2017 in Retrospect

Nothing quite as cliched as using a new year to think about the bygones. It's interesting because human mind is intrinsically drawn to patterns and even numbers. There are countless videos of satisfying things on YouTube that are inherently regulated by achieving the near-perfect symmetry. Even if the universe ceased to exist tomorrow, the eternal Mathematical truths would still exist. In an oddly poetic way, Math is beyond this universe. Although, one could argue the definition of universe here and counter that precise conjecture. Nonetheless, it is precisely this need to find patterns and evens that we use marks like new year and a birthday to convince ourselves we can begin new chapters in our lives.

Theoretically, of course, it's quite silly as a new year or a birthday is no different than any other day of the year. But then, theoretically, the difference between a friend and a stranger is non-existent either. Any basic Economics equation includes a constant that accounts for errors. The idea is simple - human beings are imperfect. And because we are imperfect, we account for it in our mathematics. You can get close to 0 or 1 but you cannot have a probability of 0 or 1. It can be 0.0000001 but never perfectly 0. Depending on how important the context is, the room for error decreases. Flipping a coin nonchalantly, a 0.5 probability of heads or tails is not a big deal. Now take that same flipping and put money on it, suddenly that 0.5 err probability seems too high. My point in this vitriol is simply that things matter not because of the qualities they inherently possess but because of the meaning human beings associate to them.

This is a very simple idea. You care about new years or birthdays because you have associated a value to them. Nothing mind blowing about this. I have a very logical brain. This is in part because I have always enjoyed logic - mathematics, philosophy, sudoku, puzzles, etc., and in part because of the family I was raised in. Emotions didn't have quite the same virtue as rationale. In fact, emotions were a byproduct of rationale. You are feeling this way because of xyz - it's entirely driven by logic. The idea that you could feel an emotion just because was a bit foreign to me. The fact that I grew up with a bunch of boys didn't help the situation either. Boys are supposed to bury their emotions and pretend everything is perfectly fine. There are times when you need to bury your emotions. If a supervisor reprimands you for something you were at fault with, your feelings will smart but you cannot react. There's a decorum you have to follow. You do not have to agree or respect a supervisor but you have to remember their power and their experience that gives them an upper hand. Heck, there are times when you are reprimanded for something you didn't intentionally do but ended up in a disaster. It happens. You are made of good intentions but you make mistakes. It's okay.

The greatest form of learning comes from trial and error. You could explain to me a time and again why something won't work but until I have tried and failed on my own, I am less likely to learn. You have to be patient with mistakes - yours and others. But you also have to create expectations and not insult someone's intelligence. I think that has been my greatest struggle this year. I do too much of hand holding and not enough of here's the information you need to succeed show me what you got. It sounds nice in theory but to be an analyst, you need to be able to think. To be anything successfully, you should be able to think really. But there are jobs out there that you can perform without thinking. These jobs wont get you a career and you will likely be replaced by technology but there are jobs still like that. However, to work as an analyst, your greatest skill should be your ability to analyze a situation. Look at the information you're given and think of all the possible reasons why it won't work and rise above those. So when you handhold someone, you are automatically putting them at a disadvantage. Telling them, listen I know we hired you to think but here's what to think.

There's a lot that's wrong with the corporate world. People in charge of making decisions are removed from the work that's being done and make decisions based on what they think is happening instead of what is actually happening. Everything is driven by money. You are told you hold value but you are also replaceable in a week. Your work matters but the client is more important. Your opinions hold weight but not as much as of those PMs who have never written a line of code. It's chaotic and redundant. Who knew such a combination was possible. Everyone has different motivations. There are politics and there are hypocrites. But such is the way of corporate America. MBA's are handed out left and right without any particular heed to what is actually Business Administration. It's a giant cycle of brainless corporate slaves being filled with the same management strategies that keep on failing while in practice. It's a pretty picture.

And yet within all this, there's a weird feeling that you have a purpose. Even if it's something as trivial as making sure your tasks for the day are being performed, there is something to do. It is meaningless work that we associated meaning with. What I do is not important to anyone else but it is important to me. If I am learning, it holds value. If it is making me a better person, it is not a waste of time. So all this boils down to just that - is the job I am doing worth doing? The answer may not be the same for you as it is for me. Maybe you are at a point where you are no longer learning. But if you are, perhaps it's worth your time and energy.

Sure, the grand gestures and accolades are man-made. There are more important things out there to be thought about and worked upon. Human condition is far more precarious and, simultaneously, profound than the meaningless work you are doing. There is work to be done that matters a whole lot more. There are emotions to be felt that matter more than your mere satisfaction at the end of the day from meaningless work. Your promotions don't matter nearly as much as saving another human being from the brinks of death. But perhaps you did save someone - yourself. Perhaps it's okay to be in a place where that's all you're capable of for the time being.

Notes from San Diego

I saw the lights from the city creating a constellation of urban universe beneath me. Fifteen minutes later I saw the stars light up the sky when the lights beneath me stopped shining. The ones made by humans shine brighter. They are denser. I have not let myself get excited about this trip. Worried about this or that. For a second I thought my flight would get cancelled. Houston was hit hard by Harvey. There are two more hurricanes to follow. If I was in high school, I would compare this to the John Green quote about my thoughts being stars I am  unable to fathom. I am not. I have stopped thinking as much, writing as much. I feel more. I do more. I am capable of more. A part of me is nostalgic for what I could have seen and done in high school and college. Another part of me is okay with being where I am doing what I am. A third part of me is in a state of yearning. This is what it's like being twenty-three. There's a twenty year old girl sitting next to me on the flight. She's studying abroad next year in England. She tells me she studies Musical Theatre. A small part of me envies her. Carefree, willing to experience so much, talk to anyone. She tells me her baggage got lost between connecting flights. "You know talking this through with you, I'm going to call my mom." I have maybe gotten two words in. She calls her mom. Her mom comforts her. "Thank God for moms, am I right?" Thank God for moms indeed. Also thank God for being twenty-three and having a job and further job opportunities and coworkers who are family and friends who are more than family and family who is everything. I feel uncertain about everything in life right now. What grad school will I go to? What will I study? What kind of job do I want? Do I like my job or the people I work with? Do I like it because it's comfortable or because it challenges me? Should I pursue other opportunities? What kind of a car do I want? And when do I move out? My mind is a mess. I want to sort it out. But maybe I will end up left more confused after this trip. Who knows?

-- 09/06 10:26 PM

I thought I would write everyday but I wanted to live in the moment so here I am. I am on a train from Vista to Anaheim. I woke up at 8:30 this morning by a call from my mom. I got dressed, got to the train station ahead of time, went to get coffee and rushed back to the station. I dropped coffee on myself in the meanwhile only to find out the train was delayed by an hour. We walked to the beach nearby and I spoke to an old man selling souvenirs on the pier who lived in Texas for a bit. We talked about Whataburger and the flooding in Houston. 'Heard it's terrible down there, huh?' It is terrible. People with homes destroyed and water everywhere. A city at a stand still that is always filled with life. I see the contrast with the city I am in. Two different worlds. I begin to see the strength of water. An ocean that you can learn to fight, rain that invades your home. I am a mountain girl to the core. That is where I find peace. But there is something to be said about knowing the ocean. About the waves that come and go. That determine how your day will be. If the sea is angry, you cannot console it. If the sea is gentle, it is there to play. You cannot win against nature. You can only learn to live with it.

-- 09/10, 12:02 PM

I am on a train back from downtown San Diego to Vista. I spoke to a lady at a bookstore for 30 mins. She tells me her dentist is in Mexico. She tells me about the price she pays to live in this beautiful city. She says, 'but you know what? I wouldn't trade it for anything.' I have never seen people be proud of Houston like that. Maybe I need to be by myself more in that city. It's my last day here. I want to explore more but my feet have blisters. I haven't had proper sleep in days. My hair is a disaster. I have ocean sand in my laundry and I am running out of my deodorant. A part of me is itching to be home in my bed. Another part of me wants to stay here forever. I have a few answers now. I made a few decisions that require a lot of courage. I hope they are the right ones. They feel right.

-- 09/11, 4:34 PM

I am home now. I took a shower in my shower and I am in my bed. My brother told me I deserved this vacation. I agree. I needed a change of scenery. It was beautiful but home is much sweeter.

-- 09/12, 11:05 PM

There, where one burns books… one, in the end, burns men.

A few thoughts from the Holocaust Museum Houston -

Here all things scream silently.

There was a bowl and two spoons at the museum, remnants of what was used for meals at Auschwitz. The spoon had splatters of blood on it, still. A lady told a story of her best friend at the camp. The friend died of sickness in the camp. The friend hadn't been eating for days and kept her rarioned bread on her in a sack, carrying to and from the labor camp. When the friend finally succumbed to her demise, the lady said "please forgive me, you do not need the bread anymore but I do. I must survive so one day I can tell your story."

There's a carriage of a train used in Germany to carry Jews to camps. You can walk inside that carriage. It's barely big enough to fit 15-20 people. Four vents on top corners for air, and two doors on both sides of the cabin. Sometimes up to 100 people were stuffed in these and sent off to their fates. You step in there and even with open doors, you feel suffocated.

I saw a picture of a few kids aged 6-9, looking at a camera with fear. Their bodies were blackened. They were burnt in Mengeles lab for scientific experimentation purposes.

Elie Wiesal described it all as, around me everything was dancing a dance of death.

There weren't many worse crimes a woman could commit than being pregnant in the camp. If a woman was pregnant when she got to the camp, she faced two choices - abortion or losing her child after birth. No choice at all.

There's a tree in an exhibit celebrating survival there. On that tree, you can write something in remembrance and honor of the victims and hang it. It's called the tree of life. I read many comments saying 'never again.' My first question was, how soon does the never end?

Heartbreaking, to sum it up.

Always do a little more than what's expected of you.

I was watching an interview of Sam Elliott where he was describing how he got started in the industry. He states that he would go to the legal department at Fox Studios and read the scripts lying around and then go to the casting department and say, there's a script coming your way, number so and so, and I'd like to read for it. It wasn't in his job description to do that, he didn't get paid to do that, and yet he made that extra effort.

I have been working a 9-5 job in IT for a little over a year now. The pay is an entry level salary. The job can be tedious and boring at times. A lot of times, you have to give in to the demands of a management that can be a bit removed from reality. You want to tell them, listen you're building a tower with a foundation of glass. If you do not solidify the foundation, it will come crumbling down. You cannot ignore the human spirit in order to be more profitable. It's an intricate balance - between keeping good resources and growing as a company. You have to dance on that line and ensure you don't sway too much in either direction. It's hard, but who said work isn't supposed to be hard?

You see the hierarchy in effect. There are things you don't like, and yet you see the need for them. There are things you like, and yet you see the lack of business need for them. You want to do things you like, but you spend time doing things you don't like for two words: business need. It's a funny phrase. You can justify a lot with business need. We need to hire more inexperienced people because business need. We need you to do XYZ type of work, for business need. We can't implement this yet because business need demands your attention elsewhere. And yet, you see where the thought process is coming from. It's capitalism in its pure raw form. So you bite your tongue, redirect your attention, and do the work that needs to be done. Now, the management is happy. You're doing what needs to be done, you're fulfilling the business need. But what's next? What about the little project you started that you know can change the way you do things? Make your job more efficient and faster and less of a liability. It isn't a business need yet, and yet if it is implemented, you see it can be.

You have two options now. Do what you're being told, collect your paycheck, and be done with it. Your management is happy. It won't reflect poorly on your yearly reviews. What's the harm? And then you have another option. An option that makes no monetary sense. It's an investment of your time and effort and intellect beyond what you are asked for and beyond what you are paid for. It's doing a little more than what's expect of you. No one will blame you for not making that choice. No one will look down on you for not making that choice. You will still get your paycheck, you will still be reviewed fairly, if you don't make this choice. And yet, some part of you understands the need for this choice. The need to go a little beyond what is expected of you. To understand your job a little better, to try one more trick to try and resolve an issue, to do a little more that what is needed.

I have struggled with this choice for a few months now. Everyone around me keeps telling me, people will take advantage of you. They will start expecting that little more from you if you start doing it. That you have to be capitalistic to survive in a capitalistic environment like this. It only makes sense - do what is needed to get paid. Why bother with the extra step?

At first I wondered if these people were right. If I was letting people take advantage of me. I'm not getting paid to be there for an hour longer, so why am I sitting here until 6 trying to grasp a concept when I could have left at 5 with no questions asked? But then I took some time off and tried to remind myself of a few things. As a twenty-three year old, I do not have a clear picture of the life I want to live. I do not know what field I want to be in, what career I want, what kind of work I like doing, etc. But what I do know is that I want to work on myself. Be a better person than yesterday, be a more knowledgeable person than before, be a little more hardworking than my previous self. I want to be better at being me. It sounds so cliched, believe me I know. But I want to invest in myself. So, when I am there an hour longer than I need to be, am I making that investment in my own growth or am I being taken advantage of? Could it be the latter? Of course. That's the nature of capitalism. But is the former more important than the latter? Absolutely, to me. This could be a convoluted explanation of me justifying my workaholic ways. I don't know. But I wonder if this work ethic that I have learned, that I enjoy, and that I crave will hurt me in the future. I do not know.

But when I hear successful people talk about doing a little extra, working a little harder than necessary, going that little extra step, it makes me feel not so crazy. Like maybe there will come a time when it will all be worth it. I keep thinking, I am young. I am just starting my career. If I switch fields, most people won't bat an eye. I have time to build my resume. Right now, experience is the one thing I don't have. If I work towards that, the rest of the pieces will fall in place, right? I don't know, I hope so. If nothing else, I am learning how hard I can work.

Success is counted sweetest By those who ne'er succeed.

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the Purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory

As he defeated - dying -
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

This is an Emily Dickinson poem that uses the imagery of a victorious army and a dying soldier from the opposition to suggest that perhaps only those who have suffered defeat can understand success.

Although my life is no where near glorious, or morbid depending on your perspective, enough to make such grand exclamations about life, I have been thinking about this poem recently.

Today is February 25th, 2017. It has been exactly 285 days since I started working, 287 days since I graduated college, and 289 days since I took my last exam of undergrad. There are moments when I feel like college was just yesterday. When I hear my coworkers talk about their kids, I feel like I've been thrown into some Twilight Zone. In my head I scream, 'but I am a kid!.' But then when I hang out with my friends who are still in college, I realize how much of a difference a year makes. I hear their concerns and they feel so foreign and reminiscent to me. I think back to days when I would be worrying about exams and homework and making it to class on time. Now I worry about project deadlines and client satisfaction and making it to meetings on time.

How crazy this all is. Your body gets used to a 9 to 5 schedule. You find happiness in a life where you go to bed at 10 and wake up at 6:30. Your conversations turn into filing for taxes and dentist appointments and how your coworker's family is doing. You form new rituals. Listen to silence on the morning commute, music while working, and podcasts on your drive home. You create a mental list of ten things you want to do at work today, in your morning commute. You get to work, check your email, and realize there are two client escalations and three things that are broken and need to be fixed by the end of business day. You edit your mental list to prioritize these five things. You take a deep breath, get some coffee, joke around with your coworkers sitting next to you, and turn your focus to your day. Before you know it, it's noon. You decide to go out for lunch with your coworkers. You talk about your day, your projects, how ridiculous some client demands are and how silly some participants are. You have created a niche of your own. It's stressful at times, it's pleasant at other times. You always have help, you always have company. It is the antidote to your introversion. You blink and you realize nine months have gone by. How crazy this all is.

Your brain screams time out, and you agree. So here I am sitting on a couch in my living room. There's three huge windows open and sunlight is lighting up the whole room. I am sipping on coffee and I am thinking about these past nine months on my first real time off from work. It seems like I am finally getting a chance to take a deep breath.

It's both beautiful and absurd how much you are capable of learning in a span of nine months. You start from not knowing what a concept is to being so good at it that you can break the logic in that concept to solve a problem. For some, this might sound like the most boring thing in the world. To me, it's fun. I have always liked puzzles. I like breaking things to solve a bigger problem. I like taking a teaspoon of knowledge and using it to dictate how the waves of an ocean form. There's an intellectual high in that for me. My favorite part of my job is taking something someone has programmed, and finding ways to break it to build something more logically sound. This is not to romanticize this job I am working - it is a corporate job at the end of the day. It has its ups and downs. But this is a reminder to myself of why I do not hate what I do.

You have to have some motivation that makes you sacrifice a third of your day, five times a week to a place. For some, it's putting food on the table for their families and paying bills. For others, it's a combination of that and intellectual curiosity. And for the rest of us, who are lucky enough to not have to deal with bills yet, it's simply the will to learn and solve problems. You cannot sacrifice so much of your life to something you don't believe in.

I am a very emotional person when it comes to what I believe in. I feel too much when I read something well written. I get floored by small gestures of kindness and empathy. If I see a great piece of art, it brings a sense of stillness and wonder in me. It's hard for me to not be affected by things, people, ideas, situations. What I feel is on my face. I am stressed, people around me see it on my face. I am happy, people around me see it on my face. I wear my heart on my sleeve. Not because I am weak but because I have the emotional support around me to be okay when it does get broken. So it's nice for a person so emotional to have a place where they can be so logical and rational. To some extent, that is why I chose Math as a major, and why I decided to go into IT. Because it's a safe space for those emotional wrecks among us to go and be driven purely by logic. It prevents one from getting stuck in a rabbit hole. It reminds you that you can not know anything about a system and a programming language, and give it nine months and a whole lot of patience, and be able to master it enough that people come to you for guidance. It is nice to know that you can create something that helps someone somewhere out there, even if it is simply for them to have a way to get a prescription filled at a pharmacy.

So I guess for a while this is a nice place to be in. I am 23. I have a bachelor's degree and a job. My body has the strength to work 60-70 hour weeks on average. I have the drive to be good at what I do. I don't have any responsibilities. I have a lifetime ahead of me. And most importantly, I have a curious mind constantly wondering how things work. For now, I am content.