So it’s been a year now since I really embarked on my journey into self improvement. I started going to doctors, was diagnosed with adult adhd, and started on vyvanse in February of last year.
Since then, I have lost 100lbs and got myself lean and fit. I eat properly, and have found that I feel better day in and day out. I’ve read numerous books on self improvement and put just about all the recommendations to practice.
I have switched jobs to work at home, for a dream company who is at the center of modern artificial intelligence. My interpersonal relationships have strengthened as I’ve been increasing my self-awareness and emotional intelligence.
I am now public speaking every chance I get anywhere that will allow. I’m not a motivational speaker, yet, but I am a tech lead on my team at work and a technical speaker at conferences across the country- next week I will be in Silicon Valley. In a few months I will be in Alaska.
I recently decided to splurge and buy a souped-up purple race car. I don’t normally go for expensive things like this but I decided to do it becuase I knew how much joy it would bring me every time I got behind the wheel. I was right- i absolutely love it- 485hp purple beast with a nice loud radio for dopamine boosting.
I am only writing this post as closure for my own adhd story. I came on this forum last year around this time while I felt my life was in shambles- I had just been diagnosed as an adult with this “disorder” and I was starting to become more aware of how different my mind really worked when compared to most others around me.
Initially, it was making me think of bad things, like how much harder I had to work in school to retain even simple concepts, how slow I can be sometimes in real-time social interactions, and how my memory and focus can be really bad.
But the more I dived into my real self, the more I started to see that there is so much more that I have to be proud of in myself than to be shamed by- I’ve learned how to learn so well that I’ve flown through a 9 year PhD program in only a couple of years. I am now being regarded as a leader in my field, which is one of the largest and most dense fields in science today.
I have issues focusing because my brain works overtime all the time. While others can claim they are resting and relaxing and “just don’t want to think about hat right now”, my brain thinks and thinks and thinks.
I plan to change the world. I have an aspiration to revolutionize our pubic education system here in America and start utilizing our newfound artificial intelligence tools to start teaching kids that have adhd using more visual and exploratory methods. These kids aren’t stupid, they just learn differently, and like Einstein once said “if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will grow up believing that it is stupid”
I also plan to revolutionize how we listen and share music with each other. Part of my PhD is on this very topic, as group recommendation systems for music are not a very heavily researched topic when compared to individual recommendation systems.
I really hope all of you find what you are looking for. Please keep in mind that if you are looking for change, that means you need to do something differently. Seeking comfort in misery is the most dangerous thing anyone can do, both for our minds and for our bodies. I truly believe that every person has a purpose and brings something amazing to the world, even if that purpose, like me, is serving others and giving them a better life.
Please remember that life is short and everyone has some sort of imperfection. When we notice our “quirks”, we choose how we want to react to them- either we can accept ourselves or we can hate ourselves, neither one is going to afford you any more time on this earth.
PS: I believe so strongly in the software that my team is building at Nvidia, that I decided to get vanity plates w/ the name of our project, "RAPIDS". rapids.ai/