I just finished cleaning up the aftermath of my 21st birthday party (hosted in my suite living room in the best dorm on campus). It’s also been two weeks since I landed in Columbia, and things have been hectic.
During my year off after high school, I felt a lot of emotions. Deeply inspired and motivated for a time, then deeply isolated, lonely, and bored. It’s the loneliness that hit me the most, and it’s the social experience that makes college so exciting.
It’s crazy to think that just one month ago I was convinced that I’d drop out of college as early as possible to start a company. I’m still fully set on building and am inspired to change the world through technology that I create, but college is a LOT of fun. And dropping out is a MUCH harder pill to swallow now that I’ve gotten a taste of university life.
I got to Columbia 12 days ago, but it feels like it’s been months. I’ve lost track of the amount of interesting people I’ve met, classes and topics I’ve randomly decided I’d love to take and learn (off the top of my head: Buddhism, bartending, and robotics). My excitement feels like both a marker of my youth and a foretelling of an unforgettable experience these next few years.
It’s easy to think that life has passed you by, but I’ve found it’s much more fun to truly enjoy living in the present.
When I first stepped foot onto Columbia, I felt a solid two seconds of apprehension (social anxiety, even?) before I stepped into my orientation group and immediately felt at ease. Orientations are MY MAP. When everyone is sort of standing around awkwardly waiting for people to talk to them and make friends, I’m the GUYYYYY that saves the day. I have almost no social anxiety when it comes to meeting new people, and I truly love bringing people together. It feels like I’m playing a perhaps important, memorable part in other people’s lives. I feel seen, important, and useful when I can make people have fun socially. I hope this is something I do for the rest of my life. Bringing people together makes me happy.
I also immediately knew after stepping on campus that I wanted to throw a rager. I didn’t have an entirely clear vision of what I wanted my 21st birthday party to look like before, but after ten minutes with my orientation group, I knew without a shadow of the doubt that I wanted a proper, fucking rager. Unfortunately, my birthday was 9 days after my first day at Columbia, so if I wanted one, I’d had to get to work.
And 12 days later, after 4 reworkings of the entirety of my schedule, 1 date, 4 girls kissed, and 40(?) invites sent, I threw my birthday party. I invited probably every single person I’d had longer than a 30 second conversation with, and it was fun. The kind of fun that I expected to have two years ago, that I spent a year convincing myself I didn’t need to have in my life and would just drag me down and keep me from my goals. But now that I’ve lived it, it’s so much better than I ever imagined. It reminds me that life is truly less about what you accomplish and more about how much you enjoyed it.
I like to make comparisons to ancestral living a lot. My personal pitch that I like to give when explaining why startups attracted me so much has essentially been: “the most rewarding thing a caveman could’ve done would have been hunting the biggest mammoth he could find with his friends, coming back, and showing it off to his tribe.” Replace caveman with man and mammoth with “problem” and to me, building startups becomes more than a desire or whimsy; it becomes an evolutionary MANDATE — the most fulfilling thing you could possibly ever do in your life. But I’m also realizing now that the cavemen may have been just as equally fulfilled while throwing parties with their other caveman friends. A great career and building something amazing is interesting, but relationships are fulfilling on a deeper level.
I’ve been reading a few books and doing some introspection. Here’s some new things I’ve learned/would like to learn.
- how to shuffle (seriously dance well)
- how to DJ
- how to make robots (IOT) things. I want a surround sound jarvis-type gpt-based system in my room waking me up in the mornings.
- At Columbia, I appear to be quite attractive.
- I enjoy dating and think I have a much clearer idea of what I am looking for in a wife.
- I want to have a more balanced exercise routine ( no more only chest days)
- I’d like to learn how to bartend
- I enjoy learning difficult things
- I am a prestige whore and probably will be for the rest of my life
Well I’m tired. It’s 6:54 am, I just got done cleaning my room, and I’m the happiest I’ve been in a while. Life is great! I’m locking in starting tomorrow.
C u later, internet.
Choong 