A Cheat Sheet for When You Forget How to Live Life
(during a coding bootcamp)
After my first week of coding bootcamp, my roommate asked about how it was going and whether I still felt that I would have no life outside of the bootcamp. He asked this because a few weeks leading up to the bootcamp, I would always talk to him about how once the bootcamp started, all my time would be taken up by coding because I had to “live and breathe code”. I basically wouldn’t have time for anything else, no social engagements, no exercise, no cooking, etc. When I told him these thoughts, he had a confused look on his face and asked me a simple question, “Why?”
I had to think for a minute about about my answer, because I really couldn’t think of why I wouldn’t be focused 100% on this bootcamp and nothing else. I wanted this so badly. I had lost my job as a freelance musician due to COVID-19, and I didn’t have any other skills that the world deemed as “essential”. I needed to succeed in this bootcamp to find my next steps for surviving in this world. So what does he mean by asking why? I thought to myself, what a silly question.
When he realized that I was perplexed by his question and couldn’t come up with an answer, he told me he wanted to show me something from one of his favorite books.
It was a picture inside of a book called I Dare You! by William H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina Company. Going off of my roommate’s explanation of this picture, my understanding is that the letters in the four squares stand for Mental, Social, Religious and Physical, which are four elements of life that we should aim to keep balanced.
The book shows you how you can use a quadrilateral to see how much each component is taking up in your life. I took the time to draw some out based on the different stages of my life.
Never in my life had I achieved a perfect square. Probably because never had I thought that a balanced life was necessary. I was always proud of my ability to laser-focus and work hard towards whatever my goal was at the time. But looking at these images, I had an epiphany. What did I miss out on because I was too involved with church during high school? What did I miss out on, because I was constantly overworked during my 20s? What would I be missing out on once bootcamp starts and I no longer hang out with friends anymore, no longer go for my morning runs, and no longer work on my spiritual growth?
I was inspired by a quote in the book, “No plan is worth the paper it is printed on unless it starts you doing something”, and decided it would be best to make some type of plan of action. My therapist helped me make some goals that I felt were realistic and also would balance out my quadrilateral. I knew that the Mental element was going to be easy, because my day would be filled up with learning and thinking. Then I made a checklist that included things like “run 20 miles a week”(Physical), “meditate for 10 minutes before going to bed”(Religious/Spiritual), “one social activity per week”(Social), which would help balance out the other three sides.
Fast-forward to a couple of weeks later… I’ve made it through week one of coding bootcamp. I can proudly say that I’ve been successful in keeping my life more balanced than I had originally planned, and I am for sure feeling sane and happy. But I have to say, it was definitely a challenge to step away from the screen. Every time I walked away to take care of myself, especially when I spent all Friday evening at a friend’s house, I sensed an intense FOMO(fear of missing out). Totally ironic because the reason behind planning non-coding relating things in the first place was a FOMO in other aspects of my life. But I kept telling myself that it was okay to treat myself for all the hard work I was putting into learning Ruby and kept picturing that magic square I hoped to achieve one day.
I think we sometimes just forget how to live life. We get distracted by certain things we feel are more important to us at a given time, and those things consume us to the point where we don’t feel there is enough time for anything else. Especially with attending a coding bootcamp, it can be so easy for anyone to get sucked into this pressure of having to learn and study all day long and even on the weekends, because there is just so much that needs to be learned and worked on in a short span of time. And also because for some of us, this bootcamp is really important right now, and our future heavily depends on it. BUT, I don’t think it’s healthy to not ask ourselves if the amount of time we put into learning to code is worth neglecting other aspects of our lives.
I challenge all current coding bootcamp attendees out there, or anyone struggling to live a balanced life, to draw out your quadrilateral. Reflect and recognize the lacking areas and give them some love by making a plan and taking action =).
Thank you for reading!
