Back on track!

It took a while to get myself sorted out and my head straight, but my 100 day rejection challenge is back on track!

 

I admit, going into the rejection challenge, I wasn’t as prepared as I should be, mainly on a personal level. Now that I’ve normalized my sleep and exercise, and have put on 10 pounds, let’s roll!

So Terry, where's the updates?

First of all, apologies, apologies! I know I got some following on my blog now and some people are wondering what is going on now that I haven’t updated my blog for a week.

HAS TERRY GIVEN UP?

IS TERRY DEPRESSED AGAIN?

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE???

The answer to those questions are: No, no and 42. Respectively of course.

We are creatures made to evolve and adapt, and 20 days into my rejection challenge, it is time for me to evolve this challenge as well!

There are two main objectives in this project: to get myself more socially confident, and to fundraise and raise awareness for depression. I can say with a degree of certainty that so far, I have successfully generated quite a bit of interest, and the challenges themselves had been pretty helpful to me personally. Now that I am three weeks into my rejection challenge, I am beginning to get a feel for what is working and what is not, and I realized there are several issues I need to fix in order for this project to take off. The biggest issue is the lack of organization. I often find myself trying to think on the last minute for the daily challenges, and I often question and second guess myself the effectiveness and goal of doing these things.

Over the last several days, I temporarily suspended my rejection challenge to assess the direction I am going with this project (though I did do a challenge on my birthday on video to keep up the promise of a video a week…it’s coming out Sunday!) and decided to implement several changes when I reboot next Monday.

ONE: THEMED CHALLENGES

Starting next week, I will do challenges based on a theme indicated below. I will probably do 5 to 10 challenges per theme before moving on to the next theme. Before the start of each theme, I will do a write up to explain the purpose and the details of each theme. The themes are designed to make things more organized and interesting as well as help me in specific areas of social confidence. For each challenge, I will vlog right before and right after to talk about the thoughts and feelings and try to recap with more pictures and less words as promised previously. There will be a video for at least one challenge per theme.

Part 1: The Launch

The start of my rejection challenge where I did miscellaneous challenges to get a feel for this project. This part of the challenge is complete!

Part 2: The Pitch

During this part of the challenge, I will try to gather information and generate discussions regarding depression awareness, stigma, and my rejection challenge itself with people everywhere. This will not only help me grow confident in pitching for my own project, but help spread the word.

Possible challenges: The elevator fundraising challenge,

Part 3: Making Conversations

During this part of the challenge, I will try to get into conversations with various different people about various absurd topics in all kinds of settings. This is a good way for me to get myself comfortable in making and maintaining conversations with strangers. It will improve my communication skills and make me become more socially assertive.

Possible challenges:

Part 4: The Salesman

The ability to persuade others is an extremely important asset not only in the world of sales, but in life in general. Our ability to communicate persuasively is a skill that I severely lack. I will try to sell a variety of ideas and products to different people during this part of the challenge

Possible challenges: Getting funding for a business venture, selling condoms

Part 5: University Tour

It’s time to hit the road and travel a bit. Many of my old friends are studying for the summer and it’s a good time to catch up while doing some interesting challenges at different universities.

Possible challenges: Looking for free lodging, Offer to teach a lecture

Part 6: Dress Up!

During this part of the challenge, I will dress up in various ways and in costumes to look ridiculous and hilarious at the same time. I’d imagine I’ll be having a lot of fun with this, haha.

Possible Challenges: Dining at a restaurant in an onesie, trick or treating as Waldo

Part 7: Barhopping

As a guy who loves meeting new people, hearing stories and have fun, I’ve always been interested in the bar scene. However, due to my lack of social confidence, and what happened over the last several years, I never really took advantage of my legality. I will try to change that with this part of my challenge.

Possible Challenges: Getting Bartenders to teach me how to make drinks, getting people to buy me a free drink

Part 8: Picking up girls

Of course, it won’t be a rejection challenge if I don’t get rejected by girls. The goal here is to be real creative, because err, bitches love creativity ;D.

Once again, the goal here is to have fun with it, and not get attached to results, which we guys always tend to do when it comes to girls.

Possible Challenging: Using lame pickup lines, asking directly for numbers

Part 9: The Beach

The hope here is that I will have the beach body ready to hit the sands. ;D I will try a few bolder challenges on the beach and hopefully with a bunch of friends participating with me!

Possible Challenges: Asking people to rub sunscreen on me, join a beach valleyball game in progress

Part 10: The Finale

I will try to make the last few challenges grander and more personal.

Possible Challenges: Asking CP24 to forecast the weather, Asking R.A Dickey to teach me how to throw a knuckleball

TWO: FUNDRAISING AND MARKETING

The video and blog revenue will NOT be the only source of fundraising for this project. After several friends expressed interest to donate, I have decided to accept open donations from those willing to fundraise for this cause. I will set up a paypal account to accept online donations as well shortly. Although I will be even happier if you are willing to participate in a challenge with me, I appreciate any sort of help! 

I have scaled down the marketing after the release of my first video due to several reasons. I realized the quality of the video does not warrant the amount of interest I am trying to generate. It is obvious that I am only trying to get a feel for being on video at the moment, and it is rather uncomfortable than entertaining to watch me struggle on camera thus far. Too much publicity early on into this project is going to put unnecessary pressure and stress for me at this point. So I am planning to operate the challenges under a smaller spotlight until I feel more comfortable with more attention.

I will direct a video with a help of Derek and several friends in about a month to further explain the motivation and the goal of this project. That is when I plan to push for a bigger marketing campaign. For now though, the constant support of friends will do!

Once again, I will like to thank all of you for keeping me accountable over the last several weeks. I could have easily given up without you guys watching me, reading my blog! I promise I will not give up! For the sake of myself and everyone else!

Day 14: FREE HUGS! (Featuring Karen!)

I gotta admit, today was by far the most fun I had during any challenge I've done so far. The nerves got the best of me on day 8, but today was different. First time doing a challenge with a lovely friend by my side is certainly a plus.

 

 

 

Karen and her amazing selfie skillz

Parking our free hugs right at the busy intersection of Yonge and Dundas

I am not a good hugger. I can you tell you that, Karen can tell you that. So today, I guess not only will I learn how to take rejections, I will learn to get more comfortable with physical contacts.

I dared Karen to ask 10 people, including a mixed guy that she considers very attractive. And I'm supposed to ask 30 people. We parked ourselves right at Yonge and Dundas and things got started.

After we hugged, she really wanted a picture with us, cause of course I'm famous on the internet ;D

Karen claims that she gives the best hugs. But Evaine's face tells a different story here :P

She tried her best not to get blown away by the wind.

Two hours later, we got a countless number of hugs and we also got rejected a ton. At the end of it, I don't think either of us are much hurt by the rejections. Best hug of the day came from a huge black dude that clobbered us with a warm bear hug. I was honestly still nervous about asking asking girls I find attractive, and I'm planning to tackle that fear directly in the next challenge(I seemed to have no reservations with older people or guys in this challenge).

And Karen sorta completed her dare....well not really. The last person she hugged was a little three year old boy, and he happened to be mixed (evident by the White father and the Asian mother). I don't think that's what she meant by "a very attractive mixed guy", but I guess I'll let her slide. :)

Day 8: Proposing to people using a ring pop(Video!)

AND HERE IT IS, MY FIRST CHALLENGE ON VIDEO!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyVpdrV4_AU

A huge shoutout to Wendy once again for simply being awesome and sticking by me for the last 2 weeks, your help and support is just simply tremendous, oh did I mention she's the camerawoman? A BIG thank you to Derek for the shooting and the editing the video, he really did a sick job. CHECK HIS STUFF OUT ON YOUTUBE HERE:  And a special shout out to Sharon, your words of support over the last few weeks constantly reminded me to keep going whenever the thought of giving up crept in my mind.

And of course to everyone else who may have shared my videos, blog posts, gave my suggestions, told other people about what I'm doing . YOU GUYS ARE MY UNSUNG HEROES!

However, our work here is just about to get started.

What started as a self development project might be able to turn into something greater, and of course, being a guy full of ambitions, I will put forth the best possible effort in order for this to happen. For me to even start talking about depression, stigma and awareness, I need a steady following, and as much audience as possible.

This may include nagging every single one of my friends for the next few days to share this video, get other people to share this video and spread them words! This is the start of something big. I can feel it.

and some thoughts on being on camera:

Day 11: Borrowing $100 bucks off a stranger

I didn't get home til really late last night and had to do a challenge on the spot, so I decided to try this not-so-original rejection challenge. Once again, I'm not too proud of the fact that I cheated a little for this one. The challenges in general over the last few days have been lacklustre but I promise things will pick it up next week!

I waited at my condo hallways for a while until the elevator door finally opened. Out comes the security guard from my building and I did what I have to do.

"Hey man, can I borrow 100 dollars?"
"err excuse me?"
"I umm, really needed the money right now, can you give me 100 bucks?"
He hesitated a bit before explaining to me how he had 20 bucks on me, and how people generally don't carry 100 bucks on them. So I went on to ask him if he would have lend me 100 bucks if he had the money, and he smiled and didn't give me an answer. 

So why did I come home so late? Becuase it was video shooting day at Derek's yesterday! Going in, I knew I was gonna be alot better on camera and LO and behold! I was! The entire shooting took only 10 minutes as opposed to 2 hours on the pitch video. The editing was quite the pain though. I had to go through an hour of footages from my day 8 in my rejection challenge and putting together everything with the captions took quite a bit of time. Big props to Derek for spending hours with me yesterday in order to put together that video. It was really a sick job from him and you will see it in 2 days!

Like I've mentioned before, I do plan on doing some heavy marketing for this first video. I got 1.5 k from the pitch mainly from video shares on facebook, and I do plan to do an extra bit more marketing for this one.

I'm a big twitter noob. I do have a twitter account from years back but I have 4 followers! I know twitter marketing is such a good way to spread videos, but I got no clue on how to operate that thing. I shall refine my account a bit more after writing this post and take it from there. FOLLOW ME GUISEEEE!

https://twitter.com/youngweatherman

I am however, generally pretty keen on the interwebs(having wasted my youth dedicating to pointless shenanigans on it), so online marketing shouldn't be much of a problem for me personally. Optimism is in the air at the moment. I am expecting a 10k audience for this video and of course an increased following on this blog.

This of course means that I have to step it up content wise! AND STEP IT UP I WILL!

Over the next several weeks, I am expecting to do many of the challenges with friends. Of couse, we all know that we are that much more outgoing and confident when we are with people we know. I will also try to improve the quality of the blog...if there is a lack of a better way to say it. That means more pictures, more vlogs, brief but sharp, to the point writing.

Of course, with the video release, I am also expecting more ideas to flow to me. I am basicallly doing the challenges at this point based off ideas from my own head, but I expect that to change.

SO THINGS WILL ONLY GET BETTER FROM HERE! :)

Day 10: Finding a workout buddy

 I've carried the tag of being a short scrawny Asian kid almost my entire life. Though I've made some gains in the height department the last several years, I am still quite the twig.

On top of my 100 day rejection challenge, I also dedicated myself to a consistent workout program this summer. My issue has always been consistency. But now depression is a thing of the past. I have no excuses to not get my ass to the gym everyday.

Of course, by telling you guys about working out, I also hope you guys would keep me accountable for this as well. My blog is getting a consistent 200-300 page views a day and I have yet to make my first video! Having so many people just reading what I'm doing gives me the extra motivation, so thank you guys once again!

For today's challenge, I decided to find a workout buddy. However, not just anybody in the gym, I will approach the biggest muscle guy there! However, what happened today is a honest reminder that I have a long way to go in developing social confidence. I guess approaching the biggest guy in the gym is the equivalent of approaching the hottest girl in the bar. Today's challenge turned out to be the toughest one to date!

As you may have noticed, I am probably quite the heavyweight at the gym

The nerves began to appear even while I was still working out. Just thinking about what I was about to do made my stomach turn. I guess I am just really not confident and self-conscious when it comes to approaching bigger guys. I think this irrational fear stems all the way back to when I first began playing basketball. Always being the smallest guy on the court means that I am often the victim of ridicule, exclusion and bullying. I remember how I always wanted to be treated like an equal on the basketball court, but that didn't happen til...well... much later. (THANKS ALOT PUBERTY...YOU ARRIVED QUITE FASHIONABLY LATE ).

When I spotted this huge Asian dude with tats all over his arms, the nerves got worse. I ended up observing his workout routine and pretended to work out and stretch for twenty minutes. I learned a big lesson here too. The longer you hesitate and put it off, the worse it gets!

Oh yes, I also need to get better at ball. It's sad how this is the sport I've played since middle school yet I still suck

I ended up going upstairs to watch a game of basketball to calm myself down a bit. At that point, I made up my mind. I have to go through with this. No matter how bad of a shape I am mentally today, I will keep calm and carry...err get rejected I mean.

"LET'S DO THIS TERRY. THE GUY MAY BE DOUBLE MY SIZE, BUT NO, HE WILL NOT BEAT ME UP BECAUSE I ASKED HIM A QUESTION" *breathes

So I finally approached him while he was doing some bicep curls. He signaled for me to wait up when I went up to talk to him. When I finally got a chance to speak,my mind went blank and words just flowed out of my mouth .

"Hey, I saw you are pretty deezed up here, I'm wondering if you can be my workout buddy?"

He looked startled for a sec.

"I'm not exactly sure what you mean by workout buddy?"

I really wanted to leave at that point, but he asked me a question, now I have to explain things...and when I'm nervous, things just doesn't come out of my mouth right.

 "Like, ummm, we can go work out together at a time..and um stuff."

"I iunno man, I don't exactly have a fixed workout schedule."

He was the nicest guy. He went on to give me some advices on how to bulk up. But during the whole conversation, I just wanted to leave. Over the last ten days, I figured that a direct rejection was not the scariest thing, but to carry on with a conversation when you know you are full of shit. I am HORRIFIC at being articulate and confident when I'm in a position of vulnerability, and it is definitely something I need to continuously work on.

Today I'll be doing some shooting for the first video at Derek's. I hope I got much better on camera since that awkward pitch video. I guess we shall all find out soon. :)

Reminants of depression and advices for all!

I have a confession to make. Despite declaring myself fully recovered from depression, I still have some grounds in order to fully get my life back on track.
 
I am yet 100% normal and productive, but these are the slow and steady measurements I am taking in order to get there. A normal healthy Terry is someone that likes to be extremely productive, and I’d be the first to admit I still have a bit to go in order to get there. I would like to use this post to dedicate to those who are also currently on the recovery from depression. On top of the therapy and medication, these are the measures all of you should follow! Even if you don’t suffer from depression, there things you can do to pull yourself through a rough a patch in life or even improve your self-esteem and social confidence!
 
Sleep
 
I personally am currently working my ass off in order to get myself into a 12-8 sleeping schedule. My problem during the depression is oversleeping, and I used to sleep upwards to 16 to 20 hours while I was depressed. I still sleep more normal, but I am trying my best to cut my sleep down to 8. I am not there yet, but with the way things are going at the moment, I am optimistic!
 
This is something that we younger people tend to ignore, but establishing a regular sleep pattern is vital! Try your best to sleep a fair amount at a regular time MOST of the time.  This doesn’t mean you can’t go out and party on a Friday night, (and I would be the first to advocate partying in fine doses). But staying up every night on the interwebs watching certain things til 4 in the morning (you can interpret that however you wish) is definitely NOT the way to go.
 
Exercise
 
I’ve been talking about this over and over again, but yes, I am working out in attempts of bulking up. Being a twig almost my entire life is almost certainly the biggest contributing factor to my low-self esteem and social confidence.
 
If anything, I think if I stayed with my workout and reached my desired goal. This will probably help my self confidence even more so than even this rejection challenge.
 
So the take home message here is simple. GO TO THE GYM AND EXERCISE. If you are the scientific kind of person that likes science, you know that exercise boost up your dopamine, one of the hormones responsible for you to feel happy. The long term benefits are even more worthwhile. Being fit and healthy almost certainly helps your self esteem and social confidence.
 
Social Life
 
Get chor ass out and meet some awesome people. Go to that party that your friends invited you to even if you are feeling like a lazy bum. Okay, I am not condoning getting shitfaced every night and abusing certain illegal substances. But if you are young, GET OUT AND HAVE FUN. Just don’t be stupid and know your friggin limit. I trust most of you are smart enough to figure that out.
 
Depressed people tend to like to cut themselves off socially. While you are depressed, even if you have even a small GLIMPSE of the urge to go out with your friends, DO IT! I
 
Hygiene and Tidiness
 
I’d be the first to admit I am not a very tidy person, and I was quite a bit worse in this department when I was depressed. I lose stuff on a daily basis and navigating through my room is often like going through a war zone. Now that I am home with my parents for the summer, they are pretty much onto me everyday about this shit. I’d admit this is an issue I need to address personally and I will continue to organize myself better. But we are all creatures of habits, and unfortunately, being disorganized has been my habit for life thus far, but I am consciously aware of this problem and will try my best to get into a better habit
 
There are research done on this and a messy living space has a very negative psychological effect on you. This is probably more subconscious than anything. BUT DON’T ARGUE WITH SCIENCE!
 
And oh… when you go out, don’t be lazy and make yourself clean and beautiful. Trust me, it will make you confident and happier.
 
Goals!
 
This is an aspect of me that I am very proud of. I am a very goal oriented individual. The most encouraging sign over the last several months is gaining back my ability to set realistic goals for myself. This rejection challenge itself is probably the most daunting of these goals, but I was able to plan and execute on the finer details up to this point. You guys are probably unaware of the amount of work I have to do behind the scenes in order to get to even this point, especially since I’ve turned this into a fundraiser. Once again, I admit I haven’t been the most efficient and productive yet, and I am not 100% satisfied in my performance over the challenges so far, but I’m getting there!
 
My advice for anyone recovering from depression is to set small realistic goals. Over-ambition has always been my own problem and I had to keep myself in check quite often in the planning stages of this project in order to keep my goals and challenges realistic. Don’t expect yourself to get anywhere fast, work towards your small goals and you will get better and better.
 
In conclusion
 
I don’t know about you guys, but to me, these pointers aren’t JUST for those recovering from a mental disorder…these are the pointers to…well…live a good life.
 
“But Terry… this is all common sense, and you sound like a hypocrite…”
 
I know it is and I know I do. But sometimes certain common knowledge is common knowledge for a reason. THEY WORK! But I just want to re-emphasize how important these things are in recovering from depression and basically living a good life. Like I said, I’d be the first to admit I haven’t applied myself entirely to these pointers. But I’ve only started to take minor steps and I’ve already received drastic improvements. Take small steps! Don’t expect yourself to magically change overnight.
 
Challenge on Day 6
 
Shannon mentioned that I skipped on the updates for Day 6. I was planning to give a brief update on what exactly happened that day but never got a chance to.
 
I came home late that day but thought of an excellent rejection challenge idea. But unfortunately the timing and the location aren’t exactly the best. I called this one, the elevator fundraising challenge!
 
Basically, I stayed in the elevator of my apartment building, with a sign that says “reject me”. Whenever someone walked into the elevator, I tried to use the brief amount of time they are in the elevator to convince them to fundraise for my cause. This is a very good exercise for me to improve my verbal communication skills faced with pressure and most likely a rejection.
 
But after only seeing two middle aged Asian guys getting on the elevator in a span of 20 minutes, both of whom rejected me rather coldly. I decided to call it a night. Okay… I admit: though I technically got rejected, I cheated a little bit today and did not go all out. Not to be stereotypical, and this is probably not the most politically correct way to say things (okay, not as BAD as the CHING CHONG LING LONG GIRL especially since I will become a part of this demographic in the near future), but…
 
Middle Aged Asian people aren’t the best people to do this on, they aren’t the most responsive to this kind of a pitch and are very unlikely to give you support. (Sometimes, a rejection isn’t the scariest thing, but cold apathy towards your enthusiasm). But since this is such a brilliant idea, I will do this particular challenge as a bonus challenge on video in the near future at a different location, and when I become a bit more confident.