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Discussion on: Programming as a Job and a Hobby

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jhotterbeekx profile image
John Hotterbeekx

I can't say anything about the people around you, I don't know them besides from your description. But the one thing that comes across my mind after reading your article is that maybe it isn't programming itself where you should focus your energy, but in communication and your own experience. I've come across a decent amount of difficult people in my career and there are always a lot of different opinions when you put a group of developers together, but the key is on how you express and handle these differences. Don't just try and convince others about your point of view, but try and understand theirs. People that feel heard tend to listen to your point of view as well. And if they don't? That should be their loss, not yours. Keep pride in your work, keep your own quality bar, challenge yourself and keep growing as a person and as a professional. Could be that I'm totally off on this, because I think you really had it with your career at this moment and that makes it hard to give a single good advice, but what do you think about this?

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Jeremy Woertink

I like your ideas, though, the post was more for others than myself. I tend to keep a pretty decent balance between my work and non-work. After re-reading my post, I guess I put in some emotion indicating that I'm in need of this advice. Probably because I was a bit angry when I wrote it originally lol. oops! Oh well, love the advice! Thanks for reading.

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John Hotterbeekx

I'm just glad you found your way. Does that mean you have figured a way to get back positive energy from programming? If so, how did you manage to do it?

I just read an interesting chapter about this yesterday. The book "Soft skills: The Software Developer's Life Manual" by John Sonmez talks about hitting a wall, which seems a lot like you did. He also talks about this being the point that most people give up an look else, which seems pretty normal behavior when you have burned out. What he suggests though is pushing through, because hitting this wall is almost inevitable and the other side of it will return you positive flow. Although I don't have any experience with the concept of pushing through the wall when burned out, I do find it interesting.