It’s Lonely at the Top

I am what most people would call a fairly ambitious person. Since 2021, I've held myself accountable to 10 "mission statements", and recently I've switched to a quarterly system. I have always had so many things I'm curious about. So many things I've wanted to try, to learn, to get my hands dirty and mess around with. Lately, I've focused on music, tech, language learning, and fitness. For every new thing I try, I have to trade away my time from something else. I've become the quintessential "jack of all trades and master of none".

Where am I going with all of this?

Well, you see, because I have so many hobbies that feed into some of my own bucket list goals: release an original song, become a polyglot, among others (oftentimes as a result of realizing "hey, I actually can do this"), I often feel like I'm on a never-ending treadmill. The ironic thing is that a lot of these goals are things I want to do for myself. None of these are necessarily profitable, so I can't really make them "my job that I do full-time". And so, I'm often left feeling like my actual day job is living rent-free in my head–but it's not. I get paid to do my day job. So, why do I constantly feel unfulfilled?

I have a few hypotheses:

1. My day job isn't consistently engaging enough, and I get too bored.
2. By not being engaging, it ends up feeling tedious, which leads me to be unproductive with my tasks.
3. I crave stimulation and momentum, and currently, the momentum and excitement exist outside of my day job. (I'm working on a musical with a friend)

"Just quit your job, or switch it."

Hang on, I need to pay rent and everything else, so I can't just quit my job. I recognize that certain aspects of tech consulting are fun, but those moments aren't easily had with my current situation. In addition, there are certain corporate roles that I actually want to pivot to, and my current job actually has the opportunity to give me experience in the roles and responsibilities that I want. I stick around for the potential of fun (and for the stability of having a job...it really doesn't always feel stable tbh).

The title of this post was "It's Lonely at the Top"?

It's not just lonely at the top; I'm nowhere near the top (just look at the billionaires whose lifestyles I don't actually aspire to have). I think what's actually true is that it's lonely climbing to the top– frankly, it's just lonely climbing. Certainly up, not really down.

And who's to judge what each person's definition of "top" is? Isn't that just a synonym for the nebulous concept of "success"? To me, success is reaching our personal goals. And truly, our own personal goals. Not those defined by our parents, our peers, or society.

I've been rambling for a bit, but what I really want to talk about are 2 things: entrepreneurial goals and boredom.

Entrepreneurs have to have a high risk tolerance. Otherwise, they wouldn't even try their idea and put themselves out there. Entrepreneurs also need a support system, but sometimes that can be hard to find, so they proactively find communities of like-minded people. This happens through networking events, subreddits, yapping to their friends about their ideas to see if there's any interest... I often find that they also need to be stubborn about their goal. There's going to be a lot of disinterest. I see this in my ambitious friends, and I've also seen it for myself. You wished all of your friends and everyone you care about really cared about what you're working on, but they have their own stuff going on. Not everyone has the bandwidth to deeply care about your project or work.

So, as they say, "it's lonely [climbing to] at the top".

And on the topic of boredom– I've posted this thought on socials recently:

I hope I never lose my willingness to explore new music. It's not too big of a stretch in saying that the willingness in itself is a metric for how receptive my mind is to new ideas and perspectives, the ability to hear and digest. I may not like it, yet gave it a fair shot. — Jinny Gui (@shadowclan98.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 9:26 AM

I've also shared this:

Sometimes I come across a portfolio website that inspires me one way or another. Then, I realize how fractured my attention is across multiple goals. I might not become the best at one thing, but maybe I can get good enough at a few things. Tech, music, writing, languages, sports— Jinny Gui (@shadowclan98.bsky.social) August 7, 2025 at 12:22 AM

I feel like my curiosity is never fully satiated, but I also recognize that each one of my interests feeds into the other, and they really aren't that unrelated. I also shared a reel (screenshotted below) to my IG/FB stories a few days ago that resonated with me, with the comments:

"Not just the selfish goal to git gud; it's allowed me to connect and be aware of memes within subcultures"

The thing is, I'm having a lot of fun understanding these subcultures and memes, either because they're associated with a language I'm learning or a hobby that I have. This has given me a way to connect with so many people that I've met, from athletes, gamers, to studious academics and corporate techies. However, because I have so many "in"s and am aware of all of these subgroups, I'm often boring to a lot of people because not everyone is as curious as me about so many things.

I have the capacity to yap (or text) someone's ear off about so many different things that someone couldn't care less about, it actually becomes overwhelming. And if someone is also very opinionated about the things they consume, then maybe they actually are in pain listening to the yap sessions. So often, I'm sort of left to restrain myself before learning about someone's interests.

One could call it "passion" and be polite, but I think it's best to just tell me that you're overwhelmed and/or getting bored.

The way I feel connected to my friends and others is by sharing things that they're interested in– this can be reels, fun facts, or things I've learned. And likewise, they'll do the same with me. Oftentimes, when I just meet someone, I feel like I'm throwing darts at a wall, trying to figure out what sticks because I have a diverse set of interests to pull conversation topics from. Though I will also get bored if I can't hop around to different topics and am just stuck on one, so I often have to rely on the other person I'm chatting with to volunteer things they want to talk about.

Recently, I've concluded that smart people bore me, and not-so-smart people also bore me. I'm also boring to both other smart people and not-so-smart people. It's easy to click with people who become friends and a lot harder to click with people whom you really hope to feel a click– if you catch my drift.

To conclude

It's lonely to be ambitious, and it's also lonely to be so curious about anything and everything.