Jairo Reina | December 31, 2023
I mean this both figuratively and literally. This year brought significant changes for me, some expected, others not. Entering 2023, I had somewhat naively subscribed to a mental image of how my life would pan out. I would be graduating in a few months and had stable, caring relationships. While I wasn’t in love with my job at the time, I had prospects for what I wanted for myself in the future. On the surface, everything seemed to be in equilibrium. However, the human psyche is much deeper than what we feel on the surface, and for a long time, I had been suppressing a lot of emotion in order to feel fine day to day and keep up with my relationships.
In January, I was on vacation in Colombia and experienced a severe panic attack. In my grandma’s apartment, as my parents tried to calm me, they asked why I was feeling this way. My mom proposed the idea that I was working too much or that I was putting too much pressure on my studies and not allowing myself to rest enough. At the time, I saw work and school stress as simple, unchangeable facts of life. They were constants in the equation of feeling that I could not alter. In retrospect, however, she had a point. The summation of work, school, and relationship stress had left me in such a fragile emotional state that on that day in January, I couldn’t keep outrunning my emotions.
Nonetheless, I tried to keep up the facade of everything being okay. Months passed, and my undergraduate education was coming to a close. In May, I submitted my thesis and completed my final exams. Life post-graduation was an expected change, and even if I didn’t know what was coming in the future, I was excited and ready for a new phase of life. Life, God, or the writer’s room that controls the script of my life had other plans, though. The day of my graduation, Senator Chuck Schumer delivered his infamous commencement speech, where he recounted his decision to pass up on a scholarship to travel abroad for a year to stay home with his girlfriend, only to get dumped before labor day. In almost sitcom-like irony, two days later, I was single as well. The combination of the expected change of graduating, the unexpected change in my relationship, ever-present work stress, and other issues made it feel as if my world had turned upside down.
At this point, I knew the right thing to do was to go to therapy. Doing the right thing, though, lasted about five weeks. Instead of continuing therapy, I thought I could out-travel and outrun my problems. So, I went on vacation for two weeks to Spain and Italy with my sister and had an amazing time. While I was in Rome, I even got a full-time job offer on the data engineering team at the company I work for. Once I got back to New York, I started running consistently for the first time in months. On one of my first long runs back, I jokingly titled the Strava activity “Guy who thinks running more will fix him." In the latter half of the year, I thought I could outwork my problems, and if I just kept myself busy enough, I would feel better. While keeping myself busy with travel, running, and work helped on the surface, deep down I knew that there were still issues I was leaving unaddressed. With less than a week left in the year, I realize now that time and doing things I love do heal, but they don’t heal all. I’m happy to say, though, that I finally decided to go back to therapy and stop trying to outrun my emotions.
For most of my life, I’ve been in school for ten months of the year, surrounded by a very structured curriculum and cohort of peers. Naturally, as you near the end of college, you begin to think about the possibilities of going to grad school. During my last year of college, I felt significant outside pressure to go to grad school as soon as possible because, without it, I would “just have a bachelor’s degree." Leaving college, my plan was to work for a year and then apply to graduate programs when I could better afford it. Only a few months have elapsed since I graduated, but I now realize that grad school may or may not happen, and this is fine. Elitism only serves to feed the egos of those with more access to learning, and traditional school doesn’t have to be the only way to learn.
If I wasn’t planning on going to graduate school, though, I couldn’t just allow myself to stagnate. The most important part of growing is to never lose the motivation to learn, but learning doesn’t just have to happen in a classroom (or through a zoom window). There are two main sources of friction, however, when approaching any new topic. The first is simply dealing with the frustration that comes with not understanding an idea. Stagnation due to confusion in the learning process kills motivation and momentum. In the classroom, learning is more guided, and there is typically a teacher to rely on to clarify confusion. To deal with the lack of guidance, I had to change my approach. This change in perspective came after reading Greg Brockman’s blog post “How I became a machine learning practitioner” where he states that the largest mental block he faced was “getting ok with being a beginner again." I needed to be okay with asking basic questions. Who is going to judge me? Also, it is so important to take the time to truly understand what you are learning, or else you'll be left with a very superficial understanding of the topic. I had to learn this the hard way after realizing that I didn’t truly understand ML models and the math behind them because I did the least work possible to get a good grade during my college classes (to future potential employers reading this: I paid attention in math classes themselves, so catching up hasn’t been too hard).
The second source of friction is not having classmates to talk to. This is where the importance of a solid support system comes in. Brockman also touches on this in his blog post, crediting his wife for being supportive of his studies. My coworkers, family, and friends are all extremely supportive, and I can truly feel the excitement to learn and build new things. Being in a positive environment makes a world of difference when trying to overcome challenges in self-learning. If I want to discuss something technical, I can talk to my friends or coworkers. If I’m just excited about an idea, my parents are very encouraging and push me to pursue new challenges. There is so much potential energy in everyone when it comes to growing, and being in the right environment can unlock so much of that and put it into motion. So, whether I go to grad school or not in the future is still a question I don’t know the answer to, but I’ll never let myself stop learning.
To keep things light and not get too deep, the following are small lessons or tips I want to share.
I can’t recall the number of times this year I’ve tried to “perfectly” plan my commute home after a night out by getting on the last possible subway to Penn Station and missed my LIRR home. You’d think I would have learned my lesson and either left earlier or just gotten a Citi Bike, but alas, it is December and this is still happening. Next year, I will change my ways.
Technically, I got a cat in 2022, so maybe this one is cheating, but I love Miso, and I would do anything for my pets man.
Spending three days without cell service and not thinking about my phone is such a great experience. If you’re going somewhere very remote, get a Garmin InReach Mini so you can still contact people back home.