I’ve been continuing to spend a lot of time outside of work not even thinking about programming. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing in the long run, but for my mental health and happiness, it’s been amazing. I’ve been cycling through old hobbies and trying out new things, but they’ve mostly been duds. Knitting was always big for me but since I moved to California it’s a little harder to delight in making beautiful woolen things to keep me warm when I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve even seen rain this year.
So I went searching, reaching back into the depths of things I enjoyed. What kept coming up was back in college when I spent four years studying Chinese and how much I regretted losing most of my knowledge over the last eight or so years ago. So I went back to skool, started taking a night class in beginning Chinese and it came back to me much quicker than I expected. I’m not amazing at it or anything but I’m really enjoying it.
Now, circling the wagons, I’m reflecting on my hobbies again. When I first decided to try to find a job as a software engineer, I had the very real fear that taking programming from a hobby to a job would make me lose my love of it. In some ways, I have to admit it has. Actual software engineering work, when you don’t try to be the 10x asshole, can sometimes be a little boring, when it’s just helping out marketing or maybe doing the same thing in the same routine.
Other times though programming feels a bit like flying. Everything clicks and time melts away. I wish I knew how to make myself feel like that more but I think the secret might be that most of us feel that way. We don’t hear about us because we’re just there doing our job, not making waves, or keynoting conferences, or releasing yet another JavaScript framework.
Or maybe I’m just a slacker and should run off to China and teach English. Thoughts?