Esther is a confused new grad being

Work? Relationships? Overwork? Relationship commitment?

“Sorry, I’m late, but we can call next time.” We hadn’t been able to call for a while, and 8 p.m. is quite late for New York.”

But the moment I hung up the phone, my colleague texted, “Soon?” (aka Can we talk about work soon?) And all of a sudden, I felt really confused realizing I was not handling either my work or my relationships well.

Work confusion: Am I at the right place?

Even though my current work is strongly aligned with my problem I want to work on it in the long term. But so much confusion has happened in the past two weeks. My founder thinks it’s quite slow for us and so does I, but I’m already overworked quite a lot.

Hence, more questions appear. Am I the right fit for my startup or do they need a senior engineer? Are they a right fit for me or do I need to gain more mentorship in LLM and ML/AI? Should I insist on learning LLM/ML/AI training or API calls will be the future anyway?

The difficulty of work is also not only about technical ability. It’s on leadership because no one else really understands LLM except me. “You need to be more proactive,” my founder said. As a young new grad with 0 experience, now I drive a company?

Relationship confusion: How much do relationships matter?

Since I decided to prioritize my work till the end of this year, I definitely fell short of building new relationships and maintaining old ones, especially when all my friends are in different time zones as hardworking full-time employees or founders. (My close friends usually live a crazily busy life.)

So I ask, how much do relationships matter to me at this moment? But even if I haven’t prioritized relationships now, I still cannot achieve work expectation?? If the scheduling calls have such great logistical difficulty, what should I do?

Environment confusion: How to find thought leaders in my life?

Usually, all my close friends are my thought leaders because they are good at asking the right questions and understanding what I want. If I have them, I think I will have great ideas for my work confusion and relationship confusion. But now, life is stuck without them being around me. Life is boring without ideals bubbling up with them.

So my questions become, how to find great thought leaders in my in-person life? How to find them? How to be close to them?

Conclusion

I’m sick and also so lost in my life now.

My new job is like a new lover, we don’t really know if we are compatible.

My old relationships are like old friends before falling in love. I don’t know how much time I can give them now.

The absence of intellectual stimulation is like the weird feeling of missing a cup of morning coffee.

Weirdo friendsssssss, what should I do? But at least, I’m on brand!