Energy Through Immersion
The idea of getting a full-time job after college always horrified me, so I pushed it off for as long as possible. The summer after graduating consisted of surfing every morning and coding in my room for the rest of the day (I was working on a competitor to Surfline). Over time, my parents applied more pressure for me to get a “real” job. I knew I didn’t want to enter the corporate world so I applied to early-stage tech startups I was interested in. I ended up joining as the first employee at a company with no product and no customers, which at the time was a success for me since I didn’t consider this a “real” job.
The first week at this job felt dreadful. The work itself was fine, but I was confused how people actually spend their entire life working a 9-5. I remember sitting in my studio the Friday after my first week, debating whether I should quit. The founders then asked that I start helping them out on the weekends. What felt like the final straw was them asking that I stay in an Airbnb with them for 2 weeks of non-stop grinding. I accepted to go because I thought at the very least it would be a story to tell one day. These extreme time commitments continued, but I stayed because I was learning so much. My stress levels were through the roof as I tried to balance my social life with this demanding job.
Late one night after work, I flicked on YouTube and stumbled on Steve Jobs’ famous Stanford commencement speech. The particular quote that stuck with me was “The only way to do great work is to love what you do”. When I thought about things that I love, I realized they were things that I was really good at. And how do you get really good at something? You dedicate lots and lots of time to it, to the point of obsession. That night, I made the decision to make social and physical sacrifices and lean into work so that I could maybe enjoy it one day.
This decision quickly began to pay off, as I soon found myself really enjoying work, learning much faster, and putting out better stuff. The stress I had before becoming obsessed with work was gone. Knowing that I was giving it my all every day was really fun. Work was all I thought about. I noticed myself progressing in my craft faster than I ever had. If I wasn’t “working”, I was reading books or articles related to work. I was becoming a master at what I already had to devote much of my life to.
A big downside to this approach was that any time I did something other than work, I would become stressed. The only thing that kept me from becoming stressed was the thing that stressed me out in the first place. Weekends were no longer something I looked forward to. I enjoyed work, but my misunderstanding of why I enjoyed it left me confused. This misunderstanding continued until I took a week off in Portugal. For the first two days, I was anxious and constantly thinking about work. But as I got deeper into the week, I became fully immersed and obsessed with this new experience, and totally forgot about work.
This helped me realize that I do not do well with work life balance. I prefer all work or all life. Trying to squeeze in a surf while I’m working on something else that is very important stresses me out. I find myself thinking about the problem in the water and ultimately cutting my session short. The same policy goes in how I spend personal time. I will not go on the one-day skiing trip because frankly I will be thinking about work on the lifts. But a one month skiing excursion where I can have time to really immerse myself in the experience and think about nothing else is something more up my alley.
Fixation on a particular goal and immersion in the process of obtaining that goal are what bring me the most joy in life. Realizing that I can trick my brain into liking work makes me believe I’m capable of enjoying many other things too. As long as I’m pushing myself and growing in whatever I’m focused on, I’ve found that I’ll be happy.