High School Talk: Rough Draft

09/03/14

Today I went to my old high school and gave a talk to the students there. Below is a rough draft I put together to think about what I wanted to say to them.

The principal thinks some of you need, and I think I quote, "A kick in the pants." She wants me to really drive home the point that you're in the driver's seat of your lives.

Which was something that really spoke to me as a subject, because lately I've been engrossed with agency. Which is exactly what the principal is talking about: the ability to act.

I have been out of college for two years, three months, and fourteen days. That time has been some of the biggest personal growth of my entire life. It wasn't because I had way more time after leaving school. In fact, I have much less free time after graduating than I had before.

When I graduated and entered the working world proper, that's when I finally decided to learn who I was. Well, "decided" is a misleading statement, I was forced to confront who I was.

I was disillusioned. I thought I'd come out of the academic environment a computer ninja, and be super competent at my job. I was not. I was passable; nothing more.

I thought the key to doing anything better was to try harder. To brute force it. Everything I did was easy, and I only ever did so little because I didn't care to do more. I thought if I resolved to learn or do something hard enough, it would get done. And yet I found myself browsing reddit when I wanted to improve my C++.

People aren't static creatures. Sometimes it feels I switch between completely different people. And different people want different things.

I find myself really angry at past me a lot, and I've come to conceptualize him as a different person. But lately, that's happening less and less. That's because over the last 2 years, 3 months, and 14 days I finally did all those things I was told over and over to do: time management.

But what that has really entailed is learning who I am. How can I convince myself to do this, and how can I convince myself not to do that? That's what time management really is, choosing to do something instead of all other things at properly determined times.

This is a lot harder than you think it would be, and right now you've been given the perfect environment to master it. You got your library setting, a work-at-your-own-pace setup, and teachers whom would love to impart advice and wisdom on how to do things, both in and outside school work.

I do a lot of weird things to see what keeps me in a productive state of mind. Stuff you may think isn't related to being productive. For a little while, I would clock-out in the middle of the work-day and go for a run or go to the gym. This wasn't just to get fit, though that was a nice benefit. I found exercise cleared my head and put me back at max productivity.

I think I would've benefitted greatly from trying to figure this out when I was a student here in highschool. Challenge yourself. Both with work you're obligated to do and work you want to do. See how you do. Analyze what you do wrong, analyze the habits that emerge that you don't like, and strategize how to do better next time.