Sunday Update: A Challenge, a Printer, and a Bigger Question
This week finally brought something I’ve been craving for a while—an actual challenge at school. I sat in on a scholarship-level physics class, and for once, the work was tough enough to be satisfying. It’s not often I get to say that about school, but in that moment, it felt right. I wasn’t just sitting there, going through the motions. I had to think, to push myself, and that’s exactly what I’ve been missing. It was probably the highlight of my week.
But my mind hasn’t just been on physics. That Da Vinci 1.0 printer is still taking up space in my thoughts, and not just because I might get to salvage it. It’s had me thinking back to where I started, to the younger version of me who first got into all of this. And, maybe even more so, I’ve been thinking about something she said a couple of days ago: Would young me be proud of me now?
It’s one of those deceptively simple questions that you can’t help but spiral into. She’s had her thoughts on it, and honestly, so have I. My life goals haven’t changed, not really. But how I plan to achieve them? That’s been a moving target for years.
There was a time when I thought I’d be a doctor. Then, I figured maybe law was my thing. And now? Engineering. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself, it’s that I need to aim high. If I don’t, I get bored. And if I’m bored, then I’m not using my abilities for good. So, I’ve landed on engineering—not because of some grand revelation, but because it makes sense. I fix things. I figure out problems. I tinker, I build, I break, and I put things back together. Does that inherently make me a good engineer? No. But it does mean I’m on the right path.
And yet, when I think about my actual life goals, success in my career isn’t the thing that defines them. I don’t have a dream job title or a company I need to work for. What I do have is something a little more open-ended. I want a solid career, but I also want the freedom that comes with flexible working hours. Why? Because at the end of the day, my real goal is to be truly happy with me. And that doesn’t come from a job alone—it comes from being around the people I want to be with, doing the things I love.
So yeah, young me might not have predicted exactly where I’d end up. But I think he’d be okay with it. He’d see that I never settled, that I kept pushing for something more. And honestly, that’s all I could ask for.
So on that note, 73.
-Daniel