Happy Tuesday!

It’s finals season before the summer break. It also means that my LinkedIn feed is full of “I’m happy to announce…” posts as my classmates started accepting their internship offers.

I felt happy for those who landed internships at big-name companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Uber. At the same time, I found myself comparing my internship search process to theirs and wanting their outcomes, even though I knew I actually wanted something else.

The unhappiness that followed greeted me like an old friend. I took that as a cue to close the LinkedIn app and get myself out of the comparison trap:

1. Let the noise die down
2. Eliminate pursuits that aren’t yours
3. Create a map and start taking action on it

1. Let the noise die down

Kim, an experienced meditator I met in Taiwan, has the best metaphor for this strategy:

Your mind is like a cup of water with dust in it. The water represents your true desires, and the dust represents various inputs from your environment (social media, social expectations, etc.)

In your default state, you’re thinking about many different things at once. This stirs the water in the cup, disturbing the dust and making the water murky.

When the water is murky, you usually feel lost or unclear about how to proceed.

When you let your thoughts settle, you stop stirring. The dust eventually settles at the bottom, leaving clear water—clarity—at the top.

Kim achieves this through meditation, but you can do this with any mindfulness activity—journalling, painting, or running, to name a few.

Important: You don’t need to achieve 100% clarity.

You just need enough clarity to know which desires and pursuits aren’t yours, so that you can eliminate them in Step #2.

2. Eliminate pursuits that aren’t yours

This is easy for pursuits you haven’t started: Just say no to the opportunity and focus on your existing pursuits.

If you’re in the middle of a pursuit that cannot be ended immediately (like a well-paying job that supports your entire family), the most gentle transition you can make is by doing Step #3.

3. Create a map and start taking action on it

At this step, you’re likely to fall into one or two of three possibilities:

Possibility #1: Starting from a clean slate

If you were able to do Step #2 successfully, great! Make a plan of action (a “map”) for the endeavor you want to pursue the most, and start taking action on it.

Possibility #2: Handling existing pursuits gracefully

To create a smooth transition out of existing pursuits, make a map for:

• Getting out of the pursuits that you couldn’t immediately eliminate in Step #2
• Entering the endeavor that you want to pursue the most

Possibility #3: No endeavors come to mind

If you don’t have a list of endeavors that you want to pursue, make a map for deliberate experimentation:

• Pick 2 - 3 interests of yours to learn more about.
• Structure your information input: Select 1 - 2 resources as your “primary curriculum” for learning more about your interests.
• Structure your information output: Complete at least one project to help you acquire new skills while learning.

What’s a “map”? It’s an effective type of “plan of action” that helped me accelerate my Zero-to-Noob journey:

The map analogy frames my endeavors as a journey, with multiple possible paths to my desired outcome.

This helped me focus on clarifying what my next two steps are, instead of worrying about the outcome I wanted to achieve.

A map has four components:

• a starting point (where you are now)
• an end point (where you want to be)
• At least one immediate action to kickstart your journey
• At least one checkpoint (intermediary goals/milestones)

I already knew what I truly wanted to do over the summer. An internship at a big tech company is the least suitable path I could walk on, but I still felt the desire to walk that path after I saw those LinkedIn posts.

That led to FOMO and unhappiness about how my internship search process turned out—even though it turned out in the best way possible for me.

So:

• Social comparison is inevitable, but you can reduce the noise by navigating social media with detachment or learning to tune out the noise.
• Eliminate pursuits that aren’t yours so that you have space for what you truly want.
• Make a map for the endeavor that you want to pursue and take action on it.

Further Reading

If you’re curious to learn more about why we desire things that others are also pursuing, I highly recommend reading about Mimetic Theory and Desire, a theory proposed by French philosopher René Girard.

You can read an introductory article about it here.