Normalizing Struggle #180
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I think what it is, is that people often only see others' success stories. Especially those who blog/write/speak, etc. They look up to these people, build on their ideas, and think that clearly these people know what they're doing and must have their shit together. (which really, we don't. Let's be honest :P). So when they then face struggles themselves, they think it means they're clearly not good enough, because other people "are doing it without any hassle". This idea is what I (personally) really think we should get away from. And also, people face these struggles at different times. I often remind myself that, while it's great hanging out with you Ash, and Orta, and Chris, to name a few, you're all also a little bit older than me. I often say this to Daniel, who can also be a bit like "clearly we suck compared to all the cool shit they're doing". We have different paths. We do things at different times, in a different order, with a different pace. Who knows what I'll be like in 2-3 years. Like you say, you have to normalise all of this for your own journey. When it comes to struggling, there's a lot to be said for forgiving yourself and allowing yourself to struggle. It's the only way to get to being capable in something. Like you mentioned in your pragma talk, everyone goes through those beginner stages. Further more, it's not just about being capable. Life happens. This is normal. We are not just our work. I heard from so many people after my post that they also left their jobs due to the fact that it felt wrong, and all of them felt like quitters. Didn't want to admit this to anyone, because they thought it to be shameful. Why do we do this to ourselves? Where does this idea come from that we're not allowed to give ourselves a break and do what we think is best for us? If a job isn't working out, it's not working out. Move on. Know when to push yourself, and know when to take a break. We don't nearly talk about the taking of breaks. Next steps might be showing how we normalise struggle. I don't know if anyone would be interested in those topics though. What do you do, Ash? Like, day to day, to make sure you don't lose it / burn yourself out / accept struggles / keep going? For me, for instance, it's that I need a talking buddy. My family / Daniel / friends. I process things best that way. Also, I have to context switch. I have to do something that is completely unrelated to computing, like cooking or painting. (Others might be different. For some reason, I have this mental image of Orta only ever programming / being productive, unless he's with Danger. I dno why :P. Again, probably inaccurate.) What does our down-time look like? Do people even make time and space for this? But, it is true that even I feel guilty when I'm painting. I'm like, lol, other people are pushing code to github right now and I'm just chilling. It's like what Orta said about impact. My painting is impacting only me. Maybe the two other people that will see it. Pushing OSS is seen as such an amazing thing, because it helps others, allows for more impact, etc. Why do we value that so much? Why is this our ideal? Is it just me / is it in my head that I feel like in our industry, we can look down on people who don't push to github 24/7? I don't knooooow these things ._. On the other hand. I love my life. I think I have a pretty awesome life and I'm so grateful for it. So I do try and take all of these things with a massive pinch of salt, and try and not "compete". It's easy to feel like you are in this race with everyone, and you just want to keep up (I don't think anyone cares about winning much. Just being in the top, with everyone else). And again, because of that, you feel like you can't afford to struggle. You'll fall behind. Sorry, this is just a massive braindump I have on the topic lol. May even have gone on quite a tangent. Self-care is important. Putting things into context is important. Struggle is inevitable. Maybe just drawing awareness to this is a good start? I will think about it more. |
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Lol okay, that was such a braindump last night. Let's summarise it a bit. I think there are essentially two "problems":
Target either or both of those, and you'd be well on your way :). The quote I often swear by is: "The master has failed more than the beginner has ever tried". It keeps me from giving up while I'm in the "struggling phase". |
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Cool, thanks for the thoughtful feedback! 🙇 Additionally, these two comics might be cool to link to: |
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They are amazing! |
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Very interesting watch! It made me think of how, currently in Tech, failure is glorified, but only retrospectively. So when you're successful, people say "ah, but I failed x times!". Also, a lot of pressure is put on failure, because you have to "learn and iterate" from it. Sometimes, failure is just failure. It sucks, but it's okay. You will be okay. You don't need to have it all figured out as you're tumbling down. |
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Lots to dig through here – I feel like I almost have too much I want to write about 😬 Also from this article:
And this video is great: https://vimeo.com/24715531 I've blogged about it before: https://ashfurrow.com/blog/storytelling/ |
I've blogged about struggling with depression, but struggling is normal. Everyone struggles with all kinds of things, but everyone thinks they struggle alone.
From when I first starting blogging about depression, I didn't really know what I would talk about, and still don't really have a plan. But I've had a lot of people thank me for just talking about it. It makes people feel better just to know that other people have a hard time with things, too. Not necessarily depression, but all kinds of things. Learning is a great example; we may enjoy learning new things, but it is still a struggle.
I'd like to discuss a bit more about how important it is to normalize struggle, in general. Having more people discuss their struggle is one way to do this, but what's the next step? I need more time to think...
Examples of normalizing struggle:
once he finishes writing it On being 29 orta/orta.github.com#5http://orta.io/on/being/29/The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: