Over the past months, I’ve had this weird feeling about life. I feel like it is moving faster than it was a couple of years ago. I'm 21 now, but I look back to when I was 17 or 18 and it's just not the same. I wake up every day, and when I realize it's already bedtime. Feels like 2022 was just some months ago, but 2024 is just around the corner.

I’ve talked to two people about it. The first one is Umberto, my therapist. During our talk, we concluded that this sensation is created when idleness is missing in your routine. That's exactly what happened to me when I started working as a software engineer. Before that, I had all this free time, where I studied lots of things, worked out, and read a bunch of books. Nowadays, my routine is filled with activities that start when I wake up and end just before going to bed. Sometimes, I feel like Sisyphus, constantly pushing activities every single day…

The other person I talked about this is Abdul. He was really blunt (as always) and just said:

20s

Well, in an attempt to come up with an explanation of what Abdul meant, I ended up thinking about how this transition to adulthood works. Suddenly, you are hit by this time killer combo: college + work. Here in Brazil, it’s pretty common for a student who's in the second year of college to be already working in a full-time position. This causes some breaking changes in every teenager’s life. One day you're just going to school with your friends and studying to go to a good college, but when you realize, you are already in a full-time position while graduating. In my routine, this combo costs me about 12 hours a day. If I sleep around 8 hours, I’m left with just 4 hours for other stuff, like working on my startup, reading, and going to the gym.

So, in my opinion, I (and probably a bunch of people my age) have this feeling because of this impactful and fast transition. We don't adapt this fast and that's ok. Maybe it's what needs to happen for growth to occur. I don't know.

I actually have mixed feelings about this “issue”. While I wish I had more time to do certain stuff (e.g. read more, work harder in my startup) and put more work into other areas, the feeling I get on the weekends is really good. Feels like I made a ton of progress.

Cool stuff in my week

Inspired by Abdul’s “What I learned this week” tradition, I will start sharing some cool stuff I see/read throughout my week. Hope you enjoy :)

I’ve read this memo by Howard Marks from Oaktree Capital and found it to be really interesting. He has a good take on how, for the majority of investors, avoiding losers is a better strategy than going for winners. The examples with tennis are wonderful btw. Also, thanks to Leonardo for showing it to me.

Sorry for not posting last week. My bad.