With the end of the decade quickly approaching, Iāve spent some time reflecting on the last 10 years. It stunned me just how transformative and important itās been on a personal level. It further cemented the idea that shortcuts donāt exist, at least not in the ways you expect themāby reducing the time it takes for something to happen, for example. Instead, Iāve found that shortcuts actually come from replacement of time.
As an example, the biggest shortcut for me was not being in school. I left a month into high school for what my parents later explained to me is called unschooling. In summary, itās a chance for the student to learn what ever they want, at their own pace, and in an environment mostly constructed by themselves. This āshortcutā effectively carved out 5ā10 years of fluff and gave me a head start to build up my execution chops, which in turn helped me move very rapidly in the field that Iād self studied, web development.
The learning to execute came in the form of having to repeatedly build and maintain my own structure, learning how I learn, prioritization, and the art of getting shit done. This isnāt to say there werenāt many false starts, abandoned projects, set backs and various struggles. There were definitely many points of āfailureā along the way. All of which taught me something new and incredibly valuable. Looking back, this was probably the best decision my parents couldāve made for me at the time. It set me up to close out my chapter of adolescence and move into adulthood with a meaningful set of skills.
Here's to another decade of executing on meaningful ideas, and learning how to distribute them effectively.
Happy new years āļø