This is brings up an interesting thing I've been struggling with myself. While I totally resonate with the idea we shouldn't be swayed by the opinion of others or be desperate for validation regarding the direction we're thinking of going, we're also tribal creatures, and relationships are at the heart of what makes life fulfilling, and our contributions meaningful. My thinking lately is that there is a spot in between caring and not caring what others think that is somewhat ambiguous and not easy to hold in mind simultaneously, but that's feels like the current challenge for me personally. Thanks for sharing your experience with this.
Ahhh Rick I think you may be inspiring an essay for me next week. I really resonate with what you're saying. While I would love to be the type of drummer marching to my on beat, I am definitely influenced by others and I don't think it's a bad thing. There is a fine line though and I think I'm also searching for it as well.
"My main regret is seeking validation from other people." This speaks to me on many levels! Thank you for your vulnerability here.
"These days, I look to the future and try to live my life in a way that in a few years, I don’t look back and think, what if I started 5 years ago?" What a powerful perspective on life.
You learned so much from this experience, much more than any bootcamp could have taught you. Thank you for sharing your beautifully crafted story!
Thank you so much Erin, I'm happy to hear those parts resonated. It's true, each experience has a lot to teach us, even if they don't go the way we planned. Also, I realized writing this that maybe I needed to go through it to realize I had no interest in becoming and engineer!
I took the other side of this coin: I joined the bootcamp and then, worked as an engineer for five years. In all honesty, I enjoyed maybe half of those? Then I started feeling unfulfilled, unsatisfied, dull, grey and disillusioned. I'm now three months into a sabbatical trying to find other ideas of work. I love what you said that "no experience goes to waste". Whether we do or we don't, what really matters is how we reflect and what we take from the experience. And you've done that beautifully here.
Thank you Tobi! I'm happy to hear it resonated. You are exactly right, it's less about the choices we make and more about reflecting and learning from our experiences. Plus for me, I'll grateful for creating some financial stability for myself when I worked in the corporate world.
I read your essay and it's so good! I related to so many parts of your journey.
My god this speaks to me on many levels. My whole childhood, up to probably 25 years old, any life decision I had, I would run by my dad.
To me he had the right model of the world, he knew what the right way to go about things was.
God bless his soul, my dad is a lovely, patient, smart man, but he was wrong about a lot of things. Specifically, the things that made me tick that he couldn't see, but I can't fault him for it.
Anyway, wonderful essay. Such an important inflection point, some people never get there ever.
Such an earnest and insightful journey that speaks to my inner dialogue of should, coulda, woulda. I love your mindset of "no experience goes to waste." You remind me that every decision, pivot, and side step is a drop in the bucket of a life filled with learning.
I try to remind myself of the value of all experiences when I fall into the depth of shoulda, coulda, woulda. Thank you for reading and for all your feedback!
I love this. As someone who has attempted a career pivot, I can 100% relate to the desire to ask for approval from everyone I met with choices I am uncertain about. What I learn from many times attempting this is that if you are really interested in something, you would not need to ask for validation all the time and find drive within you <3 Glad you learn this too
Thank you Minh! I'm happy to hear it resonated. I think you are exactly right, the decisions that are probably not the best fit for me are always the ones I'm asking everyone to validate. Appreciate the comment!
This is so relatable. It does seem to happen less as I've gotten older but that psychological pressure to know I was making the best decision was crippling. Perhaps it's a feature of being simultaneously open-minded and risk averse lol. For a thoughtful treatment of the topic I read and would recommend Annie Duke's How To Decide.
Even in myself, I find as I get older, I'm trusting my intuition and decision making more. Maybe because I have gotten positive signals that everything is going to be ok. I also went on a journey this year to try to optimize and maximize less. I'll have to check out How To Decide!
"I now realize that I should have sat down, made a decision and let fate play its hand. "
I think we often vastly underestimate our own intuition and ability to know exactly what we want and need, or at least what we don't. Learning to listen to it is definitely a journey!
Yes, I definitely do underestimate my own intuition! Learning to listen and be ok with not having it validated by others (in my case) is a journey and a lesson I have to always remind myself.
I related soooo much to your story. I also contemplated a coding bootcamp. It seemed like a sparkly venture that could help me make a big salary. I enrolled in numerous *free* coding courses and would start them with gusto, only to get bored and abandon them a couple days later. I definitely lost sleep contemplating investing thousands of dollars in a coding bootcamp that wouldn't guarantee anything!
When I decided to quit my last job, I didn't tell *anyone* -- not even those closest to me. I realized I needed to make the decision myself. It's my life after all! If I had consulted my family they would have likely tried to get me to stay in my job, and since I'm highly susceptible to their approval, I would have listened.
Wow Alison, your story parallels mine down to the detail. Thank you for sharing! A coding bootcamp did seem like a sparkly opportunity that could solve all my problems. I'm sure that's why no one gave me a straight answer too, they probably see a lot of people at the same stage. I'm so happy you did listen to yourself when you quit your last job! I love that we have you and your writing in this world, so it seems like a good decision to me (not that I need to validate it).
““When her tears subsided, she looked at me with fierce determination. “I mean it. Promise this dying woman that you will always be true to yourself, that you will be brave enough to live the way you want to, regardless of what other people say.”
If you still want to learn how to code, hit me up, and Let’s chat
Ahhh that's beautiful! I saw you are launching coaching for coding, Leo! Writing this, I realized it's not for me right now. But I wouldn't be surprised if I dabble in it in the future. I don't want to make a career out of it, but I do enjoy learning enough to help me put tech in perspective.
“Even though I saw the value in learning how to code, it never came easy to me and I was never excited to work on it.” -- I can so relate to this. It happened to me as well!
I’m so happy to hear it resonated Marshall! Thank you for sharing your own personal experience. I relate to it. My parents were great role models in a lot of ways and I also realize now that they’re also human and limited by their own perspectives!
This is brings up an interesting thing I've been struggling with myself. While I totally resonate with the idea we shouldn't be swayed by the opinion of others or be desperate for validation regarding the direction we're thinking of going, we're also tribal creatures, and relationships are at the heart of what makes life fulfilling, and our contributions meaningful. My thinking lately is that there is a spot in between caring and not caring what others think that is somewhat ambiguous and not easy to hold in mind simultaneously, but that's feels like the current challenge for me personally. Thanks for sharing your experience with this.
Ahhh Rick I think you may be inspiring an essay for me next week. I really resonate with what you're saying. While I would love to be the type of drummer marching to my on beat, I am definitely influenced by others and I don't think it's a bad thing. There is a fine line though and I think I'm also searching for it as well.
I’d love to see that essay!
"My main regret is seeking validation from other people." This speaks to me on many levels! Thank you for your vulnerability here.
"These days, I look to the future and try to live my life in a way that in a few years, I don’t look back and think, what if I started 5 years ago?" What a powerful perspective on life.
You learned so much from this experience, much more than any bootcamp could have taught you. Thank you for sharing your beautifully crafted story!
Thank you so much Erin, I'm happy to hear those parts resonated. It's true, each experience has a lot to teach us, even if they don't go the way we planned. Also, I realized writing this that maybe I needed to go through it to realize I had no interest in becoming and engineer!
I took the other side of this coin: I joined the bootcamp and then, worked as an engineer for five years. In all honesty, I enjoyed maybe half of those? Then I started feeling unfulfilled, unsatisfied, dull, grey and disillusioned. I'm now three months into a sabbatical trying to find other ideas of work. I love what you said that "no experience goes to waste". Whether we do or we don't, what really matters is how we reflect and what we take from the experience. And you've done that beautifully here.
If you're interested, I wrote about leaving golden handcuffs here: https://www.tobiwrites.com/p/unshackling-myself-from-golden-handcuffs
Thank you Tobi! I'm happy to hear it resonated. You are exactly right, it's less about the choices we make and more about reflecting and learning from our experiences. Plus for me, I'll grateful for creating some financial stability for myself when I worked in the corporate world.
I read your essay and it's so good! I related to so many parts of your journey.
My god this speaks to me on many levels. My whole childhood, up to probably 25 years old, any life decision I had, I would run by my dad.
To me he had the right model of the world, he knew what the right way to go about things was.
God bless his soul, my dad is a lovely, patient, smart man, but he was wrong about a lot of things. Specifically, the things that made me tick that he couldn't see, but I can't fault him for it.
Anyway, wonderful essay. Such an important inflection point, some people never get there ever.
Such an earnest and insightful journey that speaks to my inner dialogue of should, coulda, woulda. I love your mindset of "no experience goes to waste." You remind me that every decision, pivot, and side step is a drop in the bucket of a life filled with learning.
I try to remind myself of the value of all experiences when I fall into the depth of shoulda, coulda, woulda. Thank you for reading and for all your feedback!
I love this. As someone who has attempted a career pivot, I can 100% relate to the desire to ask for approval from everyone I met with choices I am uncertain about. What I learn from many times attempting this is that if you are really interested in something, you would not need to ask for validation all the time and find drive within you <3 Glad you learn this too
Thank you Minh! I'm happy to hear it resonated. I think you are exactly right, the decisions that are probably not the best fit for me are always the ones I'm asking everyone to validate. Appreciate the comment!
You are not alone! I am guilty of this in other ways. I appreciate your honesty and self-reflection. Cheers.
Thanks so much Cam! Always nice to know an experience is one others can relate to. Appreciate the comment!
This is so relatable. It does seem to happen less as I've gotten older but that psychological pressure to know I was making the best decision was crippling. Perhaps it's a feature of being simultaneously open-minded and risk averse lol. For a thoughtful treatment of the topic I read and would recommend Annie Duke's How To Decide.
Even in myself, I find as I get older, I'm trusting my intuition and decision making more. Maybe because I have gotten positive signals that everything is going to be ok. I also went on a journey this year to try to optimize and maximize less. I'll have to check out How To Decide!
"I now realize that I should have sat down, made a decision and let fate play its hand. "
I think we often vastly underestimate our own intuition and ability to know exactly what we want and need, or at least what we don't. Learning to listen to it is definitely a journey!
Yes, I definitely do underestimate my own intuition! Learning to listen and be ok with not having it validated by others (in my case) is a journey and a lesson I have to always remind myself.
I related soooo much to your story. I also contemplated a coding bootcamp. It seemed like a sparkly venture that could help me make a big salary. I enrolled in numerous *free* coding courses and would start them with gusto, only to get bored and abandon them a couple days later. I definitely lost sleep contemplating investing thousands of dollars in a coding bootcamp that wouldn't guarantee anything!
When I decided to quit my last job, I didn't tell *anyone* -- not even those closest to me. I realized I needed to make the decision myself. It's my life after all! If I had consulted my family they would have likely tried to get me to stay in my job, and since I'm highly susceptible to their approval, I would have listened.
Wow Alison, your story parallels mine down to the detail. Thank you for sharing! A coding bootcamp did seem like a sparkly opportunity that could solve all my problems. I'm sure that's why no one gave me a straight answer too, they probably see a lot of people at the same stage. I'm so happy you did listen to yourself when you quit your last job! I love that we have you and your writing in this world, so it seems like a good decision to me (not that I need to validate it).
““When her tears subsided, she looked at me with fierce determination. “I mean it. Promise this dying woman that you will always be true to yourself, that you will be brave enough to live the way you want to, regardless of what other people say.”
If you still want to learn how to code, hit me up, and Let’s chat
Ahhh that's beautiful! I saw you are launching coaching for coding, Leo! Writing this, I realized it's not for me right now. But I wouldn't be surprised if I dabble in it in the future. I don't want to make a career out of it, but I do enjoy learning enough to help me put tech in perspective.
I’m creating a “Basics of Computer Science” workshop. Aimed at beginner learners like you. I think you’ll love it. Stay tunnned
Sounds very cool, definitely would have been a better option for me over self learning a few years ago! Excited to see what you launch :)
lolol LEO, she literally wrote that she's happy she DIDN'T learn how to code!
Not your workshop's target audience, friend.
😆 if anyone in my comments does want to code, I would trust Leo as my teacher and will refer you!
Excellent, Michelle! I really like this final version :)
“Even though I saw the value in learning how to code, it never came easy to me and I was never excited to work on it.” -- I can so relate to this. It happened to me as well!
Thank you so much for the compliment and for the feedback on my draft! You have an eye for the small changes that can dramatically impact an essay.
I’m so happy to hear it resonated Marshall! Thank you for sharing your own personal experience. I relate to it. My parents were great role models in a lot of ways and I also realize now that they’re also human and limited by their own perspectives!