@bystephni
01
in progress
The letters
The origin story, then a weekly rhythm on Substack — reflections on what's working (or not), personal finance, and life in Shanghai.
the long way here
May 2017. I graduated from my master’s program with $200K in student loan debt and felt nothing but excitement.
I was a fresh-faced 24-year-old starting a $125K anesthesia career in the world’s largest medical complex: the Texas Medical Center. I wasn’t scared of debt because I had a plan. I became obsessed with personal finance, picked up extra shifts, and spent the next four years focused on one thing: paying it all off.
On September 3, 2021, I made my last student loan payment. I thought I’d feel free, but instead, I felt hollow. The goal that had structured my life for the last four years was gone, and the question I’d been avoiding finally caught up to me: what am I actually living this life for?
The truth is, that question had been waiting for me since my grandfather passed away in 2018. Because, despite the good job, the good salary, I felt empty. And instead of facing it, I buried it under more work, more debt payments, and more distractions. But once the debt was gone, there was nowhere left to hide.
On paper, my life looked great. My salary kept climbing—almost absurdly—and walking away made less sense every year. I tried different side hustles and even attempted to learn coding and digital marketing, but nothing felt reasonable enough to leave behind what I already had.
So I stayed… and slowly, I started to feel stuck—stuck in anesthesia, stuck in Houston, stuck in a situation that kept me far from family.
Maybe you know that feeling, the one where you're not exactly unhappy. You have a respectable job, a good salary, and an amazing life on paper—but underneath it all, you feel empty. And you’re quietly suffocating, waiting for the day you finally fall in love with the life that you’re so blessed to have.
What my grandfather’s passing taught me is that life is more than work, making money, and buying the things I want. And as my internal conflict regarding money, comfort, and what I wanted grew, I realized I wasn’t just pursuing financial security, I was worshiping it. I can’t deny—money has given me so many opportunities that I’ll always be grateful for, but somewhere along the way, I let the pursuit of it scare me out of taking real, meaningful action.
So in February 2025, I finally did what nobody expected: I left anesthesia and moved to Shanghai to study Mandarin.
Six months became a year, and a year became 16 months.
And while I made some of my best memories in Shanghai, I came back—not because Shanghai failed, but because I realized the real question was never Shanghai or the US; it was whether I could build a life I want.
Today I’m back in anesthesia, not because it’s the “right” choice. I’m back because I realized some dreams require patience, and it’s okay to not immediately get what you want. So instead of wallowing in the I-wish-I-could-have’s, I’m working on building out the dream: writing, digital products, and small experiments that might one day give me some clarity on what I really want—and the truth is, I don’t quite know what that is yet.
But ultimately, what I know is this: I want to find out what I’m capable of when I stop making decisions out of fear. I want to build something that’s mine. And I want to do it in public because I wish someone had shown me sooner that it’s okay to question the path you’re on and that courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s acting in spite of it.
So this is me figuring it out.
What would you do if you weren't afraid of taking that next step?