Yearly Note 2010: Book Swapping
2010 was when I noticed I could think clearly about everything except myself.
Third year of engineering moved like a run after a walk: harder subjects, more projects, deadlines always close. Some classes worked like puzzles I enjoyed; others were just grind. The part I loved came after class, watching my own code turn into apps that actually ran. Evenings were volleyball and football with a group of friends I grew close to that year.
A few of us tried to build a startup for students to swap textbooks. Standing it up was easy; getting anyone to use it was not. I remember trying to talk people into it, showing them reviews, walking them through the thing. It taught me more about working in a team and unsticking problems than most of my courses did.
And yet, when I turned that same clear thinking on my own life, it failed me. I could read the structure of a complex system at a glance, but my own long-term direction stayed blurry, and my planning hadn't really changed since the year before: still day to day, still short horizons. The other thing I felt was the absence of people aiming where I was aiming. By the end of the year I had a sharper sense that a future is two problems, not one: knowing what I'm capable of, and finding the people who complete it.