Obstacles and Opportunities
It occurred to me this evening that the frustrations I often faceboth professionally, and personally, are really frustrations with those who see obstacles, rather than opportunities.
I'm not sure if it has more to do with distance of vision, or willingness to ignore difficulties. Where I see far down the road to the place I want to be, and set out immediately in that directionoften regardless of the work required to get thereothers see every potential problem before taking a first step. They spend hours deliberating over everything that might happen, rather than using that time to dig themselves out of the holes they might fall in along the way.
Apple famously created the “Here's to the Crazy Ones” poster in the 1990s communicating the same sentiments;” the one thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire.“Quite apart from the romantic ideals of imagination, exploration, creation, and inspiration, there is also the intensely frustrating opposition some people construct when tasked with a project that will require hard work to progress. Rather than seek a way forward, they complain about anything and everything to anybody that will listen. Rather than learn anything new, they will seek escaperationalising a better fit for somebody else, or a sudden requirement to work on something else.
It would be easy to think I'm growing disenchanted with software and web development as a whole, but that's not true. It's a frustration that others do not share my interest, or my passion in learning, developing, improving, evolving, and inventing new things.
I love software development because it's one of the few fields where you can conjure something from nothing. The creative process is remarkably pureinvention and creativity rule, allied with hard work, perseverance, and pragmatism. In the world of “must, should, could”, “what if” often winsbut only if you're willing to occasionally lift the world on your shoulders single handed, and edge it forwards with your own might.