The quickest and simplest way to know if you are enjoying your life is to notice how you feel about Monday. If it feels bad when you go to sleep on Sunday, and you get that same old feeling from school where everything felt monotonous and you never wanted Sunday to end, then it is worth rethinking what you are doing. That feeling does not go away with age, it just shows up in different forms when something is not right.
I will not say I have never felt this as an adult. I have felt it multiple times. But whenever I did, I always tried to pivot and see what else I could do that brings me joy. From forcefully studying electronics to starting to learn coding, from hating my internship at a networking company to declining the PPO and taking the risk of sitting for placements again, then working at a bank and realizing I wanted to get out of that cycle and be closer to the product and the customer. That is what pushed me towards working at a startup. I did not always have clarity, but I kept making moves.
Something I have strongly realized over time is the importance of making bold decisions and preparing yourself to do better things. At the startup I am working at right now, a lot of what I have learned comes from the founders and the team around me. There were times when things were really tough. We did not have a crisp product, there was no retention, no clear direction, nothing was working. But the team kept pushing, kept experimenting, and kept making the right calls at the right time. One big learning for me has been to experiment a lot. Try everything, even if it costs time, money, or effort. To get a breakthrough, you have to keep moving the needle. And at the same time, you have to be ready to force quit things that are not working. I have seen this before as well at a previous startup where the team made a hard decision to pivot from EV to building for the trades industry. You have to forget the past quickly and move fast. The worst case is it will not work, but what if it does.
Now when I look back, it feels like I have come a long way. And very recently, I have started to feel like I am enjoying my life more than ever. In the last one and a half years, I have not had that feeling where I wish Sundays should not end. In fact, most Sundays have been almost like weekdays for me, sometimes even more active, not because anyone forced me to, but out of curiosity and love for what I am working on with the team. Of course, I also believe this feeling comes when other parts of life are going well too. Being able to spend time with close ones, seeing the business do well, feeling satisfied at work, staying healthy, playing your favorite sport, eating good food, and traveling with friends once in a while. That, to me, is what a complete rich life looks like. I am not fully there yet, but I can clearly feel that I am slowly getting there with each passing day.
And maybe that is the only point. If something feels off, do not ignore it and do not get too comfortable with it. You do not need to have everything figured out, but you do need to keep moving, keep trying, and give yourself a chance to find something better. Over time, those small decisions and pivots add up, and one day you wake up and realize you are actually looking forward to Monday.