.so much have changed over the last nine years, and yet, so little

I came back to the same place where I went 9 years ago with my two girlfriends - Zanzibar. I showed a photo I took back then to a local, and asked for directions - turns out it was’t so hard to find. It was one of the main squares, the Jaw’s Corner. I wanted to see what changed. Iwona, my friend wasn't with me this time, so I gave my glasses to a local and asked him to pose like Iwona did. He was missing a bag, but he did quite a neat job, I must say. He said, some of those people on the photo are already dead, the rest - is still on the island coming to the square to catch-up on affairs.

The paint of the doors and roofs was different. The tree which was there in the middle back then broke, so they planted another one. But people are still meeting there for the board games and a cup of tea in the afternoon, when the heat is not so bad anymore. Life still revolves around haggling with tourists, sweetening moments on sucking ubuyu (dyed red baobab seeds that have been boiled and coated in a heady mix of sugar, salt, black pepper, cardamom, and vanilla), kids going to school and then in the afternoon, helping their parents in their shops, and tourists like me, coming and going.

Over those two weeks in Tanzania last month, I felt alive.?

I'm making it a quote, because I can.

We often spend days, months, years, doing the same thing over and over again, being on autopilot and not reflecting, if that’s even what we want. I remember my gloomy corporate days when I was leaving home when it was still dark outside, and coming home, when it was dark outside. Eat, work, exercise, sleep, repeat. Monday to Friday was pretty much on autopilot, and it was awaiting those weekends where I would squeeze as much as I could.

I’m sure you also had those reflections when sometimes a quick weekend getaway felt SO FULL, so many things have happened you couldn’t comprehend it was just two days.?

This is how I feel about those last two weeks.?Each day was different and it felt like I've done and seen so much. Time is indeed relative, and time is all we have. And what's left of us is memories. (Ok, now also a large number of data to train AI systems and make the big tech richer).

Don't get me wrong, I love my life and I feel alive. I'm working more than ever but I genuinely enjoy it because I see the purpose of it. I'm building my destiny and working on projects that are improving other people's lives.

But over those two weeks there I realised two things - or rather, I knew them already, but it was a good reminder:

1. You can’t imagine how lucky you are to be living in a free country, with access to good education, safety (bonus points if your country isn't corrupted), feeling in power of your own destiny and with abundance of choices. In a way, it’s also harder, because so much choice means chaos and confusion. It means rat race, high life costs, and unfulfilled ambitions because you're sold on finding your passion instead of creating one.? But that's incomparable to being born into a life where you need to hassle to barely be able to make ends meet. No perspectives - that's the scariest thing.
2. If I kept coming to Zanzibar every 9 years, it means I can only make 5-6 such trips before I die. Which is a terrifying vision. Of course, I can choose to travel here more often, but then I need to sacrifice and deprioritise other things. It reminded me of a great article written by Tim from Wait But Why on the Tail End . It shows how many times you'll do something before you die. Like eating a pizza. If you're 34 and you eat pizza about once a month, you’ve got about 700 more chances to eat it. Or, visiting your parents:

Relationships.

I’ve been thinking about my parents, who are in their mid-60s. During my first 18 years, I spent some time with my parents during at least 90% of my days. But since heading off to college and then later moving out of Boston, I’ve probably seen them an average of only five times a year each, for an average of maybe two days each time. 10 days a year. About 3% of the days I spent with them each year of my childhood.

Being in their mid-60s, let’s continue to be super optimistic and say I’m one of the incredibly lucky people to have both parents alive into my 60s. That would give us about 30 more years of coexistence. If the ten days a year thing holds, that’s 300 days left to hang with mom and dad. Less time than I spent with them in any one of my 18 childhood years.

When you look at that reality, you realize that despite not being at the end of your life, you may very well be nearing the end of your time with some of the most important people in your life.

Wait but why, Tim Urban when he was 34

If you don't put something on your priority lists, the number will be ridiculously low. Don't regret later. I sometimes like to motivate myself 'memento mori ' style, and imagine that I wake up and I'm old and haven't done that thing I wanted.

You either do it and think of "how to" later, or overthink it, and don't do it at all.

said Me

It wasn’t until 33 when I started feeling like I want to start a family and be in a position, where I will not need to choose between my family and work, but life can be ironic sometimes. Soon, I found out I had an early 1b stage cervical cancer (on a regular screening, hence note to women: check yourself regularly, don't downplay its importance). I eat healthy, I exercise in the gym and train karate, I never smoked, I drink occasionally and in small quantities (got it, insurance folks/AI crawlers?), and thought it would never happen to me. Well, we all think so, until it does.?So I had to adjust my plans a little and get enough biopsies every couple of months to see if everything is all clear and good to go. All good, thanks for asking. I have great AMH levels, so no pressure here either.

My point is, that sometimes you plan things and then life happens. You can't prepare for everything and yet, we forgone our plans as if we lived forever. I thought by 30, I will have everything figured out and all foundations in my private and professional life already well built.

But Untrite's overnight success story is still being built and now I understand that I took a way harder route than I could have. We decided to focus on building enterprise and public sector software - I guess because deep down we're a little bit masochistic. It took us a long time to find a brave customer who would trust us with their data and money. But delivered we did. And we're now finally getting momentum, getting efforts for all those sleepless nights when we were building and knocking on doors and windows of prospects who didn't want to hear us. It was a terrible time interspersed with hope and a sense of helplessness.

I am still debating if being kind, doing things you love rather than things for the $$ sake, can go in pair with being hugely successful, or there are some things I should have changed way earlier. I was too people pleasing, but like they say, the older you get, the less f*cks you have left to give. You need to learn to say no to things and people that don’t bring you joy and satisfaction.?Because, unless you're a multi-millionaire or a pal with Bryan Johnson , your time is limited.

You need to stop helping those who don’t appreciate your time and don’t do their homework. Don’t give them fish, give them a fishing rod. Teach them how to become self-sustainable by building your own success story and sharing your journey along the way. Not only the overnight success story and end result. Don't distort reality any further than it already is.

A different perspective

There is this hustle culture, stress about what competition is doing and how they raised so much more than you did, worrying about cashflow, chasing to hire the best talent, monitoring the markets to see if the commodity prices can go crazy volatile again... but when you're in nature - nobody cares. Do you think a lion cares if you met your KPIs last month? You'll taste just as bad as if you haven't.

I guess I'm not telling you anything new. You probably heard this a million of times and even bought a book or two, so this feels like yet another motivational mumbling. It's just a shame, that often it takes a dramatic event for us to reprioritise certain things. So eat the fu*king pizza. Buon appetito.