Do You Love What You Do?

(Photo by icadrew) I’ve been having some interesting discussions with some work colleagues of late. The general theme was “are we happy with what we are doing?”.

Now, I do not want to speak badly of my employer, they pay me money which allows me to do things that I want to do. However, there is a general feeling of upset at this time as we have been through a rough project, and the current outlook it that it is not going to improve in a hurry. I personally just take it as a challenge, I am not the sort of person to let something bother me for too long before doing anything about it, so I don’t let things like this phase me (other than my initial rants!).

I responded to the question with:

I love what I do, I just don’t like the way I am/we are doing it.

The thing is, while walking home from work, this really sparked some brain activity, because I was lying. Recently, I have NOT been loving it! I have been fed up going in to the office, and this was rubbing off on ME and my outlook.

I got in to software because it interests me. It makes me question everything, how do things work? Why do they work that way? Could they work better? This spills over into everything that I do. Due to this, programming for me is a passion, maybe an obsession.

The good news is, I have been making changes to improve my outlook, I am reducing some of the study stress, being more assertive at work and trying to code more of what I want in my spare time. This helps keep the creativity flowing and the brain energised. Once again, I am loving what I do, yeah there are some bad bits, like the 9-5 drag, but I am still getting my fixes in the evening. :)

I have also started working on some ideas with @Mendelt which has been great. He is a very switched on guy and TBH, even if we do not use a single line of the code we produce, we have already had some interesting discussions, and he has got me learning new ways of working and thinking more about what I do. So, if you are reading, thank you Mendelt.

This all adds fuel to the fire of creativity, which is something we should all strive to keep burning. Do whatever it takes to keep the fire burning that makes YOU love what YOU do.

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