It’s pretty late, and I’m typing on my old tactile switch keyboard while thinking (well, I’ve been thinking) about my future. I feel like my perspective on my ideal future has changed a lot since I started school (which is crazy, considering it has only been a bit more than two years).

What I first pictured for myself was the life of a successful entrepreneur with lots of control, money, and influence. All I needed to do was to be extremely good at what I do (which happens to be programming), get a really great job first, and then build a startup that blows up, makes me a lot of money, becomes a big business, and gives me influence. I could do the things I want with maximum freedom and live my life without monetary limits, and so on. I didn’t really choose to run a business because it had any specific appeal to me; I mostly chose it because it seemed like the most surefire way to achieve the goals I had in mind.

So what changed? It’s challenging to pinpoint exactly. I think the first thing that changed was the feasibility of it all. I started to come to terms with how oddly difficult life could be and how I wasn’t as good at some things as I thought I was. There’s a lot more that went into this (for instance, how I had serious problems with specialization), but I don’t think I have the strength to type all of that out.

In retrospect, it seems a little like I gave up and quit on my big dreams. Did I?

The other main reason I changed is the more impactful one and, for the most part, why I’m writing this.

I’d never really stopped to ask myself what I wanted out of life. Not the cliché stuff like lots of money and lots of freedom (everybody wants that), but the harder questions that have a lot to do with tradeoffs.

The thing is, it’s really easy to think about your future through the lens of big, haughty dreams where you get to have it all without any cost (except your conveniently placed hard work). But, in reality, life is full of tradeoffs.

And so, for better or worse, it was important that I picked mine (or is it important? I’m not done picking yet).

So the question then is, since I can’t have it all, what were the most important things I wanted to have? You should probably note here that I’m by no means considering myself incompetent or trying to settle for anything less than the best possible version of my life. I just think it’s necessary for me to more clearly understand what I’m working toward, and this is a way of establishing my priorities.