Cathy Lu

Some people say life is a journey of finding yourself. I think life is about creating yourself -- what do you want to become? While, for me, I always want to be a painter. Now I am a User Experience designer at AOL Advertising so I get to create blueprints for websites, web applications, mobile interfaces all day long. That's pretty close to my aspiration I think, not mentioning I am still finding opportunities to paint whenever I get to.

Growing up in Beijing, I always thought I would live in a faraway place to experience a different culture and people and to understand something completely different from the world I lived in. Now I have lived in the states for over ten years, going to school, working, making friends with people from all over. I somehow realize the world is not as big a place as I used to think. People are not that different from each other after all.

When I traveled to Europe a few years ago on my own, I thought it was a bold thing to do but I had always wanted to travel there and none of my friends was available to travel with me at the time. It turned out to be one of the greatest trips I've ever had! Since then traveling alone just means a somewhat unpredictable way of experiencing the fun.

I try to take risks and try something new regularly. Yoga, cold showers in the morning, taking stairs whenever I can, volunteering, finding business ideas, going to see films, reading new books... Life may seem complicated from the surface but it can be simple: you are either committed to doing something, or you are not. That's how I think.