applied to one school three days before the deadline and somehow ended up in san francisco

i applied to one school. three days before the deadline. didn't even know if i wanted to go.

spent months thinking success was about control. turns out it's about knowing when to let go and just move.

the thing about desperation is it makes you really good at applying to things. really bad at knowing what you actually want.

ended up in north carolina at a school i never planned for. didn't even know if i wanted to be there. just knew i wasn't happy where i was.

duke in all its glory

spent months in durham sending hundreds of applications. watching everyone around me get offers. walking to campus just hoping someone would say hi because it was the only human interaction i'd get that day.

built something on the side because sitting alone applying felt useless. 200 users in a week. then another 200. first time something i made actually worked.

here's what i learned: you can't force the path. you can only show up and do the work in front of you.

i didn't plan to learn how to code. didn't plan to build a product. didn't plan to end up in san francisco at a startup instead of the brand-name company i thought i needed.

but the chaos at duke led me to learn how to build. building led to realizing i could do more than just apply for jobs. realizing that led to taking a shot at a startup.

none of it felt right in the moment. all of it makes sense now.

i think people confuse "everything happens for a reason" with "everything works out perfectly." it doesn't. you suffer either way. the question is whether you're suffering while sitting still or suffering while moving toward something.

the 10 users i got on day one wasn't success. but it was momentum. and momentum is the only thing that gets you through the days when you're convinced you're not good enough.

you can't control outcomes. you can control whether you're building something, learning something, moving somewhere. the rest sorts itself out in ways you can't predict.

trust that. not because it's mystical. because it's the only thing that keeps you sane when the plan falls apart.

which it will. repeatedly.

here's how i know if i'm on the right path: i feel like a kid again. building something and watching people actually use it. walking around san francisco and stumbling into random conversations. seeing waymos everywhere and getting unreasonably excited about it.

the nerdy 10 year old version of me would be so stoked about this life.

if what you're doing doesn't make that kid in you light up, you're probably optimizing for the wrong thing.