Ignorance is Bliss
When I enrolled into college to get a CS degree, I thought I would graduate, get a 60–80k a year job and work my way up. I would make six figures in five or ten years maybe try to go into management later on and what not. I went to a state school, ranking roughly 40ish. Not to bad, not to great. It wasn’t MIT but it also wasn’t DeVry Online University. That all changed when I got an offer from a FAANG company.
They paid 9k a MONTH to INTERNS. I got a return offer and they pay SIX-FIGURES to starting developers. This blew my mind. While there I talked to some coworkers and did some research online and found that some people there were making half a MILLION dollars a year. These were regular ass developers- not VPs or directors of CEOs, regular ass developers who just sit and write code all day. WTF. Never in my life could I have imagined that people could make this much money. And while this is a great opportunity for me and I am very grateful of it, I really think it changed me. I became way more hungry, more greedy. Less content than I was before. I needed to get the next promotion so get more money and then get the next promotion to get even more money. I imagine that if I had just joined some boomer company out of college I would have been content with my 60 or 70k, just chilling.
But now that I know that there is so much more out there, I cannot help but to want it all. I mentioned before that I went to a state school. Not many people from my school go to the top tier companies. Its like those sports movies about a small town boy going to the big leagues to play baseball or whatever they do to escape. This was my ticket to the big leagues. This was a key to a doorway that opened up so many new, and not all good, things. It was like opening Pandora’s box. I am now ever satisfied with what I have. I think its the Cali or LA mindset. I see other people and wonder what their TC (Total compensation, salary + stock) is. I wonder what I can do to get to their level. I dread every day of declining or not progressing. Since after all if everyone else is improving and you are stationary, you are de-improving.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I never got my “golden ticket” so to say. Would I be more content in life? Maybe. I would literally not know that any of this existed. Sure I would know that there were rich people and Lambos and Teslas and what not but those were for OTHER people. People who grew up in a nanny. People who grew up going to private school. It wasn’t even possible for me to achieve that level so why bother? But know I know that I COULD possibly be at that level and it would be a sin to not work hard every single waking second to not waste my ONE OPPORTUNITY IN LIFE.
If I never knew this world existed would I be happier?