2025-04-22
When my dog, Toby, passed away last semester, it was the day after I had given my final internship presentation — and blown it away. Just as had happened the year prior, my presentation provoked many questions from folks on teams I hadn’t interacted with, product development talks and small iterations that previously were nothing more than afterthoughts, newfound analysis into the way the company worked with users, and a few leaders’ curious, yet pragmatic, commentary on the insights I found that invited more probing. It was a feeling that gave me a rush of adrenaline like no other. What more could I ask for after experiencing what felt like the world’s sudden bustle simply derived from my one presentation? I was scheduled into meeting after meeting for the rest of the week, ready to take on whatever next steps were presented my way. I wanted to leave my internship with the greatest impact I could, and the small inner voice singing to me — keep them coming, keep working, you can do more — only left me hungry to explore what I could do to deepen my mark on both the company and its customers even further that summer.
That is, until the very next morning. When my parents called me with the news about Toby two hours before work, each stride I’d taken forward all dissolved into what was, at the time, a million steps back.
My Toby? The one who, just a few weeks prior (when I’d visited home), was rushing to me at the door, wagging his tail at the sound of his leash? The one who had a never-ending zeal for life, always inquisitive of each and every substance he encountered? The one who had boundless energy, leaping onto my family and friends (despite the fact he was taller than me) each time he wanted to play?
It wasn’t possible. What made it even worse was that I couldn’t be there. I wasn’t there. His last few days at home, I had been in the last few days of my internship. I was absent at a time he maybe needed me the most — and I had literally just missed him.
The exciting rush of my internship deliverables dissipated quickly. All I could think about in the gap between my presentation and the internship’s ending was how much I missed him. How much he meant to me — my first dog, my best friend from some of the earliest years of my maturing, my companion who never left my side. People may have their opinions on dogs simply being pets, but Toby was never just that to me. And I grieved him as such, taking away all the temporary pleasures I’d felt from my external achievements and instead replacing them with a giant, internal longing.
To put it simply, in the weeks — perhaps even months — following his death, I was more broken than I imagined I ever could be. Partially owed to the fact I’d never experienced a death so close to me before, and also maybe attributed to the fact I never fully had time to process it. The last few days of my internship passed by in a blur, and immediately after that, school began. All the commotion of syllabus week, org events, and job recruitment swept me off my feet, leaving no time for me to just think about what had happened — and what I learned from it.
But now, three-quarters of a year and more than 10 countries later, I can confidently put my finger on so many things I wasn’t able to before. I’ve grown in countless ways, both personally and professionally, and I dedicate most of that growth to Toby to this day.
One of the first, most pivotal lessons I recognized was that of the influence coming from within. There was no source of external motivation or stimuli that could ever surpass the power of my mental state and internal drive. Immediately in the days following Toby’s death, the things I was most excited for turned into time-fillers I was mindlessly taking care of just to be able to rush home afterwards and sit and think about what had happened. Nothing influences you more than your mind, and when it’s occupied — and you let it be so —, you deal with natural consequences. You choose each thought you have, consciously or subconsciously, and in the moments where I was eager to leave Chicago and just go home to long over Toby in any way possible, I was choosing to indulge in a process that led to my natural devastation.
The alternative to that was pretty obvious, but before I internalized my learnings, I wasn’t thinking about it. In fact, I was probably choosing not to. But what if — just what if — I recognized that Toby had a life full of joy, meaning, and all the love he could’ve possibly obtained? What if I’d chosen to recognize that Toby had lived moment-to-moment and person-to-person, making his life just as lived and significant as it was meant to be? What if I’d focused more on each of the thousands of times we had spent together, and what I took away from each of them?
At the time, I wasn’t thinking about how Toby had, truly and sincerely, lived his life in the best, most inherently successful way anyone or anything could. He always enjoyed each moment like it was his last. He had an everlasting lust for life — whether it came in the form of a random, odd-colored leaf sprawled across the sidewalk during our runs that he’d rush to investigate, or the wave of water he’d cautiously try to bite around before gravity got to it first, or the squirrel that darted outside at the same rhythm of his chasing barks that would almost probably wake any neighbor from slumber — that was contagious and relentless. His sole calling of how much he loved his people was attested to time and time again by his thumping, heavy tail against our staircase, his lovely, playful eyes eagerly scanning the room when he wanted to find you, and his gentle presence comforting you as he lied his head down in your lap for a nap. Toby was the epitome of life. He embodied the full purpose of it that anyone and everyone strives for.
Last semester, when I found myself grieving or deep in thought, my escape was planning — just as it has been my entire life, even before Toby. If I could somehow regiment my schedule, filling in any time block I had with work, I would find fulfillment again in something. I spent my days last semester head-down a lot of the time, filling out the next application and hitting “submit” or determinedly typing in the last few lines of code for a homework assignment to feel the temporary satisfactions that I once craved. And I must admit, some of the things truly helped — sometimes in ways I didn’t expect. I learned that I loved coding and problem-solving within technical challenges; I became a productivity machine sometimes, churning out video after video to garner collaborations I could’ve only dreamt of. But other times, when the bandage on the wound couldn’t even prevent the bleeding, my true emotions would overtake me. I’d break down, and the feelings of temporary satisfaction would leave just as fast as they came.
Over time and conversation with loved ones, I became more stable — finding peace again. I learned how to — a skill I’d only mildly developed before. One of my classes at the time even explained how a major part of emotional intelligence came from self-regulation, and I began implementing that as a rule for myself. It helped in ways that I know will last for the rest of my life.
What’s truly been the most life-changing, however, has been coming abroad. Not for the typical reasons most people tell you to go abroad, even though those are part of it, of course. But for me, it’s become a permanent way of making Toby’s lessons a lifestyle.
I just returned from an action-packed spring break yesterday. Over the course of the last few days, I’ve seen the fun, teasing force of waves as I’ve learned how to surf; I explored the Game-of-Thrones scenery of Croatia; I’ve enjoyed learning the rich history and experiences of Romans at the Colosseum. And over the course over the last few months? It’s been all of those, magnified. Fulfilling. I’ve developed new friendships with unforgettable people, returning to my extroverted self (who briefly took a backseat as I prioritized self-reflection and work last semester post-Toby), explored the richest riches of true connection with people around me and people at home alike, and even finally reached some of my career goals, scoring a dream semester internship and posting more of the tech and mindset advice I’ve always wanted to. I’ve rekindled the fire of passions that used to burn me with how much I love them — writing, creating, blogging, traveling.
But most of all, I’ve learned, once and for all, how far the deepest gratitude and self-belief can go. I remember sitting in Tromso, one of the world’s most northernmost cities, atop one of the highest mountains there, thinking about how lucky I am on so many different levels to be able to see what I saw. Each dip in the snow, each light popping on in houses as the sun went down, each laugh echoing in the distance as people fell on their snowboards. In Morocco, it was an admiration of how soft each grain of Sahara sand was; in Italy, a curiosity for how people must’ve built things we still get to experience without any technology.
The first time I felt it was visiting San Sebastian, a city in north Spain. It was my first trip during my time abroad, and my friends and I were sitting at a cliff, overlooking the vast stretch of the sea as a group of French folk right by us danced and sung along to songs with words I didn’t know how to pronounce, yet still added to my playlist once coming back home. For the first time in a long time, the renewed sense of gratitude with an awe of life had re-entered my headspace. This time, though, it was a conscious choice. I examined everything around me with the most intentionality I could, absorbing everything and saving questions to Google later simply because I thought that Toby would probably do the same thing (minus the Googling — maybe a doggie Wikipedia?). I wanted to live in the moment, completely, fully, and intentionally. And sitting on the cliff, overlooking miles and miles of beautiful uncertainty yet tangible reality all at the same time, I finally did.
From that point onwards, while I still consciously put in the effort to refocus my attention sometimes, it’s mostly become second nature. I don’t know if I’d ever be able to say this with the same confidence and assuredness as I am now if what happened in August didn’t. Toby’s passing was an inciting incident for a journey full of revelations and revitalizations that may not have happened otherwise. Do I still miss him sometimes, wishing that I could maybe get one last hug with him the next time I go home? Of course. That’s a part of loving that won’t ever fully go away. But am I okay with it now? Also a yes. I’m no longer in a rush to make the most of my time through externally-driven productivity temptations. The A on the paper can wait. The coffee chat next week can, in fact, include authentic conversation about family and friends. The video I’m posting can be about both tech and life without losing its professional, yet touching demeanor. Most importantly, I can just sit in silence for a few moments if that’s what I want. Doing nothing sometimes means truly doing everything you may need to be doing.
Obviously, I’m not perfect. That goes without saying. Like everyone else, I have downs along with my ups. I still, unfortunately, have a pet peeve of slow walkers as much as I did pre-abroad (but I’m working on it!). I still get irritated sometimes when I feel like maybe I could’ve put in more effort, or maybe the contrary, where I feel like it may have been wasted.
But the difference now is that I find the purpose behind each one of these moments. I find enjoyment in each part of it, because they each happen for a reason and serve me as lessons or as blessings, each and every day. Toby lived his life moment by moment to its fullest, so why wouldn’t I try to do the same? Why wouldn’t I try to give my all to each person I talk to or each thing I indulge in? I actively make the choice to go all in now, because that’s quite literally the most I could ever give or do.
We are all people, but that doesn’t make us unique. What makes us unique is the way we think — which, in turn, influences the way we live. And it’s once we start to think the way that Toby did that turns life into the very beautiful, romanticized thing that we sometimes trick ourselves into believing it might never be. Because the truth is, it already is. We just have to pay attention to it.