Disillusionment is the scariest thing about the real world.
M was one of the first students I met at ‘State. One of the brilliant cream of the crop, M spent his days fanatically hacking code and his nights drinking and partying at Josh’s dorm. He was undoubtedly one of the sharpest computer science students that our school’s ever had. Every job he went for he nailed. Every technical endeavor he tried he succeeded in. When he graduated, everyone from the NSA to eBay was throwing money at M to come and solve their problems.
M now is not M then. After working at a series of defense contractors and startups, M seems to have lost his passion. When you look across the table and over a few pints of lager, M is barely recognizable. The fire in his eyes seems a little bit more muted. He’s desperately unhappy. He wants something else that he can’t have. He’s stuck in the worst kind of job: a high-paying technical complacency.
M isn’t the only CS-grad that I look up to who’s suffering from radical disillusionment. Four years out, many of my friends have found out that the real world sucks. The jobs they worked hard for exist, but the passion and fire they built seem spent and burned out. Despite huge paychecks and flashy cars, many of them tell me that the world they expected to find didn’t exist. Conspicuous consumption serves as a momentary respite from the harsh reality that happiness – true, honest happiness – is defiantly elusive. Many of them, too tired to continue, simply gave up the chase.
I’d like to say that this sort of disillusionment won’t be an issue for me. I’d like to think that I have some magic spark in me that’ll keep my fire alive when my time to enter comes. But frankly I’m not so sure that’s the case. If I’ve learned anything about myself, it’s that I’m more defiant than smart. If my much smarter friends’ unhappiness is a product of bad choices, then how can I be keen enough to pick the right choice when I’m confronted with whatever decision pushed them to where they are right now?
Worse, what if there is no choice? What if it’s all just a game of Russian Roulette: you spin the chamber, put the revolver to your head, and click the trigger? Some of you walk away lucky. Others, not so much.
I love this industry. I love this market. I love pushing technology to its limits and writing the future in silicon and algorithms. God, please, please don’t make me hate it now when I’ve come this far.
Please let me keep the fire alive.
