Tech Surfing

Let’s be honest. Tech moves fast. Too fast for anyone to ever truly keep up with. You can choose to try to spend as much time as possible trying new things and learning, but every day that passes means a smaller percentage of things you’ve tried. The numbers are always working against you.

I’ve heard conversations for many years centered around the idea of “I’m too busy to keep up” or “I work in a controlled industry, I can’t do open source.” You’re right. You can never truly keep up, and in many industries, doing anything around open source on the clock is a hard no. But that’s no excuse.

Just a few weeks ago, I was speaking to a senior React developer about a design system and component library they were creating for their company. When discussing the benefits of such systems, I mentioned how it was similar to how easy shadcn makes UIs so easy because of the composable nature of having a shared component library used across a company. They had never heard of it! That was astonishing to me!

I find it truly amazing how isolated many developers are. Maybe I’m too “online?” But I still don’t get time to try or learn about even 1% of the things I would like to.

It is very easy to get caught up in a job. Most jobs and schools are not good for your career. Only by the luck of being in the right place at the right time are there exceptions. When you subscribe to someone else’s plan for your life, whether that be a college curriculum or your boss’s goals for you this year, you are deviating from your optimal learning and development path. The hard truth: Most systems are not designed for you to thrive; they’re built for their own survival.

That’s not to say that by being completely independent you will find your way; often, too much independence can have the opposite effect. Instead, someone else’s plan for you isn’t designed with your best interests as the top priority. Schools need to fill classes, meet accreditation goals, and grow endowments. Jobs need to create profit, get superiors promoted, and keep the company alive long after you’re gone.

You can’t expect to be able to fall in line, work 9-5, and never learn about things that aren’t assigned to you if you want to become better at what you do. That’s not how this works.

If that minimal approach sounds familiar, don’t be surprised when tech quickly and quietly turns you into obsolescence overnight.

If you are the type of person who fights to learn, grow, and build like it is going out of style, then congratulations. “Your success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed.”

I’m not advocating for working 24/7. That can lead to burnout, and even more importantly, result in you squandering away the relatively few moments and opportunities that can lead to happiness and joy. You will regret it. It will never be worth it, no matter how great a success could be on the other side.

Conversely, don’t be lazy. Don’t expect to be able to just clock in/clock out and reap the professional, financial, and intellectual rewards that match your potential. Push yourself to be better. Take advantage of the extra time you have to learn and grow that would otherwise be wasted or filled with entertainment. Rather than trying to work against change and progress, embrace it and embrace the truth that you will never be able to understand it all, but you can stand atop of it and surf the wave.

The future belongs to those who envision it, design it, and ultimately build it. Stay curious, not just busy.