In Spite of It All

By Lan Nguyen, LCSW

When it comes to success, I have always been somewhat unconventional, a glaring snag in society’s sweater. For starters, there is nothing remotely conventionally successful about being a Jesus-following, single mom, professional therapist with a failed marriage. Also, feel free to factor in Asian shame and Catholic guilt, and I am hardly the hallmark of a Model Minority success story. (If you disagree, go ask my parents.)

For me, success became less about a definitive marker in society and more about a state of being. Making six-figures? Married with kids? Done and done. But even when I had hit those American Dream milestones, I was insatiable. I kept thinking to myself, “When would enough truly be enough?” It wouldn’t⏤ well, at least not according to society’s distorted, hyperbolic standards.

So, for me, I decided that success had to stop being a destination and a culmination of my life’s purpose and start being a natural byproduct of how I carry myself. Today, success is equivalent to my peace, my fulfillment, and the depth and fullness of my relationships. It is my unbothered commitment to experiencing joy in spite of it all.

In fact, my greatest success looks, to some, like my biggest failure: leaving a functional but abusive marriage has been, by far, my biggest and best win to date. To the outside, we were normal, dutiful, and “reliable servants” within our faith community; he was in leadership, and I was a try-hard, supportive wife. We had just “leveled up” with a beautiful child. But behind closed doors, a dubious reality persisted━ one that had me questioning my worth, sanity, and my existence. Even as emotionally battered as I was, I owed it to my son to give him a fighting chance at a safe life. In what felt like a secret rescue mission, we got away. We escaped! With every day of peace I put under my belt, I gain confidence that this particular win will have the most beautiful ripple effect on my son’s future. 

I refused to be hemmed in by a rebellious choice I made at twenty-four. Instead, I choose to surgically remove a poor role model from my son’s life. I want my son to learn a heavy, necessary lesson about worthiness: we deserve the freedom to pivot on our path, to allow light in and usher darkness out. My marriage vows were not a green light for abuse. (And yes, emotional abuse is still abuse.) My conscience would not allow my son to serve a life sentence for a mistake I made 10 years ago.

Ironically, when I started centering my own needs, I finally became my own version of success. It took my wandering and envious eyes off of everyone else's shiny, plastic highlight reels. To those who wanted to keep me small, my success sounds “meaner” or louder than the doormat-version of me they expected. For a recovering codependent and perfectionist, success looks like becoming more disagreeable. 

Success in life is getting to a place where I can see comparison for what it really is: the ex who overpromised yet underdelivered. Heck, comparison was never reliable to begin with so don’t start believing the lies now. Am I too much? Fine. Let them go and find less. And that approach to life has been so liberating. That liberation is the only metric of success I care about anymore.

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