I was recently reading Jean Hsu's newsletter entry titled "What I would tell my 22 year-old self" which inspired me to think about (and reply!) what would I tell my 22 year-old self. I came up with the following 5 things I'd tell my younger self.

1.- Contrary to popular belief, (and this is one of my most contrarian opinions,) you're paid for your time, not for your results. When working, you're expected to work, not to be on IG.

Imagine 2 persons, both assigned with the same project. One of them spends 2h working on it, slacks off for 6h, and delivers it by the end of the day. The other person spends 12h working on the same project (8h + 4h the next day), and ships some thoughtfully written code, though by all means it could have been written faster. Which of the 2 would you prefer working with? I'd pick the 2nd one, for they're committed. The 1st one – why didn't they pick up another task to work on for the remaining 6h? They probably think that they're smarter than everyone else, and in due time they'll use their time to Leetcode ("leetcoding" should be a verb, heh?). However, in time you'll realize that work != writing code. Reading, discussing, thinking, all that is work, too. Besides, if you work when you are expected to, you'll be able to relax when you're expected not to be working.

2.- Learn to pick your battles. At the beginning of your career, your battles are picked for you (most often by your manager). But a point will come where you'll realize that you're better suited to pick your own battles than your mgr is, and you'll start experiencing a lot of autonomy. On the same line, autonomy is not something that invested upon you by someone else, but something that you claim for yourself.

3.- Have grit. Things can get boring / unexciting at times but that doesn't mean you're not progressing in your career.

4.- There's more work than you can fathom so don't sweat too much over it. It's a never-ending stream of work you so ought to find your "marathon pace". However, you do need to know how/when to sprint - when to pull the proverbial all nighter and meet the shipping date – it's a skill.

5.- Be passionate; enjoying your work doesn't necessarily mean "having fun relaxedly" - it's enjoyable to be passionate –and maybe even a bit opinionated–.