i’m joining tech@nyu (tech club) marketing team. also startup team in the entrepreneur’s exchange club, and i’ll do the product management case competition next semester.
i’m about to wrap up my first semester at nyu and i gotta say i really felt like this shit was a test semester, tutorial mode.
there’s literally no room for that.
someone in the gym asked us what we'd rate our semester out of 10.
i said 6.5 jaden said 5
i think i'd actually say 5 too
the girl asked us what could make it better, and in unison, jaden and i responded "ME."
at dinner, i asked jaden for what he thinks my blindspot or weakness is that i would need to work on, as advice for since i’m about to turn 19 on saturday.
he said no weakness, which i anticipated since he’s my boy, but if he HAD to say something, it ended up being the same thing abdul told me two years ago.
i asked jaden, and he referred to the gym where i had one more rep, but i stopped. that last 2% in the gym. he said he thought about that.
i was like damnnnnnnn
what i heard was “go harder”
i asked abdul the same question when i was 17, he said “execution”
lowkey i got tripped up in the small shit here bro. i have a sensitive mind. there’s a lot of emotional and psychological process which i usually spend time reflecting on, solving, trying to work through.
maybe it’s necessary. maybe it’s frontloading a lot of reflection and adjustment that i’d need to account for later in my life.
but a lot of the time, it feels like a waste of fucking time.
and so i have a choice of where to put my attention.
feel emotions, sit in them, expand them, pick them apart, try to make a story about them that feels cool, etc.
and it’s fun sometimes. or it feels kinda good.
or i can say fuck it - execute. i can use my mind to solve problems. to make things. to make fucking moves. to make an impact in this world.
a creative and overactive and highly observant mind gets wasted when it’s directed to self-indulgent ends. self-mytholigizing, constant chatter and talking, it’s all a soak of energy.
direct that into building.
building a mind. building a body. building a project. building an efficient routine. becoming a beautiful machine, that runs on the best fuels and exhales the best output. building BENEFICIAL relationships.
also, my journals so far have been quite abstract. i’ll speak in concrete terms as well. what actually happened. what did i actually do. what the fuck did i accomplish today?
woke up 5:30am looked at my vision boards wrote a blog in the morning talking about the direction for a brand studied for my cs quiz shower breakfast dip take the cs quiz, aced it go home, shower, get ready, head back to manhattan sit in joe’s coffee, collecting quotes and drafting the outline for my final paper for the humanities class jaden pulled up on me at the cafe and we talked we hit a push workout, intertwined with talking, slam poetry, and therapy then we had a beautiful dinner at taboonette i asked him for some advice and words of wisdom, and i had that feeling of having a big bro. very kind warm soul i asked him if i should join tech@nyu. i was like lemme try talking to bro instead of artificial intelligence. he said he values people, seeing one’s true self revealed through interacting with other people, he said my skills and presence could be received and applied in an actual setting with technology and marketing at nyu, which is a good place to be.
he said he’d do it if he were me and that i’ll show up there and be there exactly the way i need to be there
it’s nice to get the input of your close friends instead of talking to yourself and ai all the time. i’ve just decided in this moment that i’d love to have a group of friends that i feel as close and aligned with as i do with jaden and abdul.
i’ma find my folks.
then walked me to train station, i stopped in bedford qahwah house to have some adeni chai and text the technyu people that i’d talk with them,
i wrote this blog, and i’m heading home to sleep early now.
i don’t know why i feel so dissatisfied with my day.
i just described it, and it sounds good.
i guess i’m satisfied and so incredibly grateful for my day and what i’ve been given
but i’m dissatisfied with what i did.
i could really be doing more.
i could really be doing more.
i can do more.
i can do so much more.
i can do so much more.
i will do so much more.
when i was 17 i said i wanted 17.5-18.5 to be the hardest working year of my life.
i think it lowkey was. wasn’t even that impressive. but it was decent.
18.5-19, it’s been aight bro.
19-20 needs to be the HARDEST WORKING FUCKING YEAR OF MY LIFE.
can’t go into the 20s a fuckin bum.