What am I actually giving a f*ck about?

Choose what to give a f*ck about

The book: You only get so many. Spend them on everything and you're spent on nothing.

Every other student had something distinctive: sport, co-curriculars, one thing they were known for. I had marks and a computer. That was the whole list.

For a long time that read like a shortage. It wasn't. It was two things I actually cared about, and I didn't waste any on the rest.

Who you are is what you struggle for

The book: Everybody wants the reward. The better question is what pain you're willing to put up with.

Four years of Computer Engineering, twenty-four percent attendance, and the internships nobody else wanted.

Somewhere in there, building things stopped being something assigned and became the reason to stay up. The hours went to what was not on the syllabus. That was the struggle I picked, and I would pick it again.

Don't just sit there. Do something

The book: Action is not just the result of motivation. It is also the cause of it.

In 11th I built a physics quiz shaped like KBC. Plain HTML, CSS and a bit of JavaScript, no framework, and no GPT to ask. The real Amitabh Bachchan cues were what made the room react.

It won best project, and that prize ended the argument at home. I did not plan my way into Computer Engineering. I built my way into it.

You are always choosing

The book: Fault is about what already happened. Responsibility is about what you do now, and it's yours either way.

My parents wanted a doctor. I took PCMB with the IT and Bio option, which is what a compromise looks like once it is written down on a form.

Now I am the sole contractor for a client's software. The good parts and the entire weight of it. There is nobody else to hand a problem to, which is exactly what I chose.

Victimhood is a choice too

The book: Blaming someone else feels good for a moment. It also hands them the one thing that was still yours: what you do next.

For years I had a victim mindset. Someone I thought of as a close friend drifted away, and I kept replaying it, trying to work out what I had done wrong.

Looking back, I doubt they ever thought of me as a friend at all. Whatever happened was not mine to fix. How long I stayed stuck in it was.

Happiness comes from solving problems

The book: Problems never stop. They get swapped for better ones.

The first job taught me what a deadline actually costs, and how to be handed a vague problem and come back with something that works.

Going on my own did not remove any problems. It traded them for ones I would rather have.

Favourite quotes from the book

Who you are is defined by what you're willing to struggle for.

The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one's negative experience is itself a positive experience.

Happiness comes from solving problems.

Action isn't just the effect of motivation; it's also the cause of it.

Don't just sit there. Do something. The answers will follow.