How do you face feedback, public opinion, etc? For me, much of it comes from learning how to be self-forgetful
I've only recently started having a public voice in the developer community and this is the hardest part for me.
There can be a lot of positive feedback but I find there's even more negative. I think I'll try applying your advice and just learn to be self-forgetful.
I think it applies whether you are new or not! When you are new you might not care about other people's opinions since you might be just doing stuff for fun or scratching your own itch. Hearing feedback might make you a little self-conscious and then suddenly you don't even want to engage for fear of comments (totally understandable). When you've been doing it for a while, you might start feeling the same way (not caring since you are "one of the old ones") or scared because everyone expects something out of you.
But yeah I think it's a delicate balance of obviously caring about your well-being and mental state but at the same time were here to help people (at least in open source as a maintainer). Not getting bogged down in your own issues and also taking care of yourself is a hard, necessary, important thing to manage.
"He would rather the man though himself a great architect or a great poet and then forgot about it, than that he should spend much time and pains trying to think himself a bad one."
It's when we feel free to just do the work and stop thinking about how we are seen that we can do the best work? There is time for reflection but worrying keeps us fearful and uninspired. But I think that comes from a solid sense of identity outside of that work and also a healthy community for sure.
I've only recently started having a public voice in the developer community and this is the hardest part for me.
There can be a lot of positive feedback but I find there's even more negative. I think I'll try applying your advice and just learn to be self-forgetful.
Thanks for the great insight.
Thanks Colin!
I think it applies whether you are new or not! When you are new you might not care about other people's opinions since you might be just doing stuff for fun or scratching your own itch. Hearing feedback might make you a little self-conscious and then suddenly you don't even want to engage for fear of comments (totally understandable). When you've been doing it for a while, you might start feeling the same way (not caring since you are "one of the old ones") or scared because everyone expects something out of you.
But yeah I think it's a delicate balance of obviously caring about your well-being and mental state but at the same time were here to help people (at least in open source as a maintainer). Not getting bogged down in your own issues and also taking care of yourself is a hard, necessary, important thing to manage.
I really like what is said in The Screwtape Letters: twitter.com/left_pad/status/884239...
"He would rather the man though himself a great architect or a great poet and then forgot about it, than that he should spend much time and pains trying to think himself a bad one."
It's when we feel free to just do the work and stop thinking about how we are seen that we can do the best work? There is time for reflection but worrying keeps us fearful and uninspired. But I think that comes from a solid sense of identity outside of that work and also a healthy community for sure.
I appreciate the thoughtful response. Good luck with babel!