At A Juncture

The unemployed life has given me an opportunity to weigh the next step I take. As I peruse through the openings online, I have to consider if each opening will take me in the right direction or if I'll just end up back in this position. In my search for a new job, I've found that the software development realm has become a place for people who have a much greater obsession with technology than I have. Almost every job posting I've run across requires pre-existing programming experience in several different languages over a much longer time than my meek 1-2 years of exposure. Along with the years and years of experience that is required, a lot of the descriptions contain statements like "Positive, motivated, energetic, flexible, attitude and attention to detail a must!" which pretty much says you need to eat, sleep, and breathe code for the job to work.

I'm a geek, truly. There's no other way to look at it. I've never been very physically coordinated nor do I consider myself particularly good with interpersonal communication. I love tech and geek culture (though you can leave out the zombies) and I enjoy more creative pastimes like music and art. However, I don't have the obsession that seems to be required to be truly successful in my industry. What's wrong with me? I can only describe it as a difficulty with finding a passion. Most geeks get good at what they do because they always have pet projects to pursue. I never came up with one because my ideas were hardly new and I always figured why would I want to reinvent the wheel?

Now I realize that my problem has been letting myself be overly critical. It's a case of analyzing the situation in a way where any fault means that the idea is not worth pursuing. Well, by sticking to this frame of mind, a person will never achieve anything! If you think you'll have fun getting into something, just go for it! Who cares if someone else has done it, maybe you can do it better? Even if you end up dumping your pursuit, you'll have learned along the way. That's the new attitude I've been trying to pick up so I can get more in touch with my geek self. As I step into the next path in my career, I will keep an open mind to new ideas and new pursuits, because they can only make me stronger.