In pursuit of depth

For much of my life, I avoided deep thought and reflection. This realization struck me after finishing Cal Newport’s Deep Work. I went through the motions, in school, in learning without questioning or truly understanding. Now, in my 20s, I see how this surface-level approach has held me back.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been ‘lazy ambitious’. Someone who wants to succeed without putting in the work. In school, I never struggled, but I never excelled either. During my childhood in Italy, as the child of immigrant parents, my grades hovered around 7s and 8s (on a scale of 4 to 10). Decent, especially given I’d been in the country just over a few a years and was still adapting to the Italian way of life. But I rarely studied after school, not because I couldn’t understand, but because I didn’t care to try.

Coming to the UK forced a reckoning. To get into university, I had to pass the very exams I’d spent years avoiding.

I had to pass math exams to get into university, the subject I’d avoided for years. I studied, I passed. But not with flying colors, and looking back, I know why: I still didn’t go deep enough. I was devoid of curiosity, treating that exam as just another hurdle, calculating the minimum effort needed to clear it.

Programming is teaching me what I avoided in mathematics: that understanding takes time, repetition, and a willingness to fail repeatedly. I’m learning to sit with confusion rather than flee from it.

Toward the end of last year, I read the book of Ecclesiastes, where the Teacher writes in chapter 9: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.” It reminded me that nothing worth pursuing comes easy, a lesson I seem to have learned at the right moment.

I’m learning to recognize how my daily choices compound into the life I want to live. Winifred Gallagher captured what I am reaching for: “I’ll live the focused life, because it’s the best kind there is.” That depth, that focus, this is what I’m working toward.