021: What, like it's hard?
More thoughts on discipline, planning, and hard work
Hello! This week’s post features moments in recent life that all serve to hammer home the same lesson and force me to deal with being an adult, bleh. On the other hand, to appease my inner child, I bought a bag of Albanese gummy bears and am convinced these are the best gummy bears ever—they’re so flavorful!
Written while munching on cherries from a farm we visited last weekend where we picked $70(!) worth of peaches, nectarines, and other stone fruit. Lmk if you have any recipes—I’ve already made peach jam, and we still have half a fridge worth of fruit to finish…
Recently, James and I started talking about what it’d look like to move out of downtown San Francisco. We’ve had some pretty interesting moments here over the past two years (like learning what sideshows are by Googling “large crowd watching cars do donuts in intersection with fireworks 2am Reddit”), but as I’ve often said, I’m getting a bit tired of living in FiDi.
Many of our friends have been moving to San Mateo or Burlingame, so I looked at rent prices there—only to find that they were the same as rates in the city. Out of morbid curiosity, I wondered, “Would buying be more affordable?”
An hour later, I was playing around with mortgage calculators and trying to see what we could afford in the bay, and was surprised again at how expensive everything was. I’ve always talked about how one of my dreams is to design my own home, and always assumed that it would just happen for me one day—after all, I earn a decent amount, manage my finances well enough to save and invest, and seem to have a strong career trajectory (now that I’ve re-entered the corporate world).
It only took an hour of Zillow surfing to cement that home ownership isn’t a given. If I want to even think about buying a house someday, I really need to start planning for it now, I concluded. It’ll take at least a few years to save up for the down payment and set myself up to earn what I need to reasonably afford a house of the quality, size, and location I want. I wasn’t panicked, but I did get a nice reminder that my dreams weren’t just going to fulfill themselves.
The first person I met in San Francisco who lived in Presidio Heights (one of my dream neighborhoods) was a senior I worked for named Briggs. If I had to describe him, I’d say he was very… well-coiffed. Like, literally (I remember wondering how much time it took him to do his hair every day), but also in that he was always so proper and organized. At one point, he got a transfer into the diligence group, and he pulled me aside to tell me the news.
“That’s awesome,” I said. “It’ll be great for you, since it’s what you want to do and also since it pays better too.”
“Oh no, you’ve got that part all wrong,” he corrected me. “Every cent of my salary in excess of what I currently earn for the two years is going to my wedding. My girlfriend’s been waiting forever, and so now I need to start thinking about our wedding. Did you know it costs $40 THOUSAND on average to get married in San Francisco? $30K back in Chicago, but like, even that’s crazy expensive. Don’t get me started on destination weddings, those can be a crapshoot. So part of why I took this job is because I need to save NOW if I’m ever gonna get married… and she was like, definitely gonna walk if I didn’t propose this year…”
I remember people teased him over how over-the-top and anxiety-ridden his financial planning was, but looking back—maybe he was just being prudent and reasonable. Most people grow up thinking they’ll eventually get married, but nobody grows up being told they need to save up for their wedding. It’s definitely not something to take out a loan for, so doesn’t it make sense to start planning early if you know it’s something you eventually want? Even if the path to get there sounds contrived and ridiculous to everyone else?
A few weeks ago, I started helping someone searching for a job. They were just getting started and it was their first time seriously looking for a job since college, so I was mainly helping them with planning the steps in their process.
“When are you hoping to find a job?” I asked. “What’s your timeline?”
“Mmm, I was hoping to get a job by the end of this summer!” they said, excitedly.
“Okay, cool,” I said. “Let’s work backwards from that goal. What do you think is an average amount of time for a junior person to find a job in this industry these days—in the macroeconomic environment? Doesn’t have to be exact, but maybe what you’ve heard from anecdotes or other people you’ve been having coffees or informational interviews with. We can set that date for when you’ll need to get your first version of your resume and application materials done.”
“Oh.. I still need to find people to talk to first, so I haven’t done the coffees yet.”
“Okay, how many of those would you want to do? It usually takes anywhere between one to four weeks to coordinate a time to chat, depending on who you want to meet and how you’re introduced.”
“Oh, hmm. I didn’t think of that list yet, because I first wanted to get my materials done first, so I could get feedback on that too.”
A few back-and-forths later, they admitted, “Finding a job is so much work! There’s so many steps and things you have to do before you even start applying!”
“Uhh.. yeah,” I said. “It’s super exhausting, it’s almost like another full time job.”
“So, everyone goes through this?”
“Yeah…” I said. “It’s not like going to college means you instantly have a job. If anything it just gives you the connections you need to get your foot in the door. You still have to work really hard to actually get the job, especially if it’s one that you really want.”
It’s funny how on one hand, I can preach the importance of planning and making diligent, disciplined progress toward your distant goals, and on the other hand, I’m practically a Gen-Z kid believing I’ll get everything I want by manifesting. To be honest, I’m still struggling to overcome my laziness and build disciplined habits into my life—I’ve pretty much become the adult version of a high schooler who never studies yet still assumes they have a fair shot at a top university.
When I use that analogy, it’s hard to believe I used to be a very studious student. Where did that hard-working, hustle-hard effort go? It feels like self betrayal to admit that I gave that all to work and saved none of it for myself—since all I do when I finish work is just relax and loaf around these days.
I still talk a big game about wanting to be published one day, but when facing the reality of how I spend my time, my goal is just an aspiration right now.
This week, we hosted Geoff and Katie, old friends of mine who were visiting from Phoenix. Geoff and I haven’t seen each other in years, but we still text now and then, mostly about writing.
He and Katie, the ever-considerate houseguests, stopped by City Lights and brought me back a gift: Lunch Poems, by Frank O’Hara.
“These are poems that Frank O’Hara, a famous poet, wrote during his lunch breaks,” said Geoff. “I got it for you, to remind you to always keep writing—every day if you can, even if it’s during lunch.”
That’s where I’m grateful to have accountability—the last piece necessary to go along with discipline and planning to reach my goals. I’m thankful for the encouragement, and will continue to work harder!
That’s all for this week! And as always, thanks for reading :)