lost_polymath's Journal

[lost_polymath]

They say that it takes a village to raise a child, and I only realise how much of a lost child I am in this world. That is to say, I am grateful to even have the awareness that I am lost and require clarity. I stumbled across this self-actualized village by chance thanks to a book I was reading that mentioned this website and so found myself naturally drawn here.

Welcome to my journal, I hope to document my progress in my conventional career path which I am tailoring to play to my natural strengths as well as my progress in what I believe to be my life purpose which is a bit of a mixed bag. A part of me wishes to spend my life creating philosophically and spiritually driven novels and extending this to music (hip-hop) and film whilst another part of me wishes to spend time working in business and leadership across a variety of sectors. I can't seem to priortise one without the other and as a result have been in deep paralysis these past few years as I'm constantly jumping back and forth between these two things and can't solely do one without the other otherwise I become dissatisifed.

 

Background

Like a lot of us here, as a child, I was very curious about the deeper things in life, however, I never really had people to share that curiosity with until I started university and it was certainly not encouraged in my household growing up, who were hard focused on me doing well school and dedicating all my time to that.

My intention at 14 years old was to initially Philosophy, determined to explore and understand more, however, I met heavy criticism from my father who told me I’d be wasting my time and get no job prospects. He only cares for me to get a degree that will give me a high paying job and a mortgage to a home. Everything else to him is irrelevant and a waste of time. So at that point, as I was into video games, I decided to go with Computer Science. Looking back on it, it was such a whimsical decision because I put absolutely zero work into that. I tried programming once, didn’t understand a thing then never tried again till 16 when I started studying it whilst in school.

Moving forward to age 17, I then came to the realisation that I really didn’t enjoy programming as much as I loved the idea of it. So I explored other options. The next one was Mathematics, which I was thriving in at the time and really enjoying learning about modelling systems with differential equations, using calculus and a bit of statistics. However, when speaking to my father about this, I was still met with criticism despite me telling him all the jobs I could do. He thought the most I could do was become a teacher and wouldn’t believe what I was saying, pisses me off when I think about how hardheaded and narrow minded he is.

Anyways, Engineering was the next best thing and so I spent 4 years studying it, not knowing much about the field of Electrical Engineering (only found out about it just about it in the summer before I enter my final year of school) other than the fact I enjoyed math and physics which translates well.

Whilst I was heavily in love with the idea of all the cool things you could do, I didn’t find it that enjoyable. This degree required modes of thinking and behaviour that do not come as naturally to me compared to the average student studying engineering hence making my 4 years a constant uphill battle despite how much effort I put into getting better. As a result, I didn’t develop any form of passion for it and slowly came to resent it as a whole.

The passion I had for it was the stability it would provide me which I heavily value since I grew up dirt poor and at times homeless (used to go from hostel to hostel for a period of time in my childhood).  

 

Turning Point

Everything changed when I started going to therapy and I tried to envision a future for myself as an+ engineer and found myself absolutely loathing that future. That was when I began to look inside and reflect on what I truly enjoyed growing up, and a couple of things came up: writing, talking and relating to people both familiar and unfamiliar to me (something I was shunned for).

I also knew that whilst I was never going to be an academic philosopher, my will to understand myself, the cosmos and the unknown would never stop. At that point, I decided to dedicate myself to doing just that, renewing my interest in pursuing the good life.

My self-development journey so far:

1. Attended leadership course at age 17.
2. Went from 243lbs at age 17 to 176lbs at age 19.
3. Received a university degree.
4. Journaling extensively from age 17-21.
5. Self-funded and attended private therapy for 8 months. It lasted 8 months as my therapist felt I made more than enough progress to no longer require it, which I agree. It changed my life for the better and is the reason I have remembered who I am and what I want to spend my time doing.

 

The Present

I’m going to be completely honest; I confuse even myself with what I want to become and how to focus my time. Sometimes I’m all in for becoming a novelist, other days a startup founder, other days a musician and a filmmaker. It always revolves around these 4 things and has been the case for the past couple of years. The most sensible for me to do is start off with one of these then pivot into the others. The most prominent thing on my mind is solving my money problems through entrepreneurship and startups, however, if I focus on that solely, I will feel displeased that I’m not pursuing the other things. I genuinely think I have the potential and discipline to be good at all these things when I give them my undivided attention, it’s just focusing on only one of them whilst neglecting the others I struggle with deeply and why I am making very slow progress on any of them.

I am about to start a new job in sales engineering, and I intend to pivot from there into Product Marketing then into Product Management. To make this pivot, I will be studying a variety of topics including Artificial Intelligence, Design and Psychology as well as reading books and doing courses/seminars in Programming, Public Speaking and much more.

On top of that, I will be spending a lot of time digesting and understanding the concepts that Leo spend a lot of time discussing in his videos as these are all things I've been dabbling in for the past couple of years but now want to go deeper.

I was very lucky to meet very likeminded people at university who are keen to be entrepreneurs in the field of science and technology, and the one thing that seems to be reoccurring theme without me even suggesting it is me taking care of the commercial side of things despite me being an engineering student at the time. It appears I’m more business oriented of a people person than I liked to fool myself into believing due to my pride wanting to emulate that of certain genius billionaire playboys from comics and also feedback from my environment (aka my family).

As I am interested in startups having worked in that world for just under a year as a internship and spent years learning about them as a teenager/university student, I am seriously considering moving to the States for 2-3 years to be exposed to the culture there but its something I’m still debating heavily with myself. I believe it is important for me to expand my horizons. It’s something I intend to spend the next couple of years thinking about whilst working in my current role because it wouldn’t be a easy thing to do.

 

How will this journal work?

For now, I intend to post weekly updates documenting my progress. The one thing I deeply value is feedback and questions that help me to look for blindspots in my way of thinking so please feel free to leave any thoughts you have because I am a optimist who can live in lalala land sometimes and I always end up doing too much at once.

That’s in fact why I’m here. One of my tendencies I discovered after doing a strategic analysis of myself (thanks to watching Leo’s vid on strategy) was that I have no issue with meeting outer expectations of those around me but when it comes to myself, I struggle. In other words, I find it much easier to do stuff in general when people expect things of me. So I thought to myself, if I want to strive to become self-actualised and actually be accountable, what better way to achieve this than to document it on an active forum for people to see.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy reading.

[lost_polymath]

07/04

It's been two weeks since my last post. I was away from home last weekend so didn't get a chance to update. Work has been very good. I took a risk with my career since I was transitioning from a purely technical role to a more mixture of technical and people skills role and it is working out very well so far. I'm still making use of my degree whilst doing a job that represents my authentic self which is very talkative, empathetic and personable which is something I was shunned for by my parents who always wanted me to be more quiet natured like my younger sibling which I then spent 10+ years trying to do till I reached my breaking point.

 

I'm going to split my entries into the following: Systems and Infrastructure, Health, Purpose and Personal.

Systems and Infrastructure

Right now, I'm researching, understanding and developing the systems and infrastructure I will need for my success. Something I have decided to work on is my public speaking skills. I have signed up as a guest for a Toastmasters evening in the area where I live which will be happening in a couple of weeks. I don't know what to expect but I do look forward to it and giving it a shot.

One thing you'll notice me talk a lot about which is concidentally very similar to Spiral Dynamics: Stagr Yellow is systems approach. A well know branch of engineering is Systems Engineering and is in fact something I've worked as in the past and also one of my favourite topics during my college days was Control Systems. I enjoyed both the mathematics as well as the fact you could apply it to a range of different systems so figured perhaps this could also be applied towards life so was very pleasantly surprised to see that was the approach that Leo took for Actualized. On a side note, I need to spend some time having a look at cybernetics, just for curiousity sake.

I'm currently reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. I had started it months ago but never finished it so I'm starting now. Currently on Habit 2: Begin With The End In Mind and been working through the exercises laid out. Very eye opening and is shifting my perspective on how I should be approaching my life.

I intend to up the number of books I'm reading at once thanks to some ideas from Phil King. I was mid way through Atomic Habits audiobook so will finish that and also read a book called The Long Win by Cath Bishop. In terms of fiction, going to re-read American Gods by Neil Gaiman since I... started it and never actually finished (god this is getting embarassing to keep admitting). But the last book I'll be re-reading which I actually did finish is "So Good That They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport 

Health

I'm in the gym multiple times a week. I train on a upper/lower split. I've been programming all my training since I started at 17 and will continue to do so. When I was 18, I popped the right side of my hip whilst squatting and it's been like that ever since. I'm not able to afford a physical therapist but is something I need to somehow get looked at. For these past few years, I've been trying to get a much bigger squat but I always end up making progress than having to restart due to the random shots of pain my right leg gives me as well as my terrible ankle mobility. So I've now made the executive decision to stop going around in circles for another 5 years and stop squatting until it gets properply looked at. I will be doing Hack Squats and Bulgarian Split Squats mainly in the mean time.

I meal prep all my food and I get such a high from eating such nutritious food even if its the base meal over and over.

One thing I intend to incoporate more of is just a generally higher daily activity. The first one is getting 10k steps minimal a day. This is hard to do when it's rained literally 80% of the time I've been in this new place so I'll need to invest in some good waterproof clothing and shoes. The next thing I'm thinking of also joining a indoor climbing place near my house but its extremely pricey for a monthly membership there but I'd be going x1-2 a week. A chance for me to be active, improve my flexibility and also socialise with people who are like minded.

 

Purpose

Creative Writing:

I've also been working on a short story intended to target and work on one of my (many) weaknesses as a creative writer which is having all characters have the same personality and speech patterns. So I decided to use AI to generate some prompts for me to practise. It's been helpful as a form of Deliberate Practise (Cal Newport) so will use this as my main way of improving my craft

Business

I have been keeping up to date somewhat with what's going on in startup world but I need to also focus on deep diving into my current industry that I am in. As mentioned earlier, putting some infrastructure in place to work on public speaking. I need to determine the next things to work on.

I'm still in a limbo as to how to focus my efforts. My obvious thought is to focus my efforts into learning all aspects of the business world both on my job and outside of work. I find the creation of businesses (more specifically startups) that are solving fundamental problems for people using the various tools at our disposal (i.e. technology) whilst also generating money for the business (though all money is is the aftereffect of providing value) incredibly fulfiling and a work of art in itself. At the same time, this joy I've had since I was a kid of creating my own worlds with my own characters in my head...and now I finally am translating to paper... also so much fun. 

Thinking about it long term, it makes most sense to focus all my attention into becoming a very successful businessman yet which I have 1000% confidence in myself to do. It feels l'm asking for permission here which I kinda hate that I know that's what my mind is doing right now, but I just can't help but feel a sense of panic when I'm not working on becoming some sort of prolific self-actualized creative writer. I think I'm afraid of losing myself in the process but that's why I'm taking my time to truly understand the best way to go about it.

 

Personal 

I've been working through Leo's videos on Spiral Dyanmics. I definitely identify with various aspects of yellow, green and orange. Still have a lot to work through. I find it very tempting to jump into spirtualism and other abstract ideas but I'd just be mentally masturbating as I'm still trying to work things out in terms of my survival and becoming finanically independent, which has been my goal for the past 2 years but have made little progress towards and in fact actually regressed. However, I just have to keep moving forward.

[lost_polymath]

28/04 

It's been a hectic couple of weeks but I'm still around. It feels rare nowadays having time to myself from almost everyone on the weekend and it feels amazing when I do.

 

Systems and Infrastructure

I attended my first ever Toastmaster's public seaking session and I really enjoyed it. I felt like I was in a flow state and watching other people speak and perform their speeches gave me insights into what I could do be doing better with my own speaking. I even had the chance to do my own speech as I knew I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone. I really like that you get really detailed feedback. I plan to be recording all my future ones and publishing them on YouTube which I will share here as time goes on.

I forgot to mention last time but I'm slowly filling out my common place book. There are so many things to research and learn about and it geniunely brings me joy knowing that I'm living in a period of time where I can do this to my lesiure no matter how long it takes. 

I am continuing to read through The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and have been doing my best to incorporate living a principle-based life based on my values.

 

Health

I'm still in the process of incorporating a much more active daily lifestyle. What makes it a bit difficult is that it constantly rains where I'm living which puts me off from going out there especially knowing that my socks get wet which just doesn't feel great to be honest. Once I rebuild my financial reserves, I can look to purchasing better shoes and waterproof clothing but that will take a couple of months as I need to save for a car first. The gym has been going ok, I'm just patietnly improving my strength.

 

Purpose

I have made the decision to full focus on business and achieving finanical independence. My resting times will be where I explore creative writing, hip hop lyricism (I intend to create at least one album before I leave this Earth), philosophy, physics and much more.

 

Personal

Relationships are a lot of work. Especially romantic ones. I'm finding it hard to balance having to play the role of my girlfriend's "therapist" (despite her being in therpay for quite a few months) as she deals with a lot of self-esteem issues for months on end whilst trying to move towards my potential. It's tough to let go because there really and truly isn't quite many people like her and I want to make it work.... its just tough. Sometimes it feels like the best thing I can do for her is to break things off to give her the push she needs to get better but that could end up backfiring.

I seem to have a reoccuring pattern of ending up in both romantic and platonic relationships with people where I'm essentially the caretaker/therapist for them for months and years on end and I'm starting to get sick of it. I need to investigate what the heck it is I'm doing that ends up attracting these sorts of people in my life. I suspect its coming from my inability to enforce my boundaries when I really should, due to how much I care for people that seemingly care for me.

All that to say, I have definitely grown from those experiences. I'm now very content having a extremely small group of people I call friends who I talk to like once or twice a week or every couple of weeks/months whilst being mostly on my own. It's something I've learned to appreciate after entering my first proper romantic relationship where so much of my time was devoted to them and it being taken for granted. I'm learning a lot from it. My relationship is like a mirror as it allows me to see who I actually am in relation to someone else on a intimate/romantic level.

It allows me to realise my shortcomings and my own insecurities that I will continue to work on the daily along with the help of the Actualized videos whilst moving towards the future I want for myself.

Edited 15 hours ago by lost_polymath