a frog in warm water wont notice its being boiled
today was a boring day. like many others. i woke up at 5, left home at 6, got to the office at 7. quiet morning pretty much. by the time 9 hit, the office started to fill up and i saw some familiar faces. i had a conversation with one of my more senior coworkers too. shes essentially where i want to be in my life. shes put together, has a career that interests her, has a seemingly fufiling life outside of work. overall she seems content with everything going on around her. i envy her a bit. in the short time that ive known her, shes given me some good advice as someone who wants to sort of follow in her steps.
i told her about my job offer today. essentially, what it summarizes down to is that id be working part time with my old team from the end of january to the start of september, then start this new graduate role in september. she seemed happy for me, and at one point she quoted a proverb to me (i dont know where its from but she said it in chinese and translated it directly). it goes along the lines of:
<< a frog in warm water wont notice its being boiled. >>
at least in the work context, i interpreted this as her saying essentially to be wary of the first thing to come to me. from her point of view, she nodded to the fact that its better to know what you dont want (ie. jump around many different boiling pots), than know what you want. it was a pretty good discussion from my point of view, and i lamented that my current team does a lot more research&dev work than my old team. this is mainly because the models by old team builds are customer/insurance ratings ones, so they are very heavily regulated in terms of what we employ. meanwhile my current team works more on internal company models, models that arent as heavily regulated and quite frankly more complex and fairly interesting to work with.
even though i hate talking about work, and dont want to make my blog posts centered around it; my conversation with her left me with a lot of questions about what im really doing my life? i think the boiling frog proverb relates to my past post about serendipity and taking the path of least resistance. it sort of begs the question that even though all these objectively good things are occurring to me, are they truly good for me in the context of the pot of water i live in?
for the past year and half i have accepted oppourtunity after oppourtunity, and really rarely given myself time to truly do nothing. even though taking these courses, doing my internship, working on my thesis, are all good things for me future wise, i leave myself thinking if its worth being so unhappy and stressed during these fleeting moments of my youth? (i speak like i am in my 30s, so sorry in advance) the past three weeks have been grueling, my eyes were twitching from the stress at one point, and i spent a friday night in the emergency room over my back, which most likely originated through the way ive been sitting when i go into the office. maybe this is all too much for me? maybe im in the process of boiling right now, and i havent noticed.
im not sure what else to comment on regarding this proverb, my eyes have sort of been cracked open, almost like a newborns. maybe this is the kind of thinking i need to push myself to experience more. im not sure if this kind of thinking is net beneficial or not, but i think its worthwhile to have every once in a while.
as cliche as it sounds, i understand the frog. i sympathize with the dude. even though the water is warm and i am comfortable as is, itll eventually get warmer and warmer until the conditions dont favor me if im not careful.