At one point in life, we listened to our inner conscious and decided to become developers. I know you have already look back at your life before became a developer. And wonder how simple life before that. Let’s look deeper,
When we look back into our childhood most of us were kid experts who used to do install OS & games, assemble computers, and resolving day to day computer fixes. That time computer was one kind of tool that we used as a special toy. We were the special kids who curious about how the computer does things. That curious thought was a trap that we attracted to software engineering and become a developer. At sometimes of the current life phase as developers, we wonder how things could be if we didn’t become developers. I thought about this and made a list, here are some reasons which are I still liked to do if I could go back. I know this list won’t be personalized, but it’s common for you guys too.
Read books.
If you are a reading person, after being a developer you will hate not being able to read books anymore like you used to be before. I found a very limited time to read books. But I couldn’t read novels, historical (non-tech related) books. My mind says to read tech-related books. If it is a biography, probably I’ll select a biography about tech entrepreneurs. Being human compared to robots what we have which is most precious is creativity. One of the easiest ways to improve creativity is reading books. That’s doesn’t need to be tech-related. But when you become a developer, if it is free time and you are going to find something read then you’ll be attracted to tech-related books. That’s how your mind changed being developers. Now you are reading to survive!
Follow a hobby.
That doesn’t matter whether it adds value to your life or not, it is a hobby of yours. Be it read, watch tv series/movie, travel, or playing games, but it should give you enjoyment. Being developers, most of us do coding as a hobby. Don’t do it, developers. It will lead to draining your life and enthusiasm. So developers, when you select a hobby select a one out of your profession. Now you may face a problem on how to follow your hobby? Where is the time?
Have a peaceful sleep.
By looking back, even before studying software engineering we had a good peaceful sleep. But now? we just sleep with tasks and bugs mixed mind. Because of this most developers has stress. Also, stress may come with less sleep. Normally a person must have five hours of continuous sleep for a healthy life. It’s important to have a full continuous five hours of sleep to complete all sleep cycles. Withing those cycles learned things and other stuff will store in long term memory. Importantly our body itself does fixes with chemicals such as hormones. That’s why peaceful sleep is required for humans. If you aren’t a person who has continuous sleep BEWARE ABOUT LIFE!
Have good relationships with people.
I had friends who used to visit me and talk about random topics, not about developing. But with the tasks, I limited to talk with friends who are doing developing. I’ve missed those talks which we had before. Though I talked with friends who are doing development we only talk about project-related things. Because we’re running out of time with our profession. For this what has to do is talk about random things while you are working with colleagues.
Hey DEVELOPERS and WANT TO BE DEVELOPERS, don’t discourage if you read this article. Still being a developer, we have a much positive impact on life compared to other professions…
In the above, I just wanted to mention major points where we lead our life to a stressful one. So you guys just keep think about it and take action to have a better dev life. So let’s see being developer how it improve us (our mind). I want to highlight ‘this profession improves our mind and thinking pattern’.
Wide knowledge
As you developing software you are solving problems of real life. To do that first you need to get a full idea of the problem. So when you are developing a system you are getting knowledge of different fields. There is no limitation of fields, those fields could be health, finance, transport, space, or anything. So with the IT background, you can know different fields. This is one of unique advantage which only developers can have.
You are adapting to live with uncertainty.
Normally humans like to do habitual practices rather than doing different kinds of practices. For example, in other professions, there is a procedure to do tasks within their professional context. But in our industry, tools, and languages are change within a small period. So we can’t rely on the same procedures in long terms. We have to flow with trends and new technologies. By doing this over the time we developers are ready to do our development in totally unknowing contexts. That way combined with our life without knowing. Also when we look at procedures that we follow for one project may differ from others so those also change rapidly. This is uncertainty and what we are good at. We’re good at this. Right? That’s why I’m saying being a developer changes your life.
Your mind used to be much logical.
When things happen you will automatically do the logical operation. Being a developer means you’re logical than before and be much logical than now. That’s what humans need to live in the world. Take the most right decision even in uncertain situations. After all most of the time, you’ll feel oh god things happen in the best way and thank the GOD. You’ll have this instinct and you will be good at making decisions with the logical mind.
If you good at development one day you will be able to reach a kind of superpower.
able to work in an uncertain + logical mind = superpower
If you are a developer who has bad health habits and stress please try to live a normal healthy life, so you can become much good at developing.
Don’t miss my article about “How to write your application to avoid falling into a pitfall”. So you can make your dev life easier!
This article was originally published to the medium by the same author.