For most part of my life I always thought I was doing quite okay.

Not great.

Just okay.

I was always one of the top students in my class during all grades in primary and secondary schools. Technical university was a different beast at first, but after an initial six month struggle (when I was still doing okay) I ended up being, again, as one of the top students.

Never the best, but I felt I was good enough. Good enough in terms of my own standards.

Then going to work… And this is were the real problems started.

I never thought about “managing” a career back then. Even two, three years ago this was not something I considered important.

The problem with life after school/university is that nobody really tells you what to do. “You can do whatever you want”, and there’s a lot of truth in that saying, but the reality is that we rarely use that power.

The time we spent on something (like bachelor’s or master’s degree, our first jobs, etc.) keeps us hostage.

I’m more than sure, that the choices I made, that let me to this point (and place in time) were too often sub-optimal. But how could they be optimal? I didn’t have all the knowledge and information I have right now.

What is more, this knowledge is still impotent. I won’t switch my career anytime soon, because I have too many expenses which I need to cover on a monthly basis. Golden handcuffs in all their glory.

But how big of a problem it is can be revealed by a meeting with some old friends, e.g. from school. It might take form of one of the two extremes: you might feel that you’re doing great or… you might feel like shit. And the more you thought you were doing well at school the harder the landing usually is.

This is because going to schoold is super easy. You’re told exactly what to do, and you get an instast feedback either from teachers or by comparing with your peers.

The real life is almost the opposite: you have to figure out what to do by yourself, and measuring progress becomes more subjective. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing bad in choosing an easy life, and I’m telling this from my own perspective. But there’s this one nasty feeling that might hunt you till your very last days.

The feeling of a lost potential.