learning how to restart my dreams after watching them fail: #1
About a month ago, I did something I did not ever think I could do: I shut down the non-profit I worked 6+ years to build. Not because I didn’t believe it, but because I knew I wasn’t operating well or taking care of myself, and I couldn’t do the work.
Every day since I shut it down, it’s still going in my head: I have a running list of things I want the next one to have. There’s already Pinterest boards and a Figma file, as well as an early stage architectural diagram. I have a reading list of 100’s of books long, and no end of the to-do’s.
But, that’s the last thing I need right now. I know that to actually succeed, I need to know more than what the organization is going to be. I need to learn how to live outside of the world in my head. That was my primary issue: Astra was my everything.
Everything terrible that happened to me went directly into it. It was the support I had when I had nothing else. I didn’t learn how to self regulate or avoid burnout. My solution to everything was to work harder, dream bigger, and push myself harder. Until, I pushed myself through things so hard that I had no desire to touch the work ever again.
I asked r/nonprofit how other failed org founders got back up again, and no founders responded to me. I feel completely and utterly alone, and unable to find anyone who acts or thinks like me.
Partially it’s the autism, the general lack of family / financial / educational security. The other side is -I think if someone said “I do not give a fuck about money yet I wish to make the most impactful non-profit software that has or could ever exist” that they would be laughed out of the room.
I am that person getting laughed out of the room.
I’m doing something harder than restarting a company: forcing myself to take a break. Dreaming up technical diagrams could happen in my sleep, because that’s not the hard part to me. The true hard shit is knowing I have this immense desire that’s been burning since I was 13, and not seceding to it.
In the meantime, I already have a full plate. I’m the co-founder and CTO of a natural disaster mitigation startup, and I want to give that my full focus while I relearn how to chase my dreams without losing myself. I owe it to Faura and Valkyrie to be there and to see it through as much as I can. If I can get Faura right, I know I’m a step closer to being able to give my dreams the justice they deserve.
But, having something that takes up my time is not the same as doing something that I know I was born to do.
The world has no shortage of emergencies for me to fret over. The hardest part of disconnecting from the non-profit dream is knowing there’s ongoing pain out there, but that I’m not investing my time into helping. I’m watching as the world frays and spending my time learning how to rest.
I let my Apple Developer’s license expire. For the first time in 9 years, I have no apps available on the App Store.
I’m about to turn 23, and I feel like I’m running out of time. I’m aged out of the Thiel fellowship, I got rejected from 776, and I know that at some point I won’t have access to resources for young people. When you’re young, people understand you need money to live and are a bit more free flowing with the resources.
When you’re older, startups and non-profit foundations do not give a fuck if you need to eat or have parents to take care of. In their eyes — if you can’t sustain yourself without revenue, or can’t make revenue before you really need it, you’re going to fail. In my experience, most people who form non-profits spend about 3–5 years waiting to receive a sustainable salary.
Daily, I worry about my dad, and know that at some point I need the financial means and time to take care of him as he ages. He’s 64, and the lack of knowing about his family’s health history keeps me up at night.
I have nightmares about getting calls while living in Vermont that he’s having a health emergency in Oregon. I keep on having panic attacks about my dad dying, and when he does — I’ll be untethered to the Earth. My heart and my family will be gone, and I’ll be what’s left. It will be me alone against the world, and I’m not ready for that. I don’t know if I could ever come back to my dreams without him here to encourage them.
I tell myself I don’t need to be too scared until he turns 75, but that gives me 10-ish years at the most. 10 years to successfully exit one company and start another that can sustain me is no time at all.
People imagine that because I’ve been programming since 2012 that I’ve benefitted financially, but I’m probably broker than your average comp sci graduate (and always have been).
I don’t need my birthday coming in November to remind me that there’s a time limit on how much time I have before I truly need to grow up and forego my dreams. The time and pressure is immense, and I feel it daily.
I have to wake up every day and call with an update on my progress, and manage a development team. I think constantly about how to convince people they need to spend a lot of money to prepare for an event that might not happen. I have to be the main breadwinner for me and my boyfriend who is going through a PhD program (and who’s getting paid almost nothing for it). I have to be there for my dad, and keep that final family tie alive.
Climate change is coming, my dad is aging, I’m growing up, our social safety nets in the US continue to crumble, and I’m saying no to the dreams I think about every day.
Valkyrie and I went to a Women in Insurance event in Boston for Faura (the natural disaster mitigation company), and we had dinner with a group of amazing women. I told them my story and they all comforted me and said I was so impressive.
I couldn’t help but feel so suffocated. Not because they love me, but because they love me and I don’t understand why.
I don’t think I’m doing enough: and that’s why I can’t be working on my dream. I spent 6 years suffering mentally and financially, only to finally bow out and I’m still not free. There’s no amount that I can give to this that will ever be enough. I need to learn what enough is.
In the meantime, I’ve given myself a framework through the uncertainty. These are areas that I know I’m weak at, and that I need to improve on if I truly want to build something that helps others. The work I needs to do has to be consistent, and sustainable for me.
Otherwise, my projects are stoking my ego and not actually helping people. Hopefully, these updates will be my progress on these goals. Maybe it’ll be me talking to the void. I don’t know, and won’t know until I do it.
It’s time for me to trust myself and try to turn into someone this world needs, or fail trying.
The song that encapsulates right now:
(P.S: Embed is broken in Medium right now. The song is DC Mini by Boston Manor. It’s a banger)
https://youtu.be/qExOTUrxaW8?si=OTj0KpjcaKiMqRFu
The books I’m currently reading:
