In the midst of writing my resolutions for 2020, it dawned on me that the past decade cleanly delineates an important transitional period in my life. At the beginning of the decade, I was an naive teenager entering high school. And at its end, I graduated from university and began building my career as a well-adjusted young adult.
This post is an amalgamation of my thoughts on the past, present, and future. It briefly covers significant moments in my coming of age, the lessons that I learned as I started building my career, and my hopes for the future.
10 years
High School
My earliest recollection of this decade was of one breezy autumn morning. A horde of teenagers congregated in front of an unassuming looking building. The building was decorated with very few windows, and was 2-storied and spread out over a large area; it’s design signaling a style of architecture from years long past. Its faded orange bricks contrasted with the bold, blue letters that labeled the entrance to the school.
A cacophony of voices filled the crisp, autumn air; profanity, foreign languages, teenage slang inter-mingled together indiscernibly. Some students were accompanied by their parents, some have already gathered into amicable groups, and some were alone, cautiously observing the foreign environment that they now found themselves in. As I stood by myself in this completely new setting, I was both anxious and excited about how the next 4 years would unfold.
I attended Glenforest Secondary School. It was distant, far from the district that I grew up in. My parents and I chose this institution because I scored well in middle school and was accepted into its IB program, which was well-recognized and respected for producing talented alumni.
I was (and still am) a shy person. I had few friends in my freshmen and sophomere year because none of my friends from primary education attended the school, and I was too shy to start conversations with strangers. I filled my time with an unhealthy amount of anime and Starcraft II. My day-to-day consisted of 5-6 hours of gaming and anime, 2-3 hours of school work, and 4-5 hours of sleep. It was an unhealthy and unsustainable lifestyle that self-perpetuated discontentment.
In my junior and senior year, I started playing League of Legends. It was a very popular game among some of the guys in my year, who eventually invited me to their games after. Under the backdrop of banter and flame, we crafted a tight bond that still remains strong to this day. Some friendships fade with time; some deepen. For the relationships forged in the fire and brimstone of the hell that was League of Legends, I have confidence that they will only strengthen in the next decade, despite me being further geographically apart.
As high school drew to a close, I put more effort into my studies. For most of high school, I was a mid 80’s student - very middle of the pack. In the last few months, I put more effort into my studies graduated near the top of my class and was admitted to the University of Waterloo’s prestigious Software Engineering program.
University
The University of Waterloo is Canada’s feeder school to top Silicon Valley firms. It combines rigorous academic courses with alternating trimesters of internships. It is expected that at the end of the 5 year program, students would graduate having completed 6 internships. As a result, the school perpetuated a culture where self-worth is tied to academic or professional success. Unforgiving, competitive, and brilliant describes both the school and its students.
Both the academic and professional pressures took a toll on my physical and mental health. My first 3 interview seasons were filled with hundreds of application rejections, and dozens of interview failures. I didn’t have a strong CS background coming into college as my high school didn’t offer CS classes. The sheer load of academic courses was difficult to handle due to poor studying strategies.
I started adjusting better in my 3rd year. After taking algorithms and practicing over 200 Leetcode questions, I started performing well in interviews. My seniority as a student was able to nab me interview with top firms and my newly acquired CS knowledge empowered me to pass most of the interviews I was selected for. I ended up having 3 fulfilling internships at Salesforce, Facebook, and Airbnb in Silicon Valley.
Graduation and Work (2019)
The day I graduated was similar to my first day of high school. It was a warm day in June, and students were dressed in celebratory robes, accompanied by both parents and friends. A cacophony of voices filled the air, except this time, devoid of profanity and teenage slang. This time, however, I was no longer alone. I was surrounded by my loving family, old high school friends, and the new friends I made in university.
2019 was an eventful year and the de facto climax to the past decade. Here are some of the most memorable moments, in chronological order:
- I survived CS480 taught by Yaoliang Yu (never take that class with him)
- I built a Java compiler with my friends and had a great time doing so
- I graduated from university with Distinction
- I visited China for the first time in 5 years and reconnected with my extended family. I witnessed the beauty of Hangzhou/Suzhou and was blown away by the grandiosity and modernity of Shanghai
- I solo-backpacked Central Europe in 21 days and connected with people from different parts of the world
- I started my full-time job at Facebook
- I started playing guitar
- I hit my powerlifting goals and achieved 2 plate bench, 3 plate squat, and 4 plate deadlift at 145 lbs
- I read 13 books - the most I’ve ever read in a year
- I had a hell of time hanging out with my friends during Christmas holidays
I couldn’t have asked for a better year to conclude the last decade.
On time, or lack thereof
The seemingly swift passage of the preceding decade is haunting. I realized that resources, such as time and energy are limited. The finitude of resources and abilities allows one to frame life as a resource allocation problem. It’s impossible to achieve everything and there are trade-offs made with every decision. This begs the question - how should one allocate their resources so that they can live a life with the most value?
Some pursuits are principled on immediate gratification. For example, casually playing games or having a fun night out with friends. Reasons for this class of pursuits may include relaxation, happiness, or building memories.
Some goals are long-term in nature. The value of these undertakings accumulate over time - for example, endeavors such as studying, exercising, or working. Often, these goals not only take hard-work and commitment over long stretches of time, but may also require keen interest in the pursuit itself. As such, these goals are difficult, but are incredibly satisfying when finally achieved. Because of the time commitment, every minute that these goals are delayed, the longer it takes for the allegorical tree to bear fruit.
However one decides to expend their resources, there is always an opportunity cost. In a parallel universe, a different choice was made, and a contrasting result was obtained. Moreover, different choices constrain you to a particular set of subsequent actions (i.e. the butterfly effect). And so, like a chain of dominoes, each and every choice invariably affects the next set of available options, inevitably leading one to a particular end. There are no checkpoints, no second chances, and no undo’s in life.
In the past decade, a path was laid out for me. “Do well in school, get good internships, and secure a solid paying full-time job”. I didn’t have to think much about how to allocate my time because I only considered the paved path in front of me. The way forward now is much more unclear than the one laid out 10 years ago. There is now greater opportunity to build a life that I value most. However, that also means that the responsibility is mine alone, for making both the right, and wrong choices. This makes me a bit anxious, just to say the least.
During the waning months of 2019, I realized that work takes up a large portion of my time. It became painfully clear that I could not pursue all that which I wanted. And so, I began fervently tracking my time using Boosted . I want to use the data I collect from this app to optimize how I allocate my time.
thank u, next
Plans for the next Decade
Prospectively, 10 years is a lot of time. I’m still contemplating what I want to spend my time on. However, here are some goals I’m currently considering:
- career -> I want to be promoted to a senior engineer in 3 years and join a startup after
- athletics -> I want to win a regional powerlifting competition
- learning -> I want to read 300 books in the next decade
- travel -> I want to backpack a different part of the world every year (some leeway here)
- music -> I want to become as good in guitar as I am in piano (level 9)
- friends -> I want to deepen my existing friendships and build new ones
- passion projects -> I want to build apps, websites, or services and have a consistent stream of side revenue
2020
A daunting project is made far less intimidating through a piecemeal breakdown. And so, here are smaller, quantifiable goals for next year. I included percentage time estimates to help me stay on track and prevent competing projects from “stealing resources”.
- career -> I want to be promoted to E4 in one or two halves (40%)
- athletics -> I want to compete in my first PL competition and have a total of 1100 (10%)
- learning -> I want to read 30 books in 2020 (10%)
- travel -> I want to spend 21 days backpacking western Europe in the summer (10%)
- music -> I want to play this (10%)
- friends -> I want to join a class/sports team and meet all my close friends at least a few times a year (10%)
- passion projects -> create a very simple app/website and publish it (5%)
Happy New Year
If you got to the end of this post, thank you for your attention and interest. I wish you nothing but the best for the new year and the decade to come!