The Grind
August 11th, 2022
If you're in the computer science industry, you've probably heard of LeetCode before.
Lately, I've been practicing. Medium questions under 20 minutes and Hard questions under 45 minutes is the goal. I'm able to get most mediums under 20 minutes, but the hard questions are where I struggle. There are still quite a few concepts I need to study to get through that rut, like understanding how to reduce iterations using a hashmap when necessary. e.g. This problem.
But this is more of a life-vent-shitposting-blog, so the question I'm more concerned with is, why even bother? Why try this hard in my career and go work at a big company with a big name so I can show off to my shitty family members who only care about status and prestige? Then I can feel proud about oh being oh so smart, but then what?
Thinking about it, most people don't care what you do unless it benefits them or they get to brag about it. Either way, they don't care about you.
Career-wise, if anything, there's one thing I've noticed: the type of people who are in management are several orders of magnitude more happy than the type of people working as an individual contributor. Well, at least they appear to be.
Here's my theory: people in management have stronger relationships.
Sure, they make more money. But I think money really has little to do with how happy someone is. There are plenty of miserable rich people and happy poor people in the world. The single correlation for happiness is the quality of your relationships.
So how do you develop these "relationships"? It's really dependent on your soft skills. They say soft skills are developed with practice, but I disagree. I think the reason why people judge others so harshly for soft skills is because they aren't a technical skill at all. Soft skills are a representation of self-actualization and self-esteem. The way you communicate is reflective of how you see the world and yourself, pessimistic or poisoned or not.
If you can speak well it's usually something internal that clicked, not something that's developed through bullshit speaking techniques and such. If you've ever watched the Toastmasters Championship the speakers are great. But there's something missing. Their jokes miss. Their intonation is odd. Not to criticize them, what they're doing is way better than what I could ever achieve. But, it feels inauthentic and scripted. Compare that to your favorite standup comedian and there's a world of difference (even though they're both scripted, the flow is smoother.)
There's something magical about being comfortable in your own skin. If you've ever met a kid, they probably grab your attention like no tomorrow. They're just bundles of joy, or bundles of unadultered energy. They're cruel sometimes, but for the most part you're magnetized to how much energy they have.
Somewhere along the way, along puberty or teenage years or young adult years or whenever the hell the world starts crashing down on you, that magnetism gets beaten out of you. And then all the bullshit social media, your teachers telling you're not good enough, the school system grading you and ranking you and telling you you're not good enough, and then all the bullshit that comes with it. Getting bullied in gym class, being told you're going to fail a grade, being unable to make friends and keep them. All that bullshit can lower a kid's confidence straight to the bottom.
Successful, vibrant leaders believe that they can do anything. Not beating themselves up ever, but rather having a good inner voice that congratulates themselves for persevering. Sure, they have their troubles, but who doesn't have trouble? It's the way they respond to it in their inner skin, and well, however way they were taught to respond to it.
Here's the gold nugget of this article: the self-improvement craze lately? Complete and utter capitalist bullshit. Trying to be other people is a bunch of horseshit. There's no way you can be number 1 person at being that other person. You've got to be YOU. You might argue that "no it's always been about being the best version of you!!!" How many "sigma males" do you sincerely believe sincerely believe that statement and aren't just parroting it to seem virtuous?
Self-acceptance before anything else is my opinion. And don't use labels. Stop labeling yourself as jock, nerd, whatever. You are who you are, and that is how it's to be. Reminds me of a quote from Tao Te Ching.
When people see things as beautiful,
ugliness is created.
When people see things as good,
evil is created.
"Just being" is the most important thing in the world. I believe Marcus Aurelius also spoke on this in his book Meditations:
That which rules within, when it is according to nature, will always adapt itself easily to that which is possible and is presented to it.
Alternatively:
This you must always bear in mind, what is the nature of the whole, and what is my nature, and how this is related to that, and what kind of a part it is of what kind of a whole; and that there is no one who hinders you from always doing and saying the things that conform to the nature of which you are a part.
What these quotes are saying, is that the secret to life is to just be. To be wholeheartedly, and not get stuck up in one place or another. To just let the waters flow and be. Don't get stuck in a crevice, flow around it. Don't try to aim for some label or some idea or some other thing. Just be. Some more Tao Te Ching:
The highest good is not to seek to do good,
but to allow yourself to become it.
The ordinary person seeks to do good things,
and finds that they cannot do them continually.
It feels as if the moment you try to force yourself to become something else, you miss the mark entirely. Letting go of the ego and just embracing the self-acceptance is the fastest way to... well... whatever it is you're looking or not looking for.