Motivation

When I was about to start working fulltime, I knew it’d be a great change in my life and it’d be useful to dump my thoughts before they change, so that I’d have a reference for comparison with my newly discovered ideas, thoughts and opinions.

I was in a culture shock, fortunately, it was not the first time – it already happened when I started studying at the university and in some scale also when I went from the primary school to the grammar school. So I wasn’t that shocked in the end, I just wondered how much different things can be.

Expecting the changes to come, I summarized my ideas into few points that I call The Declaration of Progression. (I write this post few months after the transition. Fortunately, I wrote down the most important ideas so the comparison would be still valid.)

The Declaration of Progression

  1. Do not dwell in stereotypes/routines.
    • Unless they make you more effective. However, avoid being lazy to find new approaches.
  2. Don’t make work a single source of joy/meaning of life.
    • Single point of failure (may cause disappointment). Make it diverse.
  3. Keep being frictionless.
    • That’s similar to no stereotypes.
    • Don’t stuck in local optima, optimize (move there without friction).
    • Practically, it means limitation both of mental and physical bonds.
  4. Train/nurture your old skills.
    • Other programming languages, problem solving, mathematics, design and architecture of systems (i.e. actively develop), Coursera.
  5. Review your alternative paths (did become the alternative better after some event/time?).
    • Alternative 1: Go study PhD in Prague.
    • Alternative 2: Go study PhD abroad.
    • Alternative 3: Join (base?) a startup company.
    • Alternative 4: Cycle around the world.
  6. Review this document (at least once a year).
    • So that it is effective and not just a piece of crazy thoughts.

Further notes on the culture shock

  • Maybe having a family and children is the only thing you can do after graduation not to get bored.
    • OTOH, it’s a shallow achievement compared with science discoveries, bootstraping a successfull project (whatever it is), being a dictator etc.
  • Expect to have less and less free-/open-minded friends (like you) since they settle and you have to adapt as well.