A letter from Aug 02, 2024

Dear FutureMe, Just read your letter from last year - it's a good thing you did the sleep study. As diminishing as 'mild' OSA sounds, getting on CPAP has made a huge difference to how I feel on the day-to-day. Of course, I'm still getting up later than I should, but I can now chalk that down to poor self-discipline, rather than a medical condition. (Yeah, me neither) Kinda disappointed that I am not stronger-willed than I am. I should be able to get up before 10am if I want, without the motivation of my pager going off for another fire call that's probably a false smoke alarm ("wordback of a false-alarm stop, code 609"). But I don't know what to change. How does one become more than they are, more like they want to be, more like they would /have to be/ given less lenient circumstances? Speaking of. Work's just promoted me to senior. Of course, it came with an 18% raise, so that's neat, but I think I'm still earning under industry average would suggest I should be. James was telling me yesterday that this promotion was the key to getting me paid more (org structures etc), but as ever, I think he was in sales mode trying to convince me to stick around. I don't know if it's working or not. Naturally, it's coming with more responsibility. Training the new hires we're going to have (as soon as the investment lands and doubles our team size) and being a mentor. Seems like a bad deal still. Feels like I'm spending all my days chasing diminishing returns on everything just to be able to do due diligence for my tasks, but also at the same time making me feel guilty for not doing more concrete work with results. I have tasks that would yield those, but they don't seem to be high priority, so they languish idly while I struggle with networking (not my job) and making impossible configuration for services that I shouldn't have to be using. Kids‽ I think you'll know more about that than I do, and I wish you all the best. What do I want with my life? Am I going to ever do anything that I want? Seems like I spend it all chasing what everyone else wants. If I knew what I wanted, perhaps I could go out and get it. Yours, YoungerYou.