Strain
12/29/25
Occasionally, people who care about me will question why I push myself. They'll ask what drives me to work the hours I do, to live in a place foreign and far from family, to strive to be the best in my chosen field. I'll joke about a permanent chip on my shoulder, or my competitive streak, or a canine which resides inside me next to my lungs. The reality is more personal and I often struggle to properly communicate it. So, here's an attempt to explain my ethos via writing, starting with words from Arnold Schwarzenegger:
I am not a self-made man. [...] Like everyone, to get to where I am, I stood on the shoulders of giants. My life was built on a foundation of parents, coaches, and teachers; of kind souls who lent couches or gym back rooms where I could sleep; of mentors who shared wisdom and advice; of idols who motivated me from the pages of magazines (and, as my life grew, from personal interaction)....
By most measures, I had a close-to-perfect childhood. Loving parents, siblings I adore, financial stability, an excellent education, lifelong friends, motivating mentors, and a supportive community. Now obviously, there were bad days - there are always bad days. But by and large, my memories are joyful and I feel immense gratitude for the effort and sacrifices my loved ones have made to enable me to pursue a life of my choice. There is not a day which passes in which I forget where I come from and who lifted me here.
Additionally, I rolled pretty damn well on the ol' stat card. I'm (occasionally) intelligent, in excellent health, highly motivated, and live in in a country which encourages and enables me to leverage these capabilities. However, these paired with my upbringing have left me sorely lacking in a convenient resource - excuses. And, as I've come to learn over time, an absence of excuses begets greater responsibility.
Now, that's awfully close to a comic book quote, and I adore Uncle Ben's on-screen delivery of said line in the inarguably superior Spider-Man trilogy. But, I'll throw Tom Holland's Peter Parker one bone - he and RDJ's take on this bit hits me squarely in the gut every time I watch it:
Stark: Why are you doing this? I gotta know, what's your M.O. - what gets you out of that twin bed in the morning?
Parker: Because... Look when you can do the things that I can, but you don't... and then the bad things happen? They happen because of you.
Most days, my first waking thought is an acknowledgement of this truth. I, by some rationale of my creator's, have been given the capacity, means, and circumstances to help people in ways others cannot. Not for vainglory or personal satisfaction, but because of simple obligation. Another way of phrasing this from my favorite scene in Good Will Hunting:
Chuckie: Look, you're my best friend, so don't take this the wrong way but, in 20 years if you're still livin' here, comin' over to my house, watchin' the Patriots games, workin' construction, I'll fuckin' kill ya. That's not a threat, that's a fact, I'll fuckin' kill ya.
Will: What the fuck you talkin' about?
Chuckie: You got somethin' none of us have...
Will: Oh, come on! What? Why is it always this? I mean, I fuckin' owe it to myself to do this or that. What if I don't want to?
Chuckie: No. No, no no no. Fuck you, you don't owe it to yourself man, you owe it to me. Cuz tomorrow I'm gonna wake up and I'll be 50, and I'll still be doin' this shit. And that's all right. That's fine. I mean, you're sittin' on a winnin' lottery ticket. And you're too much of a pussy to cash it in, and that's bullshit. 'Cause I'd do fuckin' anything to have what you got. So would any of these fuckin' guys. It'd be an insult to us if you're still here in 20 years. Hangin' around here is a fuckin' waste of your time.
Inaction on my part is not an option. Living selfishly would be an insult to myself, to God, and to everyone who has ever invested in me. My life's purpose, the reason for my existence, has always been clear to me: to cause the maximum amount of good for the most people I can. The only question has been, what's the most effective way to fulfill it?
I often think of myself as a tool - an edge or blade designed to cut in a specific direction. All blades needs to be forged, sharpened, applied, and maintained. For me, allocating time properly between these stages is difficult. Time is zero-sum, so the days I spend sharpening my skills are normally days I am not applying them. Resting, such on vacation, can be a struggle - I always feel the pressure to be doing more, while concurrently acknowledging that breaks are essential for avoiding burnout. Another question - when have I learned enough? When have I spent enough time developing myself to pivot and focus more on executing? I've certainly learned more about tech working at Applied for the past 2.5 years than I possibly could have in a classroom. At the same time, I'm woefully ignorant in other fields I consider critical - politics, hard sciences, economics, international affairs. When's the right time to immerse myself in these topics to complete the knowledge base I believe I'll require in my life?
Money's also a concern. I view every dollar I earn as means to an end - pre-seed funding for a start-up, educational savings for my future children, investment opportunities, gifts to further relationships, cost of living coverage, etc. My current position at Applied is lucrative, but lacks the responsibility and reach I require to fully achieve my goals. Yet, quitting too early to pursue my own ventures is quite the risk. I made an explicit decision in university to not immediately found a company - I knew I wasn't ready and lacked the funds / connections for it to have a high chance of succeeding. Today though, I find myself constantly wondering whether it's better to spend 10 years starting in my mid 20s working on an idea with $1M in the bank, or 5 years starting at 30 with $10M. So many choices in adulthood are made on a spectrum, which for me is agonizing compared to the straightforward black and white options I often encountered as a kid.
The medium through which I help others is also a dilemma. One of my professors at Georgia Tech proposed a related ultimatum to me during my senior year:
Colby, in your life you need to choose between helping a lot of people a small amount, or helping a small amount of people a lot.
He's a brilliant man, but he's wrong here - simultaneous scale and magnitude of impact are not mutually exclusive (as has been proven time and time again throughout history), merely difficult to obtain. You need to act from a position of influence to have proper impact, and your actions require some form of amplification to reach as many people as possible. Tech seems a straightforward medium which meets these requirements. A small number of focused, dedicated engineers and scientists can have disproportionate impact (for better or worse) because scaling laws do not apply to the field. Politics is another potential future option, but not one which currently seems worth pivoting away from as hot of a field as tech is today. Still, this is another bet, another from-the-gut choice I've made which I frequently reconsider.
I'm doing my best to navigate the uncertainty I've illustrated above. It's hard. But I believe facing intentional difficulty in life is an indication you're doing something worthwhile. Perhaps in an already quote heavy post, Teddy Roosevelt summarizes these expressed ideals best:
I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.
So why do I get out of bed in the morning? Why do I stress and strain past what my circumstances require? Because others don't have the gifts I've been given, and it would be cowardice to play it safe or keep them to myself.