jeff

tutorial island complete

I'm currently experiencing a quarter life crisis. A quarter life crisis is a crisis involving anxiety over the direction and quality of one's life. I see many different ways of life I could choose to live. Visually, my brain sees a combinatorial explosion of different pathways I could take, similar to the ones in Steins Gate. Steins Gate is a time travel based anime which explores the ideas of parallel worlds and the the butterfly effect — how a small change in state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in later state.

For the past six years of my life, programming, computer science, and software engineering has been the primary focus of my life. Up until now, all I cared about was to become a great engineer, and land an internship at a top tech company. I thought that once I got a pretigious internship, then I'll be happy. But, as wisdom so clearly says, that is not the case at all.

A few months ago I got my lucky break — I got my first internship at a prestigious company. But, it didn't take long before the happiness left my body, leaving me with feelings of not being fulfilled. I hope everyone gets the chance to feel this too. The feeling of not being happy after getting the thing that you thought would make you happy.

But, although I am currently lost in this world, I am trying my best in enjoying the process. If you currently don't know what your life purpose is, that's OK. Your first meta-purpose is to find that purpose. Figure out where you want to aim first, then shoot your shot. Your target will mostly definitely change throughout life. As people, we are non-static, always-evolving creatures. But, surely spending some time in figuring out a rough plan for the next decade will be well spent. The rest of the plan will come after, when you connect the dots backwards.

You have to trust that somehow they will connect in your future. Beliving that the dots will connect down the road, will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path. And that will make all the difference.

And so, tutorial island is now complete. My journey in figuring out who Jeff is has only started. University has been a great sandbox in giving me the tools and critical thinking that I'll need in life. But for now, it's time for me spread my wings and enter the real world. And, I will enjoy every moment of it. Well because, life is truly about the journey, not, the destination.

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