I think your discussion post is better aligned than this article. I tried reading it...
I think I’m going to have to reject the article since it puts too much pressure on the talent and love aspects. I have never really loved anything that much, and if I was too worried about that, I’d end up in the “finding your passion” rut. Judging by some articles I’ve seen spring up recently, I don’t think I’m alone. I appear to have talent in some areas, but I can’t tell if I have talent in any areas that I do not already know I have talent in, nor can I measure the extent of my talent. I don’t think this is a productive way to go about things since it’s so ambiguous and provides too many avenues to drop the very idea of acquiring new skills.
Some people are just not that crazy about things and never got any obvious signs about a skill, but they still need reasonable advice on how to learn new things, because they can still learn some degree of mastery in those skills and those skills are still useful. I can make a significant difference by simply being a better programmer as opposed to a great programmer. Perhaps the issue is that we focus too much on doing things statistically unusually well as opposed to doing things because they’re worth doing. If the thing you are trying to do is only worthwhile when you are the best at it, perhaps that’s a signal that it’s a relatively useless activity or there’s already an over saturation of supply in it.
This is a very greatness focused article and I think that’s actually a rather toxic mentality to approach things with. We should focus on standards and mastery (and personal benefit) instead of greatness. It also ignores generalists. I guess those are both rants for another time.
I think your discussion post is better aligned than this article. I tried reading it...
I think I’m going to have to reject the article since it puts too much pressure on the talent and love aspects. I have never really loved anything that much, and if I was too worried about that, I’d end up in the “finding your passion” rut. Judging by some articles I’ve seen spring up recently, I don’t think I’m alone. I appear to have talent in some areas, but I can’t tell if I have talent in any areas that I do not already know I have talent in, nor can I measure the extent of my talent. I don’t think this is a productive way to go about things since it’s so ambiguous and provides too many avenues to drop the very idea of acquiring new skills.
Some people are just not that crazy about things and never got any obvious signs about a skill, but they still need reasonable advice on how to learn new things, because they can still learn some degree of mastery in those skills and those skills are still useful. I can make a significant difference by simply being a better programmer as opposed to a great programmer. Perhaps the issue is that we focus too much on doing things statistically unusually well as opposed to doing things because they’re worth doing. If the thing you are trying to do is only worthwhile when you are the best at it, perhaps that’s a signal that it’s a relatively useless activity or there’s already an over saturation of supply in it.
This is a very greatness focused article and I think that’s actually a rather toxic mentality to approach things with. We should focus on standards and mastery (and personal benefit) instead of greatness. It also ignores generalists. I guess those are both rants for another time.