How can I live with my insatiable desire of knowing everything about the web world?

#discuss

I'm a web developer and I learn every day new things about the web world: one day a new HTML element, one day a new CSS property, one day a new UX pattern, one day a new a11y rule, and so on. I strive every day to learn how to make the web a better place for everyone. But this effort is resulting in frustration. Not because I'm realizing that I don't like developing for the web, the opposite! I love this world so much that I'd like to know everything about it, but I know it's an impossible desire. You can't know every single thing about a topic. So I'm here to ask to this lovely community of dev.to: how can I live with this frustration? How can I manage it? Have you ever had this feeling before?

Top comments (4)

Andrei Gatej • Jun 19 '19

I’m happy to say that I’m in a very similar situation.

This is how I deal with it:

I accept that fact that I might not even get to read that article that I bookmarked 4 months ago. I get to read 2 articles per day, and add another 10. I don’t mind if my bookmarks list reaches 1000+ items, as long as I learn something new every day
I enjoy every moment spent on improving myself, not thinking about what I’m missing, but rather about what I’m learning and how much that would benefit me
after some time, I am finally able to decide what things are not worth the time I would spent on learning them.

Paradoxically, do not set limits to your curiosity. Even if you feel overwhelmed, just carry on with whatever you set your mind on.

Of course, this is just my opinion.

Best of luck!

Franco Scarpa • Jun 19 '19

I like very much your point of view. The first point of the list is valid also for me. We must focus not on “I could know that thing”, but on “I'm one who knows that other thing.” Moreover, we mustn't loose this desire, because it is it that push us. We only need to live with it. 😊