Why did I leave the US

Do you want a big house?

Do you want a nice car?

Of course, you do!!

Today, I’m going to convince you that you don’t really want them

If you still do by the end of this email…

…dinner’s on me, I guess!

I don’t know who started this “thing”, but it goes like this:

Go to school, get a good job, start a family, have a nice house and a fancy car—ya know the classic American dream

Of course, these things are nice to have, but are they really what we want?

Do you really want them?

Before you answer it, there’s a catch

Nothing is free, and you have to pay for it either way.

There’s a story about an American businessman who meets a fisherman down in Mexico.

After talking to the fisherman, he asks why the fisherman doesn’t catch more fishes and sell them for profit.

The fisherman humbly replies that he has enough to feed his family, so now he wants to go home, take the family to the beach, and they can enjoy the rest of the day (maybe have a little wine with his wife too)

The businessman seems confused, not understanding why the fisherman would say no to money (profit).

The businessman knows that this fisherman is wonderful at catching fish and can’t pass up on his skill, so he convinces the fisherman one more time.

“You know, with more profit from selling fishes, you can buy more boats, hire people to catch even more fishes.

After a few years, you can have a successful fishing company, then you can sell it and become rich”

Fisherman goes, “How long is a few years?”

Businessman replies, “About 20 years”

Fisherman replies, “So after 20 years I can make a crap ton of money, and then what?”

Businessman replies with a big smile on his face: “Well, you can do whatever since you’d be retired already. Maybe you can take your family to the beach and have some wine with your wife”

I don’t think the fisherman took the advice.

In hindsight, an easy option that everyone chooses is to work a little longer to make extra money.

“If I can just work this Saturday, I can make more money with overtime”

Remember when I said nothing is free.

By working “a little longer”, you are sacrificing your time—the time that you spend with your loved ones, to enjoy life, to actually live.

Just like the fisherman story, you can definitely work really hard to achieve some level of financial success.

But if your goal is to “relax on the beach with your family”, is it really worth it to spend so many years grinding and trying to reach your desired destination, and giving up a few years in the process?

Now, I’m not advocating for being lazy and just “live by the day and see how it goes”

I want to raise the awareness, so you can reevaluate and ponder on the real outcome of life that you want to end up with.

Not the outcome that society told us

Not the desires that were ingrained into our brains through social media and ad campaigns.

What is it that you really want?

It’s been almost a year since I left the US and moved to Vietnam

Yup, I moved from a 1st world country to a “developing” country

And for context, I’ve been living and breathing the American dream for the past 10 years.

I wanted to become a US citizen and live in the US forever.

I’ve been working really hard, grinding my butt off with hope that I will have a successful career, I will make enough money to buy a big house, drive my favorite car (Subaru WRX STI), and of course live in the US forever.

And 10 years later, when the opportunity was presented to me, I rejected it — my younger self would think I’m crazy

2 years ago, I soon realized that the classic American dream isn’t what I want.

I don’t want an America-sized house. A small one would do

I couldn't care less about owning a car— in fact, I hate owning a car

What I want is to have enough money to do whatever the f*** I want, with whoever I want, and whenever I want.

And that is possible anywhere in the world, so I decided to move back to my root, Vietnam

Here in Vietnam, food is so good that your mom secret ingredient (salt & pepper) is an insult to the world of culinary 😂 

Anyway, I hope you experience a wake-up call like I did, and gain true clarity on the life that you want to end up with.

That’s all for this week

Later ✌️ 

Justin Nguyen

(don’t read the p.s)

p.s: I miss the US sometimes, I miss the convenience of living in a consumerism society, where you can buy whatever whenever you want lol (sounds like I only miss Mr. Bezos haha)

p.p.s: Ya know my goal is to do whatever the f*** I want, yeah?

Currently, I’m dabbling with making short videos and stuff.

It’s been really fun and I love the process.

Yesterday I made a video about the above fisherman story, if you want to watch it comes to life (through my low budget “animation” skill)
You can check it out here → Link