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0 pointszoogeny2y ago0 comments

It is fair to misunderstand what I was saying since all things are ambiguous. Without context I could see this being interpreted as permission for people to be lazy, incautious or even negligent.

But I urge you to consider the other side of the spectrum and the pressures that people can put on themselves. For some, in their search for perfection, they can ruin their own lives. They can see every mistake they make as a personal failure. It is useful to remember that in the vast majority of cases people bounce back from these failures.

You will hear over and over how many entrepreneurs fail in their first businesses, often several times. Most often in life you don't just get a second chance, you get many chances. There a only a few places in life where a single failure is truly catastrophic.

So if you find yourself overwhelmed as a junior engineer, as described in this story. If you feel your stomach in knots and you are terrified your lead in going to eviscerate you in front of a cheering audience - just know you have more latitude to fail and try again than you might expect.

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knaidofngio2y ago

I never thought you said that sloppiness is acceptable. I edited my comment to try to make that clearer.

But I think we should remember that everything matters. People's lives are not mostly made of weddings and funerals and gun fights and plane crashes. They're mostly made of chores and small talk and dumb little mobile games. Nothing is really trivial. You shouldn't beat yourself up over mistakes, but that's not because they don't matter.

zoogenyOP2y ago

Sure, everything matters. But some things matter more than others. If my internet fails for an afternoon that seems to matter less than if my wedding is a catastrophe. If my video game crashes that seems to matter less than a plane crash. We call this "putting things into perspective".

I mentioned the word "humility" in another response and that is the crux of what I'm trying to communicate. It is often the case that we can exaggerate the importance of our own work and it often helps to take a step back and humble oneself. If you find yourself losing sleep over your work, if you find your anxiety levels high, perhaps you need some perspective. Perhaps you find it distasteful for me to suggest that the engineering work of air-traffic control software matters more than most CRUD apps. That doesn't mean every other kind of software has zero worth. It just provides an anchor for perspective - a kind of software where literally thousands of lives are at stake 24 hours per day. Most developers are not under that kind of stress.

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