Fifth Avenue. Although it’s a luxury shopping street, my mindset had shifted: perhaps due to embracing minimalism, I felt I already had enough and didn’t really need to buy anything. And even if I did, I’d save the budget for the kids.

But my scatterbrained self hadn’t accounted for the fact that the eight-day New York trip would overlap with the Dragon Boat Festival, which is also my child’s lunar birthday — three weeks earlier than the Gregorian calendar date. Some gifts I had bought were meant for his birthday celebration when we returned, so I had to ask my family to celebrate with him first. It was the first time I saw candles stuck on a rice dumpling.

Luckily, I had just bought a tiny birthday cake puzzle at the Museum of Modern Art in New York — said to be the world’s smallest. While they were celebrating his birthday at noon, I stayed up late piecing together a little cake, took a photo, and sent it to him. It was a small way to ease the guilt of not being there for his birthday. Truly, motherhood makes you resourceful. I had initially thought of bringing it back to Taiwan for my husband, who had put together Iron Man LEGO sets before, but to make it in time, I managed to finish the puzzle in less than half an hour despite never having done one before.

A child who had just turned two might not fully grasp the meaning of a birthday, but he was still infected by the festive atmosphere. Even without his mom there, he was very happy.

It was my first time in New York. Although it’s an English-speaking country I’m somewhat familiar with, there were still times I had to step out of my comfort zone, as I had to do a lot of solo traveling.

Sometimes I followed the suggestions in travel guides, other times I went with the flow and hopped on whatever transport took me wherever it went: taking the subway, train, or bus, I felt a bit of stress at first, not being familiar with the environment or the people.

But on the return trips, I felt more confident, like I had taken on another small personal challenge. For instance, I accidentally ventured as far as Connecticut, making a four-hour round trip to Yale University in one day. Throughout the trip, I also brought work-related books and didn’t forget to pick up gifts for my livestream fans. Just like facing various challenges at work, completing each one brought a sense of achievement.

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These eight days were spent playing hard during the day and, since it was work hours in Taiwan, dealing with emails online at night to switch mental gears. I could slightly relate to what Lester, the founder of a recent livestream series, described about finding “mental quiet” in Manhattan, New York.

I still think Taiwan is a treasure island, and I didn’t feel inclined to stay in New York. For example, the moment I arrived at the airport, the baggage carts cost six dollars each, there was litter all over Chinatown, subway cars weren’t as bright as those in Taiwan, and platforms for different directions weren’t interconnected... Moreover, with the sweet burden of having a child, after being away, I still wanted to get home sooner.

This trip also introduced me to several younger and middle-aged Chinese immigrants in New York who worked as drivers and tour guides, smoothly switching between Cantonese, Mandarin, and English. It made me realize I still have room to improve.

Deliberately putting myself in an unfamiliar environment is because life finds its own way forward.Once is an experience, twice becomes familiarity — you’ll gradually figure things out.

If you have the chance, I also encourage working moms or stay-at-home moms to “step away from family duties once in a while,” to embark on your own journey, whether it’s an external trip or an inner one.

You’ll discover that you might sometimes feel afraid, but then you’ll also find that you’re actually quite brave..

[Wang Lili Shila – Activate the Attraction of Your Dreams] Authorized reprint