One year post-grad, and I turn 24 this month. Contrary to my steadfast conviction 6 months ago, this time, I have been overcast with an omnipresent sense of restlessness.
I feel fickle, more fickle than I’ve ever felt. The reason can be easily deciphered: it’s a reflection of inner haziness about purpose. It’s also a permeation from the infinite loop of SF striverism.
To be frank, neither are inherently bad. Uncertainty implies choices, which, in itself, is a privilege. Striverism, similarly, is fundamentally motivating. After all, it enabled SF and its people the progress of unimaginable scientific breakthroughs, whilst offering the United States a continuous dominance in the global power law, inevitably through artificial intelligence.
Such fickleness coupled with, paradoxically, an inherent gratitude is not uncommon for new grads in SF like me.
What makes SF particularly intoxicating is that we all know it’s a place where agencies are granted regardless of age, mistakes are easily forgiven, and failures are typically glorified rather than berated. It’s a place where a seeding idea just happens (and by no means, I imply that it’s easy, but it indeed is proportionally more accessible).
So, for those steadfast, preposterous or not, there’s no better place to make that happen than in SF. And for those wavering, this is the worst place to be— time spent exploring is time lost honing excellence in a craft; velocity of improvement contrasts poorly when pooled with others; value of work depreciates and perishes as LLMs hillclimb new benchmarks weekly.
No, make no mistake. It’s not that comparison is the thief of joy, but rather, a lack of direction is the invasion of peace and patience. And the reality is: the lack of peace and patience utterly destroys us in the age of restlessness.
Lack of peace in knowing what is enough momentarily in relativity to the longevity of ambition. Lack of patience in knowing how much dedication is needed in relativity to breakthrough success. Lack of peace and patience destroys us more than comparison in the age of restlessness.
***
I flipped back to my diary one year ago, where I passionately reasoned through the million reasons I chose a chip startup rather than D.C. policy work, and why being an operator today will enable me to become a better national policymaker and international negotiator tomorrow.
I chuckled. That excitement was filled with naiveté, prior to the paradox of choice and gravitational pull of striverism that choked me to a restless permanence. But then, the realization hits, ignorant or not, that doesn’t matter.
What matters is that it reminded me of my purpose, my direction, and why I must choose peace and patience.
