Essays
Latest firstWhat thirty years in software taught me about letting go
Every system I built eventually got rewritten. I used to find that discouraging — now I think it's the whole point.
Two countries, one dinner table
How a bowl of tomato-egg noodles became the one thing that made both of my homes feel like home.
What pickleball taught me about slowing down
You can't rush the ball back over the net. Turns out you can't rush most things worth doing, either.
Retiring is not the same as stopping
I'm not winding down. I'm redirecting three decades of momentum toward things I actually chose.
I'm Yan — an engineer closing out one long career and opening the next chapter. I grew up in China, built a life in the U.S. in my late twenties, and somewhere along the way picked up a pickleball paddle and never put it down.
This is where I write down what I'm learning about living without so much weight on my shoulders — for anyone else trying to do the same.
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