#i wanna start grinding leetcode

[mardmeehanabadi]

how about instead of pondering a career change I just practice and hone the skills I already sort of have?

[jonwongton]

03/20/22

It’s been a while since I’ve written down all my thoughts and more recently, a lot’s been going through my mind. How is it already almost April lol.

I can definitely say I’ve kept my promise since coming back from Korea. I had a fun three month vacation, but it was time to start working my ass off again. When I look back over the past five years, I feel like these periods of intense focus and dedication have come and gone in waves.

Early 2017: down, was chilling after working

Mid 2017: up, intense Korean studying for months

Early 2018: up, work was absolutely kicking my ass and I was burning out during this time

Late 2018: down, some of the best kpop releases to date, was really mentally present and enjoyed that summer/fall with fromis

All of 2019: up, finished my master’s program in one year

All of 2020: down, struggling to adjust to working from home because of the pandemic

Early 2021: up, was spending all my waking energy working on subs

Late 2021: down (but kinda up), was for funning in Korea

Now in early 2022, I’ve been spending all my waking energy on studying for interviews. It’s been an endless cycle of

Attempting leetcode/hackerrank problems

Making mistakes and reviewing the lessons I learned to not make those mistakes again

A full crash course through data structures, algorithms, and parts of the C++ standard library I didn’t even know existed

Reading books on system design and distributed systems

On top of that, I’ve also read a few books on the non-technical side of engineering, the structure of habits, and Korean skincare (lol). Then there’s the random stuff like memorizing MBTI types and sitting in the think tank with Seokho every day coming up with ways to understand this world.

I feel like I’m walking a fine line of filling my brain up with as much information as possible every day and burning out. It can be a tedious grind sometimes, but if it’s beneficial for my future then I really can’t be too bummed out about the work it takes to get there. Then again, it’d also be nice to take an extended break, but I guess that’ll come if I can get to where I want to be.

I’m really looking forward to my next down period. There are games I wanna play, activities, I wanna try, and I’m overdue for my next kdrama. It’ll be nice to chill for another few months.

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I really am so blessed to be surrounded by such smart and kind people. They say you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and I’m so happy about how much I can learn from them. Seokho pushes me to be make strides in my career, Clare shows me niche sides of the world I never would have seen, Angela gives me perspective of someone in a different stage of life, Sophie shows me the life of a working new parent, and if you consider kpop, fromis lets me vicariously experience things I would never try myself.

I have fun intellectual discussions with Seokho all the time, but for the first time I think ever? I said something that made him go “oh, why didn’t I think of that.” It was probably a minor interaction to him, but to me, it showed me my critical thinking/articulation skills have gotten at least a little better. Like actually, I don’t think I’ve ever put together a completely rational argument from start to finish that he hadn’t already thought of and made him go “yeah, you’re right.” When I look back, it just makes me think I was living my life in complete ignorance, and as cheesy as it sounds, only after I moved out and talked to new people was I exposed to how big the world is.

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To free up my mental load for the bigger picture, I committed to dropping a lot of things which I made me unhappy or wasted my time. It sounds obvious to give those up immediately, but I feel like when it comes to interpersonal relationships or ingrained habits, it becomes a lot harder. The two biggest ones are

Setting stricter boundaries with my family so I don’t get passively dragged into events on weekends. I can’t fully focus on my goals on weekdays, so if I don’t even have the weekends to myself, I’ll never improve as a person. Also, I find family time to be pretty boring most of the time, and while there are important obligations I shouldn’t miss (Chinese New Year, birthdays, etc.), I’ve gotten better at saying no to the rest, even with the guilt tripping.

Cutting out people who only had a negative impact on me. Again you get used to talking to people about certain things, but then you realize you’ve been expending mental energy maintain their mental health and their banter conflicts with how you actually feel. People like that aren’t worth my time at all.

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The topic of money comes up so much and no matter how many answers I come up with, I always have more questions. Assuming you have enough money to pay your bills, I feel like I can summarize my current philosophy with one statement:

How are you able to spend your money to maximize your happiness?

It’s funny to think about being neutral to losing a lot of money in the stock market in a day, but you’re genuinely happy when the groceries you normally buy are on sale.

Minus a house which I don’t even want right now, I don’t feel like I have anything else material that I want to buy. If you’ve reached your material item threshold, I feel like the only things worth buying are experiences or further investments in yourself. For me personally, a nicer car isn’t going to be money well spent, but investing in skincare, books, and traveling sound like great ways to spend money.

What’s the best career plateau point? Realistically, your priorities will change and you won’t be working your butt off forever. As of today, I feel like my answer is at L6. At L7, you get diminishing returns in terms of the extra money not making you any happier, and it ruins your work-life balance because you have exponentially more responsibilities at work. You could argue that L5 is a good plateau point too, but I feel like the extra compensation and job security that come with the L6 title is worth the effort to get there.

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I’m gonna try to make full use of this up period while it lasts, and I can definitely see it continuing at least for the next three months. But regardless of how long it takes, I’ll still be happy if I’m doing something meaningful every day. It’s not the destination, it’s about the journey it takes to get there right?