It's a state of mind, sort of a game.
Imagine the next time you encounter someone in your life that you feel is toxic, you enact dead to me on them.
What that means is that you will treat them like they are dead. You cut off all contact from them. Block their number, email, change numbers, change address, whatever is needed... and the only way they can contact you is through others who you will also enact dead to me on if they try to force you to reestablish a toxic connection because you know they're not doing it in your best interest.
It's a real scorched earth, hard-core policy but it tests your own mental fortitude while also identifying the people who are truly on your side and will stand by you, versus the ones who have been just playing the game and not being serious because when push comes to shove, they show you where they really stand and it's not with their words.
It circles around a key philosophy that actions speak louder than words and people who play the game well can fool you with their words but they cannot fake actions. It shows you who is with you and who was only saying they were with you for the social cred.
When you're guilted or shamed with their social tactics when they refuse, you know you need to leave and search for something new, somewhere you've never been where things are free from the environment you grew up in. Live a free life from the burden of family, of having to be someone's child, and having an obligation on the mind to worry about things out of your control and to have other people's problems become your problems so you can never have time to care for yourself.
Everyone wants you to solve their problems, but nobody wants to solve yours but yourself. Now imagine instead only spending all of your time on yourself and focusing entirely on only your own future, your own desires, and your own dreams. Where do you want to go?
I want to move to kuala lumpur. I believe it's a beautiful city. The culture, language, politics, and demographics appeal to my values. I don't care what other people say to me, I don't care if I lose my job. I am tired of working for other people and tired of milling day on and day out like a slave while others are making the same if not more and living a life of leisure from maintaining this veneer of diligence which they think others are unable to see but it's as clear as day, it's just the slaves fear of the master, fear of losing their jobs by being enslaved to these loans, this interest, this stupid nightmare that never ends. This feeling of being an invader and an unwelcome guest in America, like you did something wrong, like you're doing something wrong for being alive so you try to work hard to prove your worth. A lot might die trying but I have realized it is all bullshit.
I am too American now to go back to Asia but I think a city like KL could work for me. I know there will be many sacrifices but I am willing to give up almost everything at this point if it means I can finally live somewhere where I feel comfortable and not like a stranger. Where people don't have to identify me by my race and make note of it, where people can just treat me like I'm one of them and stop treating me like a foreigner, if I am going to be treated like a foreigner anyway, I think I'd prefer being treated like an Asian American in Malaysia than an Asian American in America.