How I stopped feeling dead inside

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Hello friends!

I’ve been back from my month-long backpacking trip in Europe for about two weeks now, and I’m getting back in the groove of adding shareholder value.

One thing that I’m reflecting on is that leading up to the trip, I experienced a renewed sense of energy.

For most of 2024, I felt like time was just passing by. It wasn’t that I was too busy. I had a pretty decent work-life balance, and I had plenty of time outside of work to dedicate to my hobbies or chores.

However, I didn’t feel particularly motivated to make the most of that time. I would scroll and scroll on Reddit or Youtube and suddenly, it would be time to go to sleep again.

It’s not that I was doing nothing. To the contrary, I made some of the most epic memories hanging out with friends and traveling throughout the US in 2024. But those moments were short and punctuated. And soon, I returned to my boring, weekday routine.

Everything changed once I had made the decision to go to Europe for an entire month. Suddenly, it felt like I was more engaged with my day-to-day life. Because I knew my big trip was coming up, I felt a stronger sense of urgency to make the most of my time, even during the weekdays, leading up to the trip.

I was actively try to hang out with more friends, reading books to learn new skills, and desperately onboarding teammates who would be looking over my projects while I was out.

Fast forward to today, and I’m trying to hold on to that feeling.

Now, I have a new big, ambitious goal that’s bringing back that same sense of urgency again. Taking a step away from work for a while gave me the clarity I needed to convince myself “hey, this is what I want to do next, and this is when I want to do it.” This pattern of changing my environment to gain clarity is something I’ve done roughly every 2 years or so, like clockwork.

If you’re stuck in a routine that feels stagnant, I highly encourage planning a big trip. It’ll give you something to look forward to, introduce some urgency to your day-to-day, and once you’re there, you’ll have space to think about what you want to do next.

That’s what worked for me, anyways.

In other news…

🚀 I started a new blog!

You can check it out at timhuang.blog.

I’m still trying to figure out how I’ll differentiate content between my blog and newsletter. I’m thinking that I’ll probably save most of my deep dive-type content for the blog, and use the newsletter for semi-weekly life updates / reflections.

Don’t worry, I’ll compile any recent posts into my newsletter, so you won’t be missing out on anything 🙂 

See you next time!

Tim

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