writings

unfiltered thoughts about anything

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Goals

November 17th, 2021

This is a part of my series on becoming on adult. Part 2: What are my goals?

A piece written on the flight from ICN to YVR on November 1st, 2021. This may have been the last time in Korea for the foreseeable future. There are a series of thoughts that are running through my mind. (Starting a new role at my dream company, becoming an adult, a reflection of money/ambition/goals)

There are subconscious thoughts that I am not aware that I cannot quite understand right now. I think these feelings are likely due to the anxiety regarding some uncontrollable factors that will only be solved by time such as immigration, and transitioning to a new home. Yet, there are other factors that are within my confines. I’m hoping to channel my focus as a developer making a sizeable impact to expedite my promotions if possible. This is very contradictory to my previous view in life where I saw day jobs to be the most dreaded position to be in life. I previously viewed working as a mere employee to be the lazy path to life. I believed and still believe that to live is to be responsible. To be responsible means to have true ownership over things, ie. business.

Having said that, I had the opportunity to take inside looks at multiple industries (Senior care, manufacturing, entertainment, etc). The things I saw weren’t quite pretty. Yes, these executives, that I met and talked to, were very successful in life by many standards. I did indeed look up to these people at first glance and some of them clearly displayed a sense of comfort that I envied. These were people that were at net worth of around 1M, 10M, 50M, and 100M dollars. These people owned beauty brands, national-scale factories, or golf clubs. Clearly, they are rich as they are well above into the top 1% percentile. I saw possibilities.

Yet, I wasn’t quite envious about them as a whole. There was a specific factor that concerned me. The youngest of these high net worth individuals was 45. By many’s standard, having 50M dollars at 50 would be considered desirable. With this in mind, I reflected on my own goals. The major long term one being 50M dollars net worth and 400k yearly disposable income (~1% of 50M).

I have achieved all my short-term goals except one that I’ve set out to do. See below.

Note: Although I’m not quite sure when I set these goals. I believe I set it around Dec 2019/Jan 2020 in Peru.

Short term

Long term

To my surprise, I finished my goals earlier than I expected. Knowing myself, I need to set new goals. Otherwise, I will drift off in life not doing anything, so here’s my new list of goals. I am projecting that these goals will at least take 2~3 years to complete all. These goals aren’t final and I’m reconsidering many of them. (I will update this document as time comes)

Short term

Long term

With these new goals, it somehow gives me a peace of mind. It gives me a sense of direction in terms of things I should do. There will be moments where these goals become the source of stress rather than a peace of mind. Yet I think wanting to achieve the long term goals early is even bigger of a stressor in general. This is peace for me. Some of these goals might not be realistic such as net worth of 400k or L4/SDEII promotion in the given time span. There are developers who fail to get promoted to L4 level even with 7 or more YOE, but it is possible and I will have to push for it. And to put things into perspective regarding 400k goal. Here’s the breakdown based on end of year net worth.

[DM for chart]

Looking at the above very unlikely chart, I think the solution is clear. You must own some real assets aside from working or be met with a stock lottery to make achieve the financial goals. Additionally, I am seriously considering leveraged index funds as I have a longer horizon to look at in terms of finances. Perhaps I should reconsider the timeline of the above goals to 4~5 years. With that reflection in mind, I will get some rest before I get the flight.

Joe: I’ve been waiting on this day for my entire life. I thought I’d feel different.

Dorothy: I heard this story about a fish. He swims up to this older fish and says, I’m trying to find this thing they call the ocean. ‘The ocean?’ says the older fish. ‘That’s what you’re in right now.’ ‘This?’, says the young fish, ‘This is water. What I want is the ocean.’

from “Soul”, 2020