rabbit holes and math

okay, hello

I am writing to you despite my anxiety about writing and because my friend, David, has not so subtly pestered me (yet again) for another letter.

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So, how am I feeling?

I am feeling a lot of emotions. Mostly anxious. A little more motivated and optimistic and at the cusp of a headache. Maybe you feel the same. I would tell you to take a holiday, but I don’t know that it helps as I think this way and have just come back from 10 beautiful days in Turkey. However, this holiday is the reason for my motivation and optimism (which has drastically waned after 6 hours of work), so you should take it.

My anxiety about my career has been at an all-time high the last couple of months, and I almost feel like a fraud advising about your lives when I can’t keep mine in check. I am unsure when this started, but I remember evaluating my Product Management career and thinking, “Damn, do these people even need me?”

These feelings aren’t really my fault. I work on a complex product that uses complex technology with people that are way more advanced in their careers than I am. So logically, I know that I am not supposed to feel like I’m lacking, that this is a learning opportunity, and I am at the very beginning of my career trying to figure it out, but yet I do.

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rabbit holes

When I start to think this way, I go down Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and Reddit. I am constantly asking myself if I am good enough, what my identity is, and what value I am adding. I look at job descriptions, but I never apply (please don’t tell my employers) and boot camps on specific product skills, but I also never apply (frankly, it costs way too much). Finally, I come back mentally exhausted, and I am still unsure, uncertain, and hesitant about my place.

There is so much I want to do. I want to be an excellent product manager, you know, the one you need to call when you need to materialise your ideas. I want to make my voice more heard and less timid - the way it is when I speak to my friends when we haven’t had a catch up in months and we have so much to talk about that it comes out jumbled but I am understood. I want so much to be my best, intentional self and share my authenticity in hopes that it helps other people become theirs. Finally, I want to get back to journaling, budgeting, planning and all the dorky stuff I used to enjoy.

I hope to encourage you to keep going even when your brain feels like mush and scrambled eggs because I think the same way you do. Life is moving so fast now, so fast. Everyone seems to have it together, and honestly, some of them do. Like what is web3, and x2Es, and Solana? Why are we minting stuff, and why in God’s name is the answer to everything decentralisation? Some of us are in the thick of it, trying to understand what this new world is and how to find our place in it.

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its just math

I think that this is how practice is supposed to feel. It is a beautiful, uncomfortable mess that makes so much sense when you look at it years later. I remember being maybe seven years old, in primary school and hating math with a passion. I didn’t hate it as much as I was afraid of it. When the letters came in, I didn’t understand why we had to solve for x.

I remember my mum telling me that there was nothing to be afraid of, that it was just math. Just. I can’t tell you how, but it had no power over me any longer from that day. Instead, I grew to love math and mental games and the challenge that came with problem-solving because it was something that just was, something else to figure out.

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appreciating the process

I think more than figuring things out is the process of figuring them out. When I got to secondary school, I loved algebra (the one with the powers) and trigonometry because the problems were so long that it was almost meditative when you got solving. You always arrived at an answer, wrong or right, but somehow, you looked at the lengthy pages with blue or black ink and felt immense pride in the work. It was never about finding the answer, although finding the right one helped build my confidence.

Confidence. Math gave me confidence. It was the only subject that didn’t have corners where you didn’t have to deceive your way into convincing a teacher that you were good at it, and I became good at it. It wasn’t instant, and I spent some time being very bad at it because I was afraid. So, I’m taking that with me, and when I find myself being scared about the future, I will come back to this letter and remember when I was terrible at math, when I became good at it, and when I started to love it.

I wish I could tell you what my answers are. I am used to writing letters when I have had it all figured out, but this time, figuring things out is taking way too long. So I am writing to you in the middle of it, in the middle of my transition and learning. I know it’s a season, rough waters, quicksand and I will come out of it.

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Okay, for some good stuff:

The Shay Edit

1. DARK on Netflix: I promise you that this is the best binge of your life, especially as winter / the end of the year comes close. It has time travel, sci-fi concepts like Schrodinger’s cat, keeps you on your toes, requires you to concentrate. You spend half of the show not understanding anything until you do. I should mention that it starts off slow with world and character building. Please watch it in the original German; you’re not uncultured.

2. Magic EP by Efe Oraka: I like this short album. It is beautiful, easy to digest, and you’ll be supporting an upcoming Nigerian artist. My favourite song off it is Intercession so give that a listen.

3. Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography by Walter Isaacson: I have gotten into reading biographies lately, and Steve Jobs lived the type of life where you can only look back and connect the dots. He was a huge asshole, but more importantly, he reminded me that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Share this letter with your friends, and fingers crossed, they #subscribe if they like it enough.

I hope this helps,

Shay