Steve's Spices of Life

i graduated and moved in with my parents

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I’ve sent this graph to a lot of my friends and one line stuck out even more than the time spent alone — how little time you spend with family. Once you graduate college, things tend to get in the way of spending valuable time with your family — your job, hanging out with friends, moving cities, the list goes on and on. It’s one of the many reasons why I chose to live at home once I graduated. The major reasons include:

  1. Staring at the student debt I accumulated over 4 years and making a vow to myself that I should pay it off before starting my adult life.

  2. I’d feel a lot more comfortable taking risks in life once I built up a sufficient amount of financial padding (roughly half a year’s rent for me).

  3. I wanted to see what remote work looked like — whether I’d feel like I’m learning valuable skills, connecting with coworkers and doing meaningful work.

I've always been enamored with the idea of the broke founder. The image of a founder sleeping on couches and eating ramen to bootstrap their business is one that's been heavily romanticized. This idea of chasing your dreams, no matter what has never failed to motivate me.

I think it's possible to hedge your risks while pursuing your dreams. There's nothing wrong with dropping everything to chase what you want. It's something I heavily respect. That being said, life is all about compromise. I'm choosing not to compromise on quality time spent with my parents. I'm choosing not to compromise on getting myself to a good financial position. I'm choosing not to compromise on stability as I figure myself out in my 20s.

So, what's next? Moving at home isn't perfect. Gone were the spontaneous run ins with people on campus. Gone were the late night club meetings where we’d spend hours doing anything but the homework that was due days ago. One quick scroll on Instagram and I’d see people essentially living college 2.0 in places like New York and Chicago.

Here's what I know I want next:

  1. I want to be surrounded by young ambitious people living out the pursuit of their dreams.

  2. I want to be in a city like New York or San Francisco with a high density of the young people aforementioned.

  3. I'm learning how to code so I can make the things I've always had ideas for.