Hey morning guys…wow, what a rocky and bumpy start to our morning. And we’re not even at noon yet. Today, we are actually celebrating something incredibly important and significant in my entire career journey. Yes, today is the official 20^th anniversary of being a pioneer of design engineering. Frankly, after everything that we have been through for the past two decades just to make it here to this very moment, you might think that we would at least try to do some sort of celebration. Maybe hang out with a bunch of community leaders over dinner, drinks and laughter, right? Nope. It doesn’t really seem like any of that is going to be happening today. Instead, I find myself sitting right here, in the middle of a rather empty regional library, staring out into the almost perfectly nice weather 🌤️ and feeling nothing but that saddness of being alone by myself. And yes, I even thought 💭 to myself, “This is just so fucking stupid!! WTF am I doing here?”

Okay, let’s just back up a little. Last night, I had drafted/scheduled a “Work Anniversary” LinkedIn update to go live at around 11:45 pm. Why? Well, I’m not sure how the whole 12:00 am scheduling will work and I didn’t want to take any chances with my own milestone celebration, so yeah, I picked 11:45 pm instead. 😅

So, yes, the post did go live as scheduled. Throughout the night, I did wake up as usual to go to the bathroom to pee, and after each time, I would be tempted to check my notifications. In my mind, I would think to myself, “Wait, has anybody reacted or commented on my work anniversary update yet??”

Each time I checked, “ZIP.”

By the time that I woke up this morning to go shower 🚿, the only voice that I could hear in my head was, “Danny, nobody really gives a fuck about you. So, stop trying.”

I will not lie. That felt deeply traumatizing. That feeling like, “This is the most important day of my career and my life, and yet for some reason, I’m still all alone by myself. How can this even be possible??”

What makes it even worse is being fully aware that I could never share my journey with my parents. Not what I’m doing, or what I have accomplished, and most importantly, the kinds of challenges that I’ve been facing (and continue to face). I might not be physically alone at times, but mentally, emotionally and psychologically, I am feeling damn fucking alone right now. It’s the kind of thing they could understand or accept. Yes, I have tried. Several times in the past. The more I try to explain, the more defensive and strengthen in their own disbelief they become.

So, I’m left with ultimately just one course of action, face it on my own, and then succeed on my own.

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Honestly, I Don’t Really Care About Having the Typical Celebrations

Yeah, I absolutely meant what I’ve just said. Honestly, I don’t mind not having the celebratory meals. I mean, those are just nice to have stuff. What I really want to have, is to have the kind of hardware that would help to support my work as an industry pioneer. Give me that refurbished M4 Max MacBook Pro, and I will be happy to celebrate this incredibly milestone by continuing with my work as a design engineer.

If you ask me right now, I still think that the best way to truly celebrate today, is to just focus on the work. It’s really as simple as that. As a pioneer/digital frontier explorer, it would be to continue trekking, and drawing the maps and identifying the new paths to take. That is the work of a pioneer. So, please, let me get on with it.

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Trusting That the Loneliness too, Shall Pass.

Yesterday, I shared in a LinkedIn post about my thoughts and understanding of my own struggles with loneliness as an industry pioneer. I wrote that there are two aspects to that loneliness.

1. The first one is part of the nature of being an industry pioneer. When you are first at the very front, you’re also naturally alone and by yourself because there is nobody else there with you (yet). So, I’ve already learned to accept that this loneliness is not a bug, but a feature of the life that we have chosen to embrace.
2. The second kind of loneliness is the temporary, momentary ones. They tend to come and go like a wave 🌊. There is no pattern to it really. It just crashes in one minute and then washes back out 30 minutes or 1 hour later. These moments of loneliness are not new to us. We’ve had thousands of moments like that over the past two decades. The only difference between then and now is that back then, we actually had the means to distract ourselves when the wave hits. We cope by focusing on our work. But right now, we can’t do that because, yes, we do not have the right piece of machinery that will allow us to have an effective coping mechanism.

Right now, my only source of hope is to keep trusting that our daily mantra (strategy) of, “We don’t chase. We attract.”, is actually working. But there will still be moments like these where, it feels like a fucking rollercoaster 🎢 ride, and it can feel a little bit hard to hold on to that hope. That is especially true when you’re feeling the coldness 🥶 of the library, while also being fully aware that all you have is just $6.54 left in your eWallet.

Yet, for some strange reason, we refuse to give in to the alternative. That is, to compromise on what we need, accept less-than, but convenient offers and options. This is something that has been a common theme within our former “shell” life. And we’re sick and tired of hiding and shrinking ourselves just to make others comfortable with themselves. So NO.

As fucking ridiculous as it is to be feeling this sense of loneliness right now, we continue to holdfast, trusting that as long as we do not stop advocating for ourselves, as long as we do not give up “showing up daily” and putting our collective messaging out into the Universe, somewhere, out there, there will be someone who will help us. Someone that will recommend us that job, or someone who will perhaps even become another benefactor (angel investor).

We know…this too shall pass.