Hard truths.
being honest, while excruciatingly hard, is necessary for living authentically and without regret.
There was something fitting about the spirit of graduating last year, when Nolan was filming Oppenheimer and Stephenson giving the speech warning of technology's risks. It embodied the zeitgeist of anxiety yet hope that many of us felt as we entered a confusing world.
Yet no one told us that adulthood sometimes means communicating the hardest things to the closest people in our lives, often leaving friendships and cities, and realizing that while growing up is exciting, it also involves grieving the losses that come with change. And that being honest, while excruciatingly hard, is necessary for living authentically and without regret.
There were some times I felt torn between loyalty and truth. Committing two years to the NYT, working on a broad range of interesting problems like storytelling tools then deciding a month into full-time that it wasn't the right, made me feel like I was betraying someone. I had written about how technology enabled the best journalistic tools, yet its open-endedness also unintentionally provided ways for war crimes to be committed at scale, and that’s how I often felt about AI. Nearly a year later, after visiting Anthropic, Roose came to a similar realization about AI safety. I then learned that following your convictions sometimes means disappointing people who had invested in you (managers) and that your intuition might be the best tool you’ve got to build that conviction (with evidence).
There are some truths so hard, voicing them feels like betraying those you love most. Facing them though and realizing that this is the closest you’ve been to it and now have to do something about it is both terrifying and liberating - terrifying because it requires confronting your fears and weaknesses, but ultimately liberating because living authentically demands acknowledging where you truly stand. I recently had to tell my closest friend that I can no longer live with her and that I chose to move out from NY and that was really hard. It’s easier to make choices that would please others and always hard to do what's best for yourself, even if it means temporarily hurting those you care about. Change is never easy but almost always worthwhile when you're moving toward your truth.
Learning to trust your own voice and ideas as an engineer in the room can be overwhelming, but staying committed to what you love doing builds trust. In a world where you're privileged to steer the most transformative technology, you must find the courage to speak up, even when surrounded by the best people in the field who you admire the most, leaning on ambition, work, and your vision of the future. J. often tells me to stand up for myself - to voice my needs, even if it means displeasing others or having uncomfortable conversations.
Living your truth actually grants freedom. The more you exercise your voice with care, the stronger it becomes. As I’ve grown more comfortable asserting my needs and ideas, I’ve stopped treating authenticity as selfishness. I know voicing hard truths or difficult decisions takes strength and compassion.
I’m still working to unlearn people pleasing habits. But I’ve found courage to speak openly by leaning on core values, trusting my internal compass and accepting uncertainty as part of growth. It’s okay to leave friendships even if you’ve known them forever and relationships you thought would last. We just never expect that the most difficult conversations would be with those we love the most. Ultimately, becoming ourselves requires bravery and resilience we didn't realize we possessed - to be assertive and unapologetic about our identities and our needs, even during the most daunting situations.