Writing
My godfather, a former philosophy professor, has shared many pieces of wisdom with me. During one of our classic debates about God’s existence, he told me something I’ll never forget: that belief all boiled down to what the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard called a ‘leap of faith.’
Kierkegaard argued that faith was never the product of logic or evidence; rather, it demanded that an individual move beyond their subjective beliefs and take a leap into the unknown.
Today, the phrase ‘leap of faith’ extends far beyond theology. For example, I see it in immigration. My own parents took that leap when emigrating from their respective countries. My father, in particular, fled the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution in China that had destroyed his family. Coming to the U.S. without speaking English, he pursued a better life while enduring hardships that many of us, as American citizens, may never fully understand.
I don’t attribute my father’s struggles to mine at all, nor do I want to imply that my experiences are even tangential to his. However, this concept of taking a step into the unknown has been a theme that’s permeated throughout my life. Moving to USC from my small, Illinois hometown was one of those steps. And most recently, moving to San Francisco, a world-renowned technology hub, to join a biotech startup was a huge leap of faith that I needed to take.
I did try to rationalize moving to SF. But the truth is, the cons outweighed the pros on paper: a higher cost of living, a lower salary than my projected safety net from the medical device company I was at previously, a longer commute, and further away from my family, whom I miss dearly. But what outweighed all of those calculations were the possibilities.
The possibility of building something at a small company.
The possibility of accelerating my career by learning from an elite group of thinkers and SMEs within the biotech field.
The possibility of immersing myself in a city that thrives on innovation and boundary-pushing science.
So I took that leap.
Five months in, I can wholeheartedly say it was the right choice. In that short span, I’ve lived what feels like a dozen different lives: attending the American Association for Cancer Research conference in Chicago to engage with leaders shaping the future of drug therapy; collaborating with our lab and computational teams in Salt Lake City to align on product strategy; and navigating the steep learning curve of high-dimensional cytometry in a high-impact environment.
There have been late nights of pressure and moments of doubt, but also exponential growth. My leap of faith didn’t just push me beyond my comfort zone: it accelerated my learning, deepened my resilience, and reaffirmed Kierkegaard’s theory that stepping into the unknown might just yield the most meaningful rewards.
