Hello ladies and gents,
My emails are like Bruno Mars' albums: you never know when they're gonna hit next. This week has been another busy one, so I'll run it down for you briefly before I go to sleep.
Startup work is great. I get to build lit AI stuff at work to manage bots and improve them. I've got to do some really interesting things in the last couple of weeks. Very entertaining.
My favorite holiday, Spring Day, passed last weekend. Spring Day is BYU's (sad excuse for) spring break, so I went with some friends to the sand dunes. Some other friends appeared out of nowhere that I didn't expect and I had a grand old time. Somehow, a mission reunion for a San Diego mission pulled up and camped right next to us, and we knew a few people there too.
My favorite moments of the trip occurred in the night. After a day of burning ourselves out, we gathered round the campfire. Someone brought a guitar and it ended up in my hands, and we sang some fun songs. Some of them included themes of love and happiness, so I wanted to continue the mood when I said, "I'd like to play you all a song about love where I'm from..." I then played Sweet Home Alabama. We sang the first verse and I was struck with the idea to change the lyrics a bit. I have been practicing my freestyling, which finally came in handy. I sang out, "I'm headed home to San Diego," then "I couldn't get my four-wheeler up the hill," and I can't remember for the life of me what else I sang about. Then my friends joined in and we sang the chorus, replacing Alabama with San Diego. I then made fun of several other places, like New York, Maryland, and—of course—Provo. I peaked in that moment. Should probably quit while I'm ahead.
We got accepted to Yale! I'm doing another hackathon there in ten days, and I'm very excited.
I've really wanted to buy a Mini Cooper lately. It feels like the smaller, British cousin of the FJ Cruiser for some reason, even though they are not at all similar. They are, however, a third of the price, which I really like.
I've been working on setting up an AI agent on my computer to help me accomplish tasks that I need to do. I'm proud of it. I can now text my computer and it will try to accomplish work, with mixed results. I also made it join a church hehehe. It now has improved morals or something mwahaha. My AI goes to church more than I do.
Anyway, I'm ready for school to be done. I'll have work, but I'll be getting paid and it will actually end at 5 pm, instead of 1 am. Gosh.
I'm gonna go to bed now, this was mostly a proof of life email. I can't remember what else I wanted to say, but I guess I don't have much. Ah! I remembered the niche, deeper topic I wanted to talk about.
I wanted to talk about growing up. Many people I know (myself included) feel the need to move forward with life as quickly as possible. We want to get a job, get through classes, get married, and generally be as effective as we can, getting as much done in the minimal amount of time. This makes sense; we live in a world which espeically encourages that through social media comparison and other methods.
BYU is a very dangerous place when it comes to this. At BYU? Serve a mission. Home from that mission? Get married. Get a job. Go work at a big company, have kids, buy a house make money. The usual thing.
Well, I'm here to offer a different perspective. Your life is probably going to be longer than 80 years. I'm 20. I've lived 25% of my life to this point, which means all of my memories (which only go back around 6 years, since my brain wasn't formed) are going to happen 3 more times before I die. If you are trying to do it all right now, you can't. You just can't beat time. Those next 60 years are going to do so much more for you if you keep a general trend going than if you do it all, burnout, then do nothing.
Stock investment illustrates this beautifully. Invest 100$ a week from 20-60 and you'll have a whole lot of money. Invest 500,000$ when you're 50? You won't. Instead of worrying about if you're doing enough, it might be more helpful to check if you like the direction you're pointing. Which way are you heading? If you don't like it, change it. If you do, keep it. That's it. No need to compare.
I'm 20. I'm just a kid. Let me be a kid a while longer, for the years aren't getting any shorter. I'd like to keep the child-like curiosity and general excitement for new things. Have you ever watched a kid explore something? How about something difficult? If it is interesting enough, they don't give up until they figure it out. They complain less than most adults. The hard part is making things like math homework interesting enough to prevent fits. That still hasn't been figured out in my household.
I'm not concerned that I won't be "ready" to face the world. I know I won't be. Nobody actually is. But I am confident that I can figure it out when I get there, and I'll find something I want to do if I keep looking for it.
That is all. I am exhausted. Good night.
-Will
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