Ocean Vuong
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
It's a privilege to be able to sacrifice.
I get to help them.
Because when I was growing up, you needed your tooth extracted?
Chaos.
You know, you had to call a loan shark.
We had to call a local Vietnamese grocery store to borrow money from God knows who.
Don't ask, don't tell, right?
And just to get like little things done.
So it was like the end of the world when those things happened.
And now I can, every emergency my family has, I can take care of.
And I'm proud of that.
And to me, if that's what I'm doing with my one life that I'm given, then I'm really, really proud of that.
And I think having the courage to break away from the social expectations of count and then realigning what counts for you.
It's hard work, though.
It took me 20 years.
This is still new to me.
This is a new feeling.
I don't want folks to have this understanding that I've always had this.
I'm developing it as we speak.
I think for me, you have a myth of yourself.