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I crossed my 28th year on this planet at the end of last year. Every year since 21 has come with increasing anxiety that I'm not doing what I'm meant for.
I've had a comfortable life. As a kid, I was homeschooled since 1st grade -- a consequence of my parents being fed up with how the school system treated an older sibling. In retrospect, I know this was a fantastic choice for me, and my parents sacrificed a lot of their own time and energy figuring out how to give their kids the best start in life that they knew how to give, all without the money it would take to attend any traditional educational institution, and with both of them working jobs that sucked more of their time and energy away.
In my young years, I learned to like working with computers quickly. Building them, troubleshooting my own issues, tinkering. I became a "family & friends tech support" victim in short order. In my teens I installed Linux on my own PC and opened worlds of new interest in computing for myself, and started targeting a career as a sysadmin. Throughout these years I had taken both official and unofficial jobs, and did online freelance work. All very small potatoes. An opportunity to move out of state and take an apprenticeship position as a web developer for a young and really unique educational company presented itself -- a friend was offered this, decided it wasn't for him, but recommended me. I talked to their Director of IT and a couple of their experienced engineers on the phone, did a self assessment they asked me to take, and said "yes". I packed one duffel bag with my few belongings, bought an old laptop for $125 from aforementioned friend, and flew halfway across the country.
I did well in my position, made friends with everyone there, and after a couple months it quickly became apparent that I already had a lot of Linux exposure and experience, so I moved to a "DevOps" (at the time, a fairly new buzzword) role and started being truly productive after merely 2 months. Since then, a lot has changed. Poor decisions were made in company management, the original dream and value proposition that excited me was slowly undermined, and in one instance most of my coworkers even got laid off, and my boss quit. I was asked to go full time and given a raise (around 21 years old at this time). They wanted me to stay. I got comfortable, but anxiety creeped in. In the few years following, I had fun! The company's situation improved, I got better at my work, improved my processes and technology stack, bought a motorcycle. I got more comfortable, but also more anxious.
A new CTO got hired (great guy), and things looked up for the biz. I jumped headlong into whole new paradigms with the emergence of Docker and Container Orchestration, and saw myself implementing into production complex solutions I barely knew about 2 weeks prior. I got several raises in quick succession, and got more comfortable.
I met a beautiful and intelligent woman from Mexico -- an architect who also loved Linux and open source software. I'm proud to say she's my wife, and she had the fortitude and will to leave her own comfortable life and come share in mine.
Now we get to today. The company I work for was recently acquired by one of the largest educational businesses on the planet. I was identified as critical to their integration and offered a bonus equal to 1/3 my total annual salary if I would stay through the end of the year. Sounds great! Things are still moving up!
Except I don't really care. I don't believe in what I'm doing. I don't want to be here. My wife pointed out that I have big ideas and big dreams of better things -- not material acquisition, but legacies of accomplishment, product and service ideas, passions that I nonetheless haven't followed (if I had "f*ck you" money, I would execute some ideas probably considered crazy even here). She keeps me accountable, supporting me all the time even when I didn't support myself, saying things like "You have so many great ideas, it frustrates me that you won't do them!". I explain to her that I've "tried" (hah) some in the past, but I don't understand how most people keep it up. My passion sputters and my motivation runs dry. I end up feeling like everything else is more worthwhile than the thing I'm trying to do. And to overcome that desert, I look for methods of learning "discipline". But every method of learning true discipline that I've looked for seems to lead with suggestions that require discipline (or passion) to execute in the first place. It felt like a vicious cycle.
Things are different now. My wife and I listened to Unscripted (more details of that awesome experience that in my "I read Unscripted " post). I have "Why"s now. I see a roadmap now. My comfortable life feels unbearable. Entertainment no longer appeals -- and yet, I'm no longer fueled by the fleeting highs of "passion" and "excitement" either. I just know what I want, I know why I want it, and it's not an option to do anything other than get there. I'm still paying the bills, but I've become day and night obsessed with a product I first saw a need for and planned out more than 3 years ago. I've changed my identity, caught myself action-faking (and have a term for it!), confronted my biases, and kept everything on track. I'm frustrated even about writing this post, because it doesn't feel like I'm working, but I know the community values the authentic intro, and I want to respect that. My wife has been amazing, seeking her own value to add to the world on top of what she already adds to my life, and she acknowledges the goal and the process of what I'm doing.
Glad to be here, folks. Let me know if you want to know any more. I'll be around from now on.
I've had a comfortable life. As a kid, I was homeschooled since 1st grade -- a consequence of my parents being fed up with how the school system treated an older sibling. In retrospect, I know this was a fantastic choice for me, and my parents sacrificed a lot of their own time and energy figuring out how to give their kids the best start in life that they knew how to give, all without the money it would take to attend any traditional educational institution, and with both of them working jobs that sucked more of their time and energy away.
In my young years, I learned to like working with computers quickly. Building them, troubleshooting my own issues, tinkering. I became a "family & friends tech support" victim in short order. In my teens I installed Linux on my own PC and opened worlds of new interest in computing for myself, and started targeting a career as a sysadmin. Throughout these years I had taken both official and unofficial jobs, and did online freelance work. All very small potatoes. An opportunity to move out of state and take an apprenticeship position as a web developer for a young and really unique educational company presented itself -- a friend was offered this, decided it wasn't for him, but recommended me. I talked to their Director of IT and a couple of their experienced engineers on the phone, did a self assessment they asked me to take, and said "yes". I packed one duffel bag with my few belongings, bought an old laptop for $125 from aforementioned friend, and flew halfway across the country.
I did well in my position, made friends with everyone there, and after a couple months it quickly became apparent that I already had a lot of Linux exposure and experience, so I moved to a "DevOps" (at the time, a fairly new buzzword) role and started being truly productive after merely 2 months. Since then, a lot has changed. Poor decisions were made in company management, the original dream and value proposition that excited me was slowly undermined, and in one instance most of my coworkers even got laid off, and my boss quit. I was asked to go full time and given a raise (around 21 years old at this time). They wanted me to stay. I got comfortable, but anxiety creeped in. In the few years following, I had fun! The company's situation improved, I got better at my work, improved my processes and technology stack, bought a motorcycle. I got more comfortable, but also more anxious.
A new CTO got hired (great guy), and things looked up for the biz. I jumped headlong into whole new paradigms with the emergence of Docker and Container Orchestration, and saw myself implementing into production complex solutions I barely knew about 2 weeks prior. I got several raises in quick succession, and got more comfortable.
I met a beautiful and intelligent woman from Mexico -- an architect who also loved Linux and open source software. I'm proud to say she's my wife, and she had the fortitude and will to leave her own comfortable life and come share in mine.
Now we get to today. The company I work for was recently acquired by one of the largest educational businesses on the planet. I was identified as critical to their integration and offered a bonus equal to 1/3 my total annual salary if I would stay through the end of the year. Sounds great! Things are still moving up!
Except I don't really care. I don't believe in what I'm doing. I don't want to be here. My wife pointed out that I have big ideas and big dreams of better things -- not material acquisition, but legacies of accomplishment, product and service ideas, passions that I nonetheless haven't followed (if I had "f*ck you" money, I would execute some ideas probably considered crazy even here). She keeps me accountable, supporting me all the time even when I didn't support myself, saying things like "You have so many great ideas, it frustrates me that you won't do them!". I explain to her that I've "tried" (hah) some in the past, but I don't understand how most people keep it up. My passion sputters and my motivation runs dry. I end up feeling like everything else is more worthwhile than the thing I'm trying to do. And to overcome that desert, I look for methods of learning "discipline". But every method of learning true discipline that I've looked for seems to lead with suggestions that require discipline (or passion) to execute in the first place. It felt like a vicious cycle.
Things are different now. My wife and I listened to Unscripted (more details of that awesome experience that in my "I read Unscripted " post). I have "Why"s now. I see a roadmap now. My comfortable life feels unbearable. Entertainment no longer appeals -- and yet, I'm no longer fueled by the fleeting highs of "passion" and "excitement" either. I just know what I want, I know why I want it, and it's not an option to do anything other than get there. I'm still paying the bills, but I've become day and night obsessed with a product I first saw a need for and planned out more than 3 years ago. I've changed my identity, caught myself action-faking (and have a term for it!), confronted my biases, and kept everything on track. I'm frustrated even about writing this post, because it doesn't feel like I'm working, but I know the community values the authentic intro, and I want to respect that. My wife has been amazing, seeking her own value to add to the world on top of what she already adds to my life, and she acknowledges the goal and the process of what I'm doing.
Glad to be here, folks. Let me know if you want to know any more. I'll be around from now on.
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