Secret battles
jasonleow • 13 Apr 2024 •
This is what someone struggling looks like:
- Joined the Carrd team
- Completed 100 days of code commits
- Launched 5 products in 2024 so far
- Got to 10k followers on X recently
- Volunteer my time to build social good products
Wait those are all wins, what am I talking about?
That’s the thing. Truth is I am struggling. Barely keeping my head above water. But on the outside, things look great. I appear to be winning.
But behind the scenes:
- Kid had to go to hospital for the first time this week.
- Having to wake up at 4am before my consulting to work on my products but struggling.
- So exhausted from consulting every week I can barely stay awake pushing daily code.
- Yeah 100 days of commits but the past 2 months had been bare minimum code, like adding 1 new item to a directory each day. Almost feels like cheating.
- 90% of the code isn’t generating revenue which is what truly matters.
- My financials are still rekt. Still worried about providing for my family.
- Trying to find fulltime jobs but market is so bad it’s tragi-comic.
- Having a 10k following account is sometimes distracting.
- I help others for social good but can’t help myself.
Not trying to indulge in self pity and score pity points here. Not my intention. I don’t want sympathy. Just wanted to share that this is what social media looks like. Everyone’s winning. Everyone’s beautiful, tanned, tall, enjoying life. But people might be fighting battles they are losing, yet no one knows. Sometimes not even their family.
Felt inspired to share this after all the goodwill and congratulations I received recently. It was nice for sure, but also felt like I couldn’t truly enjoy it because there’s so much other things going on in the background.
It made me wonder about how I do the same to others who are winning on X.
Made me wonder if they too, might be struggling with things no one knows about.
Made me wonder who these people are, if there are the signs, and how we can tell…
Will leave us with this quote to sum it all up:
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”
Comments
Fighting bro!
On a side note, the job market is bad ? as a local, you should have better advantages than others, right?
@phaidenbauer Yeah agree re: social media. I often suspect if it’s a net positive for society
@knight Yeah pretty bad. Lots of layoffs now. Even big management consultancies like McKinsey are laying off staff due to less consulting work. Overall less people hiring, less jobs available, but more candidates, more competition.
Would it make sense to drop the “Volunteer my time to build social good products” for now until you regain some balance and achieve financial stability? You might want to double-down on the financial goals first so you can increase your capacity to give and do good.
Just a thought, but I hope you find a way where you can celebrate both the results you achieve and the joy you were able to experience getting there.
@haideralmosawi Thanks buddy. Appreciate your words. Yeah I don’t build social good products often. Mostly still plugging away at financial goals. That recent one was a nice detour to get some energy for building back.
The plain and simple answer is yes. “Everyone has to carry his or her bag” no escaping that.
I enjoy seeing people on holiday on Instagram and posting stuff myself, but I don’t think social media changed the world for the better. That’s also the reason why I set a screen time limit for Instagram/TikTok/Reddit to one hour in total (for all three) daily. Sure, you can “skip the limit for now”, but it brings it to your attention more promptly that you’re spending more time than you “should” be.