Slowing Down
It may sound like hyperbole, but I feel like The Untethered Soul was life changing for me. I left my job back in August for personal reasons and since then, while applying for jobs, I’ve gone through a mix of self-discovery[1] and change. Facing the frequent rejections of the job hunt is not an easy place to be. Up until November I was able to really grind through some of that pain and keep up my routine of finding jobs, applying for jobs, and preparing for interviews, all while continuing the process of building some applications for fun.
What happened in November? Nothing major. I had interviewed with quite a few places and gotten to later rounds of the interview process but found myself getting rejected over and over and I think I just snapped. It didn’t help that my situation didn’t change and with the approacing holidays, the job market would likely slow down. I started to feel desperate and all I could think to do was try to accept my situation. I’m an engineer. Acceptance is not an innate skill I have. Everything is a problem to be solved. So I went to good old Google, which is actually just me usually searching for “best books on whatever reddit.” This led me to mental health and mindfulness subreddit posts about acceptance and surrender and eventually grabbing a copy of Michael A. Singer’s book.
I can’t express how helpful his story has been for my psyche. He has had such a unique set of life experiences, all book-ended by challenging situations in which he chose to accept his circumstances, surrender, and go with the flow. He made it through writing a thesis and a lawsuit successfully! It seemed like magic. All he said was to surrender to the experience and let yourself experience the feelings that come up. He demonstrates something Tara Brach mentions in Radical Acceptance too. Acceptance isn’t about doing nothing. You still take action, but the context surrounding it is what changes[2].
The experience that Singer describes of himself surrendering before writing is one my dad experienced when he first came to the states. Both of these nerds surrendered and allowed their minds to digest and synthesize information. You never know what you’ll find, and you can’t force your mind to operate the way you want it too with conscious will. This is the approach to writing these posts and my code that I feel I must take. When I am able to surrender I’m able to produce more work. Whether or not is useful or of any quality remains to be seen[3]. While powering through iced, I started writing a book in the repo. It felt like an idea that came out of nowhere but it feels right. The library is cool but it’s documentation is famously[4] lacking, so why not just make something myself?
Thanks for reading.
I’ll have to post my notes about the book on my digital garden. ↩︎
This seems like a central theme of the FX adaptation of Shogun. I should give the book a read. The show comes with the highest recommendation from me. ↩︎
Does it even matter? I mean, have you seen some of these HR and ATS tools? If that seems petty, it is. ↩︎
I want to add that I mean no disrespect to the developer. Iced is incredible and its important to focus on what you feel is right. The library is good and he’s honest about the docs so what more can you ask for? ↩︎
