Jacob Morl, 24, data engineer, based in Coventry.
I think the 20-year-old me would be surprised where I am, for sure. When I was 20, that was probably the time when I was depressed. So think about how I am now I’d have been thrilled. Because at the time, I was obviously completely down in the dumps – that’s an understatement. But if you took a year back before that, I was in that state of ‘I want to do this, this and this’.
I think maybe I wouldn’t have said I would be glad about where I am now, maybe because I was so sure at that point about why I wanted to do. I think maybe at that point I would have for I know you’ve not achieved the things you want to do, and to that person, I’d say you’re a bit of an idiot.
I feel like it’s a completely normal thing to just look back on stone years and think I was right at it back then for thinking this doing this. And now I mean, I’ll probably do the same again, in two years time I look back and think, oh, when I was 24. What a muppet this guy was.
Chemistry
When I went to uni, and even while I was at uni, I was doing chemistry and always thought I’d go on and do chemistry, like an industrial role, in an academic way; but when I was there it became sort of apparent that it might not be the thing for me.
So once university finished, I took a month break, and when I was looking for jobs, still I was looking for chemistry, but also I thought, okay, let’s also look for other things as well. I was quite open at that point about what I might be doing.
Then suddenly, I saw the advertisement for this job and had this sort of lightbulb moment and just sparks flying. I didn’t even know what data engineer was. I went more and more into it and realised it was something I’d want to do and also be good at. So I just kept going along that route. I went through all the different interview process for it, and it looked better to me the more and more I went along with it.
In a way I sort of lucked out with it because before that I didn’t even know what the job was, and then one minute I was in it. I found out it is something that is really suitable for me and now I’m in it, so quite lucky in that aspect.
Maybe it isn’t the absolute
With all that happening in second year, other aspects of life as well, like personal situations, that put me probably into, I think it’d be safe to say, probably in a bit of a depression, which knowing what happens at university is not that uncommon. The heavy bit of it lasted probably a year, probably from when it happened to when I finally got my job, it would have been close to three years. I’m not saying I was in a completely sullen state that whole time, but if I was to look back on it now, I think it probably had some effects on me during that time.
The sort of thinking what am I actually doing in the future, because I always had it set like, I’m going to go and do this. I think the whole of my perception of myself changed, and for a year was that’s how it affected me. It was just a case of for years, I always thought I’m gonna go into this really good science job. That was like the main theme, the main crux of it. And I just kind of took a step back and thought: is that the absolute for me, and realised it maybe wasn’t.
The time after that became, okay, your main goal was always: I need to go in to chemistry, in academia, or do a PhD or go into a really good industrial chemistry job. Then priorities sort of switched, like no, no, no, the main thing is this: get yourself happy, get content with yourself, and then work is like, the foundation and then the other stuff is like bonus when I’ve got it.
I think the one thing I took from it is, you start to reason with yourself and try to explain why you have certain emotions. It goes into more than just yourself but also other people. Some things just aren’t…you can’t explain in those kinds of ways and it’s just sort of accepting that and being okay with it. That seems to help me, I feel like in retrospect, that’s kind of what I did.
I still like to be sort of goal-orientated. I still have plans. For instance, what came across me was a potential to go and work in the US, which might happen in the next year or so, but as much as I’m like focused and want to do that, I’m so I’m really confident in myself that even if I don’t get it, it’s not going to like bog me down too much.
It’s not a bad thing to be lost
I totally understand how other people get lost as well. I think a lot of people put themselves under the pressure of they need to have a five year plan; they need to know exactly what they’re doing. I don’t think that’s the case. I can’t think of many people who five years ago said they were going to do a specific thing, and they’re doing that thing now. So I don’t think it’s that bad a thing to be lost. Certainly for me it’s panned out well.
Option B
I think it’s just analysing all the different options I can take on the life and thinking, alright, yeah, I may want to do one more than the other, but if I take, as they say, this as an option B, is that a bad life? And the answer is no. Option C as well, is that a bad life? I want to go for option A, but I’m just fully aware that it might not happen, and if it doesn’t happen, it’s not the end of the world.
It used to be ‘okay, you’re going for this, everything you’re doing is working towards this’. It was like tunnel vision back then, whereas now it’s ‘okay, there’s this on the table and this on the table, let’s work through that, and if that doesn’t happen, let’s go to the next option.
There are so many factors that go towards one goal or another, and for me that was one of the main pressures at university – making sure I didn’t leave anything to chance. That was like a really big pressure because it’s not just you studying that impacts upon what grades you get, there’s the all the other aspects of life impacts upon your behaviour and your mood and how much you want to study as well as, there’s so many different things to it.
For instance, I didn’t get a first, I’ve got a two one and everyone just always thought I was gonna get a first. I was like, yeah I regret not getting a first but I didn’t think I was a failure because of it. Some people can just study harder and some people can’t, it doesn’t make you a success or a failure, sometimes it’s just doing the best you can and making sure you’re happy or content with that.
If not, that’s fine too
For me the components of life are the same things as they have been for the past two years, just the three main things: job, family and friends, (not in that order).
Romance and relationships that side of things…that was another thing which caused me a lot of stress during my university years. So now I have sort of taken aspects of, if things like that happen, they happen, don’t let that consume you. Letting things consume you and everything else becomes sort of obscure. So I’ve kind of taken that aspect of it, that perception of it. Not saying whether that’s a good thing or a healthy thing or not, it’s just the way I’ve been doing it.
So for me now is the main things are, family, friends and job, if other things come into my life, it’s not like I’m gonna shun them. I will invite them in if they come in and If not, that’s fine, too.
Keeping someone else’s chin up
I see relationships in a positive light. I think the both of us, we were both put in such a negative mental state due to multiple factors, different factors for both people. It’s hard to keep someone else’s chin up when your own chin Is down, that became like the deciding factor, and that whole thing just became stressful, that’s why things ended in that way.
When you’ve known friends a long enough time, you know when they’re happy or not, so you can ask, are you happy right now? And they’re saying no and you know, it’s completely to do with their relationship. They don’t want to get out of it because they don’t see any sort of other way in their life. That happened with my friends and that was like a really striking moment.
Your focus diverts
With some people I’ve managed to maintain friendships, there’s other ones which just completely dried up. Especially friends I know from university and I was really close to, they’ve started to dry out, and then in the same way you can sense other ones that they’re starting to deteriorate.
And for some, if you really want to push that they don’t do that, then it’s okay, you need to welcome it; but I think it all just comes with that sort of balance in your life, that’s one of the other things that was real pressure. Trying to maintain that is always a challenge. Sometimes you’re going to get it wrong but sometimes not and the friendships that you maintain lose gain is part of that.
I’d say there is some moments where I’m really sad I have not stayed in touch with them, but at the same time I have not picked up the phone to call them or message them. So it’s sort of like fleeting moments of yeah, it would have been cool to stay in touch them, they were be nice guys, we always got along well together, but it’s just the way it is. You sort of divert focus to other things, unfortunately.
Diamonds?
For me right now is just living it. I don’t know if I’d say it’s hard, there are challenges for sure, there’s exciting changes, and then there are ones which sort of make you take a big gawk when you think about them, and I feel like that’s okay.
Through your teens and that you’re ignorant to a lot of things, and then when you hit your 20s, you do get hit with a lot more pressure, but it’s the sort of cheesy, diamonds are made under pressure, so you kind of have to go through that adversity to really come out on top.
To say I’ve grown up is debatable, now I’m just trying to think about things logically. Whether I’d still fall back into old ways of thinking? Probably. It’s almost like 90% sure I do that.
Ups and downs
For me one of the lessons has been like, whenever you sort of get down about something, it’s just to realize you’re down about something means you must have been happy at another time. It’s not that far fetched that you can become happy again, you became sad by whatever reason, you may have just fallen into being down, you may just fall into being happy again, or you can just act upon that and just work towards it. I feel like it’s those kinds of thing of like 20s, yeah, it’s a lot of pressure, but keep working towards what you want.
Taking a step back
I do worry about things. You can still draw comparisons to the worries I’d have going through school and university of am I doing enough extra learning to put myself in a best position to get this job opportunity? Even if I am, does that mean I’m withdrawing time away to do other aspects of my life, whether that’s meeting up with friends, whether that’s trying to improve relationships. It is that sort of overthinking I’ve kind of had all through my life.
Now what I do is I take a step back and think about it logically and then just realise, it’s all just overthinking the aspects of it. Whilst you are thinking about stuff, you’re not doing stuff, so even thinking about stuff is not even helpful, you’re just sort of wasting your own time anyways, just get on with doing something, it might not be the best way to go about doing something but at least you’re doing something.