I'm feeling overwhelmed

Just a Little Loopy
Jul 14, 2025
3 min read

Updated: Sep 2, 2025

Before starting a business, I didn't expect it to be easy, but at the same time I also didn't expect it to be THIS HARD. Sometimes even lonely. In my case, it's in the literal sense lol as I don't know anybody who recently started a business.

Diversify, diversify, diversify

What the recent tech bubble burst taught me is to always diversify your income. Passive or active, at least have something for the rainy day. I'm extremely grateful for my current job but my worst fear is what if I suddenly get laid off? Therefore, diversify, diversify, diversify while I'm still able to. So why crochet you might ask? Simple reason, I LOVE crochet. Love here is an understatement, I'm OBESSED is a more apt description of my feeling for this hobby. I've listed a plethora of reasons in my blog, "Crochet is very kind," so please check it out if you're curious ^^.

Talent or hard work?

Besides patterns, I do want to sell some sort of crochet related product in the future. Not sure where this will take me but I know that I just can't give up before even try. That reminds me of a lesson I learned in one of the workshops I've attended at an anime convention (Yes, i do love anime as well, once a weeb always a weeb).

The workshop was about voice acting and the guest speaker was a famous voice actress, Yuka Komatsu. During the session, I asked a two parts question: 1) How long did it take you to become a voice actress? 2) Does talent matters? I was expecting one of those cheesy answers along the line of "I work many years to get to where I am, and if you persevere you can achieve anything". To my surprise, Yuka-san's answers was more refreshing than I thought. She said it took her two years from being an amateur to professional and talent plays 20%, hard work 30%, and luck 50%.

Right time, right place, right person

My personal theory on how successful someone will be is dependent on three things: skills, network, and luck with an equal percentage division. I can see why yuka-san dedicated more percentages to luck since the entertainment is an extremely competitive industry; where just knowing the right people, being at the right place, right time, with you being the right talent doesn't guaranteed that you'll make it big.

Now with being an entrepreneur, what do you think the percentages are? What other aspect should we consider in terms of what make a business successful? In Vietnamese, there's a saying called, "Thien thoi, dia loi, nhan hoa," which roughly translate to "right time, place and persons". I guess each of that aspect encompasses its own element of luck. All that to say, if you're starting a business, don't get discourage if you feel luck hasn't smile at you yet. After all, you'll miss 100% of the shot you don't take. I'd rather die trying than not to try at all. Someone on reddit once said every failure you experience is just another learning point in your journey.

I started out this blog with the title "I'm feeling overwhelmed". So far, my blog doesn't read like it huh? I feel like I have so much to do that I ended up working on stuff that are further and further from my original goal. I should refocus. It's like that vicious cycle where "I'm stress because I have too much work, I have too much work so that makes me stress and it paralyzes me, which build up more work for the next day". I'm so behind with filming that I haven't churn out a video in two weeks.

Hopefully, my subscribers still haven't forget about me. I promised them that I will come out with the ice cream pattern soon (which I'm 80% there at this point). I want to do this right, so I'm testing a bunch to the point that my hook faded and I developed all kind of cramps in my shoulder. I have a literal stress knot on my shoulder now lol. I'm saying all this not to get sympathy but just to explain that for the first time I felt stress literally manifested on my body. To my subscribers, if you're reading this, please be patient with me.

As always, love you, stay safe and crochet on.

Love,

~Your Fellow Loopies