I run by that bench every weekend, small world. Not in tech myself but generally great advice, keep writing, it's authentic, unlike most things we see out there!
Yeah. I guess it depends on a person. The free flowing feel was refreshing and like @yacine was giving me the advice in person. A more formal writing style makes it feel more clinical. I appreciate the content and the personal delivery.
Life does not hand out lessons neatly packaged. It takes self-awareness, understanding the message, and distillation to what works for you.
Genuine question: how would you say this advice is any different from generic career guidance advice? Despite the title of your piece, nothing here at all feels scoped to "tech".
This is especially pertinent, given that the tech industry evolves so quickly, any plans can be ruined in a year or two. Five years ago, GenAI wasn't even something most people knew--many careers have been created and destroyed from its introduction to the mainstream.
Trying to crystal ball five years into the future in tech can be ironically counterproductive, as it locks people into trajectories that won't exist.
Reminds me of the funeral exercise from Stephen Covey's, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, where you start with the end in mind to help you determine your values and go from there.
I really liked the humor in this. As someone who started doing such unraveling when i was young (although not in a wafflehouse and defently not with such detailed planning) i would like to add two more points:
1. Sometimes there is nothing to actually do in the outside world to solve ones problem. Nothing that one can put on a todo-list and work on it friday night from 8pm to 11pm. Sometimes, one has to change the intrinsic perspective on the thing itself. Accepting that hot chocolate won't be your favorite drink this live because you are lactose intolerant is an equally valid solution as to spend 3 weeks taste testing every plant-based milk for a sufficient replacement. Thats said, the decision to try a perspective shift is completely personal and can not be generally adviced. But sometimes it can work wonders where nothing else would.
2. If you, like me, have the tendency to be a perfectionist, you might run into another problem later. If you did great with the unraveling, changed your life in some degree and tasted the great benefits of it years later, you might want to apply the given power of independence all the time. The burden of beeing completely accountable for your life choices comes with the great freedom of beeing able to be whoever you want. You just need to put the work in. But there is a catch. This might lead to a version of you, who is never satisfied with itself and always sees things to improve. If you find yourself in this position it is really important to stop for a moment and realize that you dont need to perfectionize every little thing about your life. Sometimes, it is totally fine to have a bad day.
Please have an AI edit this for you. I couldn't read more than a few paragraphs before dipping out. You wrote this like a Discord IM instead of long-form writing. The amount of grammatical errors you made were too distracting to digest what you were trying to express.
Why not edit it for yourself instead of posting a superficial critique?
I enjoyed the style, personally. It gave it a unique, human voice, and I was able to read the whole thing without getting distracted by that style. It is a great article that I found inspirational.
The author doesn’t need to change anything. A reader, on the other hand, can easily and quickly copy/paste the text into a LLM and say, “gently clean this up so it has correct grammar without altering its current voice and flow”. Then you have a version of the text that’s tailored to your needs.
I run by that bench every weekend, small world. Not in tech myself but generally great advice, keep writing, it's authentic, unlike most things we see out there!
oh wow another fellow montrealer! now you know my secret thinking spot haha
thanks for the kind words will for sure continue :)
Yeah. I guess it depends on a person. The free flowing feel was refreshing and like @yacine was giving me the advice in person. A more formal writing style makes it feel more clinical. I appreciate the content and the personal delivery.
Life does not hand out lessons neatly packaged. It takes self-awareness, understanding the message, and distillation to what works for you.
Genuine question: how would you say this advice is any different from generic career guidance advice? Despite the title of your piece, nothing here at all feels scoped to "tech".
This is especially pertinent, given that the tech industry evolves so quickly, any plans can be ruined in a year or two. Five years ago, GenAI wasn't even something most people knew--many careers have been created and destroyed from its introduction to the mainstream.
Trying to crystal ball five years into the future in tech can be ironically counterproductive, as it locks people into trajectories that won't exist.
you got it
if you setup your life goals around tech they become obsolete quickly and you feel lost
if you then not setup any goals in tech you are by default lost
the only solution is to set up your life goals to not be tech related and have tech elements in your micro steps instead to achieve the goals
these you can tweak on a weekly basis if needed doesn’t matter they are a means to and end
If you can follow this procedure you already knew what you wanted- but if you did the whole advice is trivialized, no?
Most people who do not know what they want _do not know what they want_
true that’s why I’m saying you should modify this and need to iterate on where you going periodically
but if you truly truly don’t know what you want you really have two options:
1. status quo of bumbling about life in random direction
2. set time aside to think about where you really wanna go
however long #2 take I would chose that anytime over #1
Love this!
Reminds me of the funeral exercise from Stephen Covey's, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, where you start with the end in mind to help you determine your values and go from there.
inverting the problems to look at the end is one of my favorite trick
I use it in my research, my business and whenever I build software
I really liked the humor in this. As someone who started doing such unraveling when i was young (although not in a wafflehouse and defently not with such detailed planning) i would like to add two more points:
1. Sometimes there is nothing to actually do in the outside world to solve ones problem. Nothing that one can put on a todo-list and work on it friday night from 8pm to 11pm. Sometimes, one has to change the intrinsic perspective on the thing itself. Accepting that hot chocolate won't be your favorite drink this live because you are lactose intolerant is an equally valid solution as to spend 3 weeks taste testing every plant-based milk for a sufficient replacement. Thats said, the decision to try a perspective shift is completely personal and can not be generally adviced. But sometimes it can work wonders where nothing else would.
2. If you, like me, have the tendency to be a perfectionist, you might run into another problem later. If you did great with the unraveling, changed your life in some degree and tasted the great benefits of it years later, you might want to apply the given power of independence all the time. The burden of beeing completely accountable for your life choices comes with the great freedom of beeing able to be whoever you want. You just need to put the work in. But there is a catch. This might lead to a version of you, who is never satisfied with itself and always sees things to improve. If you find yourself in this position it is really important to stop for a moment and realize that you dont need to perfectionize every little thing about your life. Sometimes, it is totally fine to have a bad day.
(Sorry for my english - not a native)
great points randomGuyOnInternet
the most important thing in life is to find in the world who you really want to be and stay true to it.
I’m more of a pragmatic than a perfectionist, a lot of life is literally just details that ultimately don’t matter.
finding the few things, the few characteristics that makes life yours is the one true pursuit of happiness in my view.
Please have an AI edit this for you. I couldn't read more than a few paragraphs before dipping out. You wrote this like a Discord IM instead of long-form writing. The amount of grammatical errors you made were too distracting to digest what you were trying to express.
Why not edit it for yourself instead of posting a superficial critique?
I enjoyed the style, personally. It gave it a unique, human voice, and I was able to read the whole thing without getting distracted by that style. It is a great article that I found inspirational.
The author doesn’t need to change anything. A reader, on the other hand, can easily and quickly copy/paste the text into a LLM and say, “gently clean this up so it has correct grammar without altering its current voice and flow”. Then you have a version of the text that’s tailored to your needs.
I just tried that. It worked great.
hey thanks collin for the feedback really appreciate it
I actually write it like that on purpose it felt more fitting
have a fantastic day ahead 🌹