My bar on software is too high
I'm comparing myself with the best in the world
In one of the earlier articles I’ve written I mention that I strive to use all technology in my life as sensible as possible 1 and I’ve just uncovered a giant flaw in my technology use that I would like to share.
Starting off with some context: Aside from LinkedIn I don’t have any social media accounts. I’m too afraid to delete my LinkedIn because I might need it professionally at some point, but I barely visit it. The constant bombardment of others’ posts about them “Being so glad they got the opportunity” to work at some giant corporate, in combination with all kinds of people that work in management touting their AI program to be amazing disgusts me.
But I haven’t always been so conscious about my technology use. I scrolled social media mindlessly before and I struggled with lots of YouTube and Reddit use almost entirely led by their algorithms. I’d just browse on there and waste time, with zero intent. At one point in my life I was fed up and wanted less of these distractions that didn’t give me any satisfaction. After some investigation I figured it was not the smartphone itself that caused my issues, but rather the apps I had installed and the notifications they gave me. I needed a change. I removed all the unnecessary apps and setup my phone so I never got a notification aside from incoming calls. This worked for me.
But now I had another problem. To stay on a certain level as a software engineer I need to be somewhat up-to-date on current developments. I tried a few options, creating Twitter and Discord accounts to follow people in the tech sphere. This seemed to work but I had to dig through a lot of low quality information to get to the actual content I liked. So I had to find another source. I deleted my accounts and searched on. Then I remembered Hacker News 2. I’d occasionally visit this website in my career but the articles I read from there were not always that appealing to me. However, the more consecutive days I visited, the more I started to like it. This must’ve been a couple of years ago.
I tried being sensible by not using social media and limiting my browsing to visiting Hacker News daily to get a dose of news that particularly interests me. Nothing else. But over time I was growing more and more anxious about my professional skills. The people that make the front page of Hacker News seem highly skilled in all fields of technology, especially software, which I’m most interested in. At some point in my life I’d love to start a profitable software business and this feels like the place to get inspiration for that. To me it feels like a gathering place for the best software engineers in the world. In some ways this made me insecure. But the imposter syndrome seems to be widespread amongst software engineers around me so I just attributed it to that.
Stepping away from my professional life for a bit, on a personal level I made some much needed improvements in my thinking as well. At some point in my life after my studies I had a hard time picking up new things. There was always this conviction that I had to try to be the best in all of the things I did, but I knew if I picked up something in my 20’s this was highly unlikely. But at some point I managed to overcome this limitation. I started to play chess, got piano lessons from an amazing teacher, joined a boxing club. I knew I wouldn’t be the best at those things, yet I still did them. I can’t explain what happened there but I just had to break free of that self-limiting belief. However, this only concerns a certain part of my life. The same self-limiting belief still persisted heavily on an intellectual level. For example, I started this website to write articles on things I’m interested in and get in touch with link-minded people but something prevents me from sharing it widely.
Recently I just finished Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport 3. A very interesting read! It was striking to see that he came to similar conclusions regarding technology as to what I implemented in my life without reading this book. In chapter 6 he talks about “Supercharged Sociality” in which he advocates for real physical interactions with others and digital messaging lives should serve only the purpose of setting up those interactions. Then I had an epiphany. By comparing myself with the world-class engineers on Hacker News I had set the bar for myself for writing software and articles way too high. Subconsciously I compared myself to those people I saw on the frontpage and constantly asked myself “How can I differentiate myself on there?”. But getting to the front page of Hacker News shouldn’t be the bar. I need to convince myself that on a professional level I can make an impact on my environment without being the best in the world.
I’ll start setting up discussions with like-minded people in my network and get some interesting interactions going. No need for comparison, just for fun and personal development. Another goal is to “just publish” my articles. The fear that they’re not good enough will always persist, but I won’t improve if nobody reads them.