I decided to take a small break from my recent wave of tutorials to talk about some lessons I’ve learned as of late. I wanted to share these lessons with others as someone who is still “young” in the tech field ( less than 5 years working professionally ), and as a growing developer getting to know herself.
https://twitter.com/grmpyprogrammer/status/580362217352232960
I’m just going to throw this out there before I get farther into this post. Ready? This might freak some people out, but here goes…
Everything is more important than work. Or more accurately, your health, your family, your loved ones, your “you” time, your very life – are all number one priorities over your job.
Up until March of last year, I was just like other developer worker bees, working 40+ hours a week and ignoring the telltale signs of burnout. I let impostor syndrome control me and kept myself from seeing outside of my current life for fear of what was out there or what I was actually capable of. I stopped doing things I enjoyed outside of work, I was checking my work email on my phone during off hours, and I barely had time for anything aside from the necessary chores that needed to get done ( wash clothes, pick up groceries, etc. ).
I probably would have kept going this way, accepting that this was part of the “real adult” life others had warned me about growing up – just a necessary evil. Living to work, rather than working to live. That all ended in March of last year when I found out that my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time – stage 4. Nothing has been the same since….
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