It’s a bit ironic that my last post was about work-life balance and now I’m writing about willfully letting work take over my life, but bear with me as I hope to bring the two ideas together. I would classify the past few weeks as “Mudd busy,” meaning comparable to my days at university, the period in my life where I pushed myself hardest. I haven’t come even close to these limits since I graduated, and just the thought of slipping back into that lifestyle felt dangerous. But as I got drawn into my work, I noticed how strong and positive my mental health remained. So even though I fully acknowledged the contradiction, I decided this was the moment to go all in.
For some brief background as to why this has been such a crucial and intense period, Okra is in the process of securing significant investment to scale operations, transition to the next stage of growth as a startup, and determine whether we are on a trajectory of success. So on the tech side, getting the product to a state where we could confidently demonstrate all our core functionality to investors and expand the pilot was critical for our success. Unsurprisingly but frustratingly, we’d been on the verge of success for weeks, but with every bug we fixed, the carrot inched just out of reach again. Thankfully, our other engineers who both work remotely, were able to come spend some time in Phnom Penh, in effort to put our heads together, iron out the foundation of the product, strip away the layers of hacks, and give this our best possible shot. What ensued was enthralling, intense, and bordered on insanity. After we eventually got some sleep a week later, I took a step back and realized that even though I’ve worked this hard before, my emotional response to this experience was completely unlike anything I had ever gone through.
Instinctively this feels a bit crazy to say, but I really mean it – having the choice to work hard, and then choosing it, is the greatest career privilege I’ve experienced. The feeling of caring so much about what you’re working on such that you never want to give up, such that staying awake through the night doesn’t feel like a chore, and such that dejection isn’t an option was new and absolutely adrenaline inducing. I never imagined myself wanting to work this hard for a job, but it made sense when I realized that this work doesn’t feel like a job. The motivation to succeed feels so intrinsic that the long hours don’t sabotage my enthusiasm. At Mudd, I often lost track of why I was working so hard. It felt like a means to an end, but the process was rarely enjoyable. I am confident in my ability to work hard when the situation demands it, but my mental association with hard work is more closely tied to endurance and perseverance, rather than joy. Challenging this perception has been my goal for ages.
The week that our full team spent together felt like a mix between summer-camp and boot-camp. With all of us living in the same house, teasing each other like a crazy family, and giving each other constant energy and support, we accomplished more in that week than we had in the entire month before. The commitment everyone put forward was contagious, and the delirium, terrible engineering jokes, and daily debriefs about each other’s tech-infiltrated dreams brought us dramatically closer. To top it off, with not even an hour to spare, the final piece of the puzzle fell into place and we took our new work out to the field and deployed it together. The shock and elation I felt when everything started working, after days of struggling, was nothing short of amazing. I was overwhelmingly proud of our collective effort and success. In that moment, I tried to capture my feelings and save them as a special memory, but also as an important reference point in my life going forward. This wasn’t an everyday experience, but it was an experience that helped validate where I am right now and will continue to serve as a gauge, indicating what being passionate about work can look like. Even in the thick of the sleep deprivation, I felt continually thankful.
To be clear, working that hard and sacrificing every other component of life for one project isn’t what I’m striving for and isn’t sustainable. But it is the kind of effort that, for a short burst, was rewarding and grounding. These past few weeks resulted in me revealing to myself, and the team, just how much this work means to me. And besides knowing the strength of my commitment, I also now know that my relationship with this work is by no means ordinary. So rather than thinking about work-life balance as a way to mitigate fatigue induced by a job that feels draining, I’ve realized that right now my downtime needs to be about fulfilling me in diverse ways, to give me the lasting fuel to charge ahead at the speed I’m rearing to go. I still need to be careful about not burning out or making sacrifices that I might regret, but knowing that I’m crafting my life around work I fundamentally love, feels like a massive accomplishment in itself.
The first row of photos is from some user interviews I did, as well as a photo of a few Okra controllers prior to installing more in our pilot village.
The next row is from an amazing two day getaway I took with one of my dearest friends from childhood, Nina. We explored the Malaysian rainforests, ate heartedly, and talked about life for hours on end. Amazing that despite not seeing each other at home in years, our paths could cross in Malaysia!
The next two photos are random – the first is from when some people turned our street into a wedding. A normal Cambodian practice, but wasn’t terribly exciting to wake up to at 6am on a Saturday. The second photo is from going boxing with the team. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to grab a photo of me punching Affy in the face.
The next two rows are from a team retreat we took. We explored the jungle and had a marathon future planning brainstorm at a lodge at the top of a mountain. We even managed to get a proper photo of the full gang.
Aaaand finally, last but not least, Tash came to visit me and words don’t describe the happiness I felt both in seeing her, spending quality time together, and in showing her my life here. For the first time, I feel like I have built a life that I am really thriving in, and it meant everything to be able to share that with her. Plus, it was ever more validation that despite our pursuits taking us all around the world, they also always bring us together.
