Random Thoughts: Three Years After Graduation#

A sudden urge to write — to capture how I feel right now, and how my mindset has shifted over the three years since graduation. It seems we always look at our past environment through a filter. In university, I compared it to vocational school. Fresh out of college, I compared it to campus life. After switching companies, I compared the new one to the old. The good parts of a new environment never quite hit as hard, while the bad parts of the old one get romanticized — because I no longer have to deal with them. And the drawbacks of the present? They loom larger, sharpened by direct contrast.

From being a fresh graduate intern to someone who now mentors interns, I’ve noticed myself gradually being assimilated by my surroundings. Sometimes I catch a certain “bureaucratic” tone in how I handle things, and it forces me to recognize just how much environment shapes a person. The saying “Heaven’s timing, earthly advantage, human harmony” — I’ve come to believe that “earthly advantage” is exactly this: the environment. When the environment is right, human effort becomes exponentially more effective. But when the environment can’t be changed, you need a tenfold dose of “human harmony” just to push against the current.

I often find myself nostalgic for the discipline I had in university — how I admired that version of myself. But I also remember the weight I woke up with every single day back then. The details may blur, but the feeling is etched into my bones. Right after graduation, when my salary was low, I still held onto that discipline. But as work stabilized, as life got comfortable and the pay improved, my discipline crumbled like a dam bursting open. Success, I think, is sometimes just about holding on a little longer than others. I read a lot in college, picked up many good habits and techniques — yet none of them seem to have stuck. Then again, the ideas that truly become part of you, flowing in your blood, you don’t even notice them anymore.

We want too much and do too little. We let ourselves be pushed around by society’s standards, parents’ expectations, the yardsticks of relatives and friends. I hope that from now on — in my actions and my dealings with others — I can be a pure person, standing and speaking from the standard of a genuine “me.”