Reflections on 25

“25 is going to suck…”

You’re 26 today. Your longtime Internet friend, Brian, was absolutely right in his prediction. 25 was a pretty bad year for you by most people’s definition of success. You spent 100% of it living at home with your parents with no steady income. You fell out of touch with a lot of your friends. And you spent a good portion of it feeling mildly depressed, which was a new emotional hurdle you’ve never had to personally struggle with.

Originally this was going to be a similar post to last year, a chronological stream of consciousness work that you wrote all in one sitting. But it doesn’t feel right to do that again. You’re a different person now than you were last year, and you’ll continue to change in the years to come.

I just want to hit the highlights of this year and expand on what you learned. Let’s get started.

Work is good for the mind

There’s no getting around this. If all of your basic needs are met, then you should still work towards something to prevent your mind from essentially wasting away. With no bills to pay and food provided by your parents, a perfect breeding ground for depression is set. Without struggling towards something, anything, you will become weak-willed and soft-minded.

And it’s interesting how you personally decided to alleviate the problem. I imagine that most people try to avoid thoughts of sadness and loneliness through distraction. In your case, it’s video games. There’s nothing like playing video games for hours on end to help you forget how shitty you feel. And that’s exactly what ended up happening. Over time, more and more of your day was consumed with just playing more video games.

But the major problem is that you didn’t earn that relaxation time. So once you’ve left your self-induced escapist trance, you have this feeling of guilt that just stays with you. You tell yourself you’ll do some work tomorrow to make up for not doing any today, but tomorrow never comes and the cycles just feeds into itself. The guilt from playing video games all day makes you feel bad, and then to escape those feelings you play more video games. This is what people mean when they talk about how hard it is to overcome depression.

And keep in mind that you’re only diagnosing yourself with mild depression. It’s not like this is something you’ve struggled with for years like others you know, but it was enough of a weight on your shoulders that it was noticeable. Your parents remarked one day that you’ve changed, that you’re no longer the cheerful person you used to be most of the time.

And they’re right. Something changed inside you this year. You lost enjoyment and pleasure in a lot of things. Food. Music. Conversation. Even people. Nothing was appealing to you except for the video games, but even those started to lose their luster over time. The days blur together because they’re filled with the same solitary routine. This is a slow process that creeped up on you over many months. You eventually overcome it, but I don’t think it’s left you completely. Depression has made its mark on you and who knows how long it will take before that scar fades.

Lasik Surgery is amazing

Winter rolls around and you get Lasik done. It’s not cheap, but your parents are paying for it and it means no more glasses/contacts for decades. You’ll pay them back someday when you have the money, but for now it’s a glorious gift given by your gracious parents who continually sacrifice for you. You’re not really one to throw around hashtags (unless you’re being ironic) but #blessed is pretty applicable here, no sarcasm intended.

Going from roughly -6.00 in both eyes to better than 20/20 vision (you’re currently 20/15) is akin to being reborn. I can’t even describe the magnitude of the difference it makes. Your vision and your hands are the most important tools you have, even more so as a knowledge worker in this technological age, so try and treat them kindly as you get older.

The other major thing of note is how quickly humans adapt. Within 8 weeks after getting the surgery done, you had already forgotten the hardships of living with poor vision for roughly 15 years. Keep this in mind the next time you’re reluctant to dive into something new for fear of it being too difficult. You will quickly adapt and push the boundaries of what you thought you were capable of. Continue to strive forward even if the path ahead looks difficult.

Relationships are built slowly and crumble quickly

Two major falling outs happened this year to you personally, and another happened between two close friends.

The first big one was with your sister. In short, it was the culmination of years of miscommunication and apathy on your part. The argument happened over text, which is by far one of the worst, if not the worst, mediums to hold any sort of important discussion. This is the second time in your life that you’ve let an argument happen this way and both times have ended disastrously for all parties involved. Continue to try and avoid this scenario at all costs, even if the other person is goading you into it.

The second big falling out was with a relatively new group of friends. You all had built a fairly solid relationship over the past few months and this group had quickly started becoming your closest circle. Unfortunately, after one tragic day, you said and did things out of anger in a less than sober state that had some very long lasting consequences. In mere minutes you’d destroyed many months.

Both of these relationships will be somewhat repaired later in the year, but things will never be the same going forward. There is a shadow that looms and darkens all future experiences, a shadow that will linger for a time. Hopefully one day it will dissipate through effort on both sides.

These half-redemptions are quite different than the third falling out that happened between your other friends. In a similar fashion, words and actions done in the heat of the moment destroyed years of friendship between the two. And since both parties have poor conflict resolution skills, that relationship was never recovered. Maybe it had been broken far beyond repair and they had finally just reached the tipping point; it’s hard to talk about the intricacies without being in the thick of it and only seeing the straw that broke the camel’s back.

And I think it goes without saying, but if any of the involved are reading this, please keep in mind this is my perspective of how events happened, so it’s not the full story (or even entirely accurate) by any means. But I’ve thought for many months on what could have gone differently, what I could have done to prevent these terrible things from happening, and what the best course of action to take going forward is. It’s easy to sit back and analyze in hindsight, but practicing what you preach is a much harder endeavor.

I don’t write about these things to embarrass any of you and I hope you aren’t upset. I’m writing them down because they impacted my life in a major way and will continue to do so for years to come. I’ve learned valuable lessons through all of you and I am grateful for that. I can only hope that you’ve done the same, no matter how strong or weak our relationships become in the future.

The US will never appreciate the Renaissance Man

The Renaissance Man has been one of your longest running goals. This is something that conflicts heavily with capitalism, where specialization is encouraged to an extremely high degree. And if you’re not constantly improving in whatever area you have chosen to try and carve out a career, then chances are that you’re in for a rough time.

So what if you enjoy writing or learning the ins and outs about personal finance or making music? None of these are directly related to your main profession of software development so any time spent doing those activities is time not spent perfecting the single craft that puts bread on the table. I believe that is how most people would view these activities, as “hobbies.”

But the hobbies are important. They allow your mind to think with different frames of reference. They allow you to explore areas that are vastly different than the ones you are familiar with, which in turn allows you to bring a fresh way of thinking to a subject. With these new modes of thought applied in unconventional ways you not only broaden your own horizons but can end up creating something a master would never even think to attempt.

The big new creative project for you this year was your podcast. While you’ve had to put it on pause for over 6 months now, you do want to revisit it at some point. To be frank, it honestly wasn’t very good by your own standards, but most things created by beginners never are. It will probably take many years for it to become satisfactory in your eyes, but don’t let that deter you.

“Dude, suckin’ at something is the first step to being sorta good at something.”
- Jake the Dog

So continue to pursue these hobbies, these side projects, whatever you want to call them. You will glean knowledge from them that will be useful in other areas of life. And you can’t say thanks enough for the people who’ve listened and given you feedback so you can improve. Make the podcast great one day for all of them.

Job hunting is still terrible and will probably always be terrible

If there is one thing you absolutely despise in your industry, it’s the job hunt. Interviews can be passed or failed on the most arbitrary of reasons that have little to no correlation of how well you will succeed in a role. But let’s leave it at that not delve into the details.

What was actually great for you this year is the part-time freelance project you’ve been working on with an old Sapient coworker. It reminds you of why you got into web development in the first place. It’s engaging and fun and it’s a goal to strive towards. You’re looking forward to finishing it, but you also don’t really want it to end. If I had to point to a single thing that saved you from that depression this year, it would have to be this.

You also searched for a full-time position on and off throughout the year. The first big position you were actually looking forward to getting would have been with Sapient in their London office. Your friend Brian (not the one from the beginning) helped you along, putting in a good word for you the entire time.

Ultimately, you didn’t get the position because they ended up hiring someone else while you were still in their interview process. I don’t think there was anything you could have personally done here. They dragged their feet getting back to you the entire way as you were left waiting and willing to tackle any challenge they sent your way. So for the arbitrary reason of lethargy on their part, you didn’t get a position you were qualified for. Such is life.

The second big position that actually panned out is with Dassault Systemes in Long Beach, CA. Their interview process was surprisingly decent and let you shine by discussing past projects and building a rapport with the interviewers. The position sounds interesting and Long Beach seems like a nice city. You’re gonna have fun and grow there. You leave in two days with your old college buddy Kyle on a cross-country road trip.

You’re feeling nervous and excited and a little sad about leaving behind Atlanta. It’s been home for close to 8 years now, Georgia being home for over 20. You’ve outgrown this place and it’s time to make a big change. A fresh start.

“…but after that, you’re gonna be set for life.”
- Brian Jung

So yeah, this year was pretty bad for you. But it got better at the end. You’re optimistic about starting over in a new city with a new job. You’re already wistful about leaving behind your Atlanta friends. And your family too. You’ve all done a good job this year of being more open with your problems and issues, and it feels like you’re becoming closer.

And finally, a big thanks to the people who kept me going through this year. Juliana, Daniel, Mansi, Brian, Brian (you two really need nicknames), Dad and Mom. You all helped me directly and indirectly in countless ways, whether it was through hours of thoughtful discussion or just the small experiences that left lasting impressions on me.