Far too much love to give - navigating school, relationships & careers

I've been accused of the unthinkable. I've been called out. A dear friend and a beautiful man told me yesterday that the reason I'm single is because I keep doling out love to everyone I see. "You care so much about far too many people. You know so much about their lives. It's no wonder you have little to give to the prospect of an actual relationship." It has been the most flattering and heartwarming call out.

While this is obviously self-indulgent, I've also been called out for not committing enough, for being a little more flaky than optimal, far more overbooked than my own body would like. This has been a recurring theme for 6 months, and the question I constantly keep asking everyone as a proxy for asking myself - do you explore or commit?

Designing life in grad school

I've been thinking about intentionally designing my life while I'm in school. What do I optimize for, and why? There are a few broad strategies I see people around me take:

1. No-holds barred exploration: Sign up for every talk, be present at every event and be guided 100% by curiosity (more likely FOMO). Increase every chance of serendipity. Jump at every opportunity to broaden your world just a little bit. Credit limit—what's that? I see maybe 20% do this.
2. Constrained exploration: Narrow the boundaries of your own interest to prevent being overwhelmed - commit to the classes you're in, the department you're signed up for; do a part-time research role in your department; you know what you're here to learn and learn it well; curiosity may guide you to a couple of electives, but usually within the same department. Make the most use of the structures in your program; take the down time to breathe; show up for events, but only lead if there’s one else to do it. This is the most common approach, in my opinion - 30% or so?
3. Conscious exploration: Careful, thought-out, strategic expansion - sign up for talks when you're either interested in the topic or keen on having the speaker know who you are; lead 1 student club or maybe a couple conferences perfectly aligned with your own career; take downtime as needed, take electives that are relevant, cross-register, but carefully. This is fairly common - when you're at a place like Harvard, a large chunk tend to be in this category, maybe 40%.
4. Deep commitment: Build, baby, build. Most often with entrepreneurs or full time researchers - school is the best place to commit to an idea in a low-stakes, high-resource environment. Show up to events strongly aligned with your commitment, be ruthless in the classes you sign up for, and spend your energy working on 1-2 projects that you deeply care about. I see maybe 10% do this.

I generalize to make a point. I also generalize to draw the obvious tradeoffs in each approach. I think I'm somewhere between 1 and 3 right now. While I am fairly intentional in what I sign up to do, I'm easily convinced to increase the bounds of what my intentions are. I'm always looking to be persuaded to go to the next talk, to grab that drink and rush to Cambridge for a movie screening.

There are obvious problems with this approach. For one, I spend a shocking amount of money on Uber, my calendar is pretty much blocked two-three weeks in advance, there's little wiggle room for the natural ebbs and flows in my energy and I'm constantly running behind.

What's less obvious is the value in doing this and how I attempt to do this with as much intention and thought that I can muster.

Why & maybe how you can do this

1. You have to be in the room where it happens. Whether you're running a conference or participating in a class, opportunities are offered to people who show up. Sometimes that means you show up at 10 pm to help out. Sometimes that means you take an uber to go to that after-party when it's snowing. Sometimes that means you sleep 4 hours a night for a week to prepare for that hackathon. I'm not advocating for a life of hustle; I'm only advocating for periods in your life where you embrace the chaos.
2. If you want to live this life, you must be honest about your commitments. I'll admit - I need to get way better at this. I'm often concerned about turning down opportunities and events too quickly, and I end up being more vague than I should be. If I'm not keen on doing the event/hang if it were in a few hours, I'm unlikely to feel great about it a week down the line. Staying true to your commitments begins by being honest about your commitments. I'll let you know if I get better at this.
3. Understand and attempt to articulate the larger narrative arc of your life. When you explain where you were and where you want to go, you can, with relative ease, see whether a certain opportunity makes sense for you. I'm not asking you to be strict about this. I certainly am not. But, I have spent a fair bit of time thinking about what I like, what I don't and what I don't know. For me to say yes to an opportunity, it must be something that I enjoy or it can be something I am yet to make up my mind about. I would be disappointed to spend my overbooked time on an activity I should have better predicted I wouldn't enjoy at all. This requires you being aware of how you feel in the moment and to trust what feels good. Listening to these inklings is responding to feedback. You must know when to update your own narrative based on what you care about.
4. You must have high standards for what you produce, and aim to get quicker at meeting them. Let me make my case: It's only useful to increase the surface area for luck if you're going to make the most of the luck you get. This often means that when you get to make a decision, you must do what you can to make it well. Spend time drafting that email. Practice that speech a few times in front of the mirror. Prepare for that one class you've simply been invited to sit in. What you get out is often dependent on what you put in, in my experience.
5. Serendipity is your friend. Letting curiosity and FOMO guide you often makes for great stories. More people say your name in rooms when you're not there. More people are likely to invite you to share when they know what you’re passionate about. More people are going to want to work with you if you've shown up for them before. But, these are not benefits you gain from networking at an event. These are gains from showing up with kindness, love and rigor to the events you care about, for the people you claim to care about. You should expect to have to actively search for new friends & experiences - this prepares you for putting yourself in the right places at the right times.
6. Reflect and update what you care about. Of course, for all this to work, you must know what you value. I recently realized that I value connection, but connection that expands the view of my world. This is unclear and vibey- but it is hard to explain how alive I feel when I'm talking to someone whose experiences are wildly different, and our conversation continues to build bridges towards a shared understanding of the universe. It is both warm and exciting. I care about a lot of things like politics, labor, sex, and development, but the larger point is to build a more comprehensive understanding of the world. That's what I can't compromise on. This is also very much a function of the phase of life you are in. I've spent the last six years working in a fairly niche sector, simply learning to show up everyday to consolidate all I know about this super specific topic. Now, while I’m in school, the goal is to be expansive! And, to continuously build - brick on brick, a clearer, more accurate picture of the world to complement what I know from my own life. And I need activities that help me fill in the missing pieces of this picture. As they say, form must fit the context.

The important thing is that all of this can change! Soon, I may feel a deeper sense of pull towards something specific that requires deep commitment. To know when your values aren't in line with your day to day is to be aware of the kind of conversation/work brings you joy, the kind of people you want to be around, the things you day dream about.

All this to say that the haters are right - you can extend yourself too much. Symptoms of burnout and exhaustion are sometimes more visible than we would like them to be. It's obvious when you're running behind on 3 projects, when you're jumping from one event to another without grabbing free food, and when your calendar is a mishmash of colours with little to no white space.

While you must pay attention to these signs, don't forget that there is a more invisible tradeoff. You can just as easily shrink yourself more than you need to. It's insidious because you're rarely going to have someone ask you why you're not ambitious enough. It's difficult for someone who isn't you to accurately judge how much you're doing and if what you're doing is enough for the life you want to live.

Unfortunately, I notice often that for me, I run the risk of getting too comfortable. A couple of months into school and I have already become accustomed to a life with low stakes. I worry about the failure of a life too chaotic. I am happy to participate and ask a few questions, but never really offer to lead. A few years down that path is a life I will enjoy. I probably will have a few fun experiences, nothing too bad, nothing too crazy. Potentially, nothing too life-changing.

If I want this phase to be transformative, if I want to have my life changed, I must learn to balance comfort with stakes. There are two ways to do this:

Option 1: Simply accept seasons of my life - some active, some passive - use time as a buffer.

Option 2: Riskier but seems far worth it. Get incredibly good at knowing what's worth doing and lower the stakes associated with doing it by simply doing it several times. The first time you sing in public is hell. The next time is also hell. You never stop being nervous - you only learn that you'll be on stage again, so you forgive yourself quicker for the mistakes you make and get up on the stage again with less restraint.

I can work on my writing more actively - do a class, do research, read more, and edit more or I can write enough that real feedback I receive teaches me what I need to know, and teaches me quicker. There are but a few ways to learn more effectively than jumping into a project with tight deadlines and fantastic feedback loops.

I'm picking Option 2.

I write these 2000 words mostly to make a case to you that you can:

• Do a little too much and be happy
• Do a little too less and be happy
• Do just the right amount and be happy

I find option 1 appealing, especially as I get better at knowing what brings me happiness, and I learn that doing more of it doesn't take away from the joy I feel!

More likely, I'm justifying my own decision-making at the end of an incredibly long, satisfying, long day. I know, I said long twice and that's exactly how the day felt.

I wish you long, satisfied, and long days too.