Tales from the jar side: Ikigai and Professional Jealousy
Welcome to Tales from the jar side, the Kousen IT newsletter, for the week of September 22 - 29, 2019. This week I worked on my Kotlin Cookbook, taught a Kotlin Fundamentals course online, spent another day with the bootcamp students, and gave five presentations at the No Fluff Just Stuff event in Framingham, MA.
The book is proceeding, but it's been tough. As Katie Mack, an astrophysicist I follow on Twitter, once said, "the problem with writing a book is that eventually you have to stop writing a book." I'm in the midst of that right now. The product I'm producing doesn't match the magnificent work of art I have in my head, and since I've just about run out of time to work on it, I'm having to deal with the fact that it never will reach that goal.
Of course, there's no way it ever could. Anything I produce will inevitably fall short of what I wanted it to be. I imagine that's true of anyone. But until you're actually finished -- until you actually write the equivalent of "The End" on the last page and send it in, you don't have to face that fact. It's not real, until it is.
Sadly, I'm dealing with that situation now. There's a lot to like in the book -- I really do believe I've added some insights that you won't find anywhere else, and parts of it are clear and easy to understand and even funny in places. But so much isn't there yet, and there are so many topics I wanted to cover that I'm simply not going to be able to include. I'm sad about that, though I know I'll be relieved to be done.
When I was writing my Ph.D. thesis, my fellow grad students used to say that if you could look at it without getting nauseous, you're not working hard enough. I guess there's still something to that.
On the plus side, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I'm beginning to suspect it's not an oncoming train. That has to be good, right?
I know, that's a rhetorical question.
(Old joke I made up years ago that may only be funny to me: how do you reply to a rhetorical question? With a hypothetical answer, of course.)
It doesn't help that my good friend and friendly rival Venkat Subramaniam will soon publish his Kotlin book, known as Programming Kotlin. It's very good, though I like parts of mine better, but of course he managed to cover everything I wanted to get to and won't manage to include. I'm glad I have his book as a reference, but geez, it's hard not to compare all the time.
I haven't really talked about Venkat in this newsletter, so let me say this: we learn early on the NFJS tour never to compare yourself to Venkat on any scale whatsoever, except maybe height.
I've spoken at conferences all over the world. I estimate conservatively that Venkat has spoken at somewhere between ten and 100 times as many conferences as I have. (Literally. That's not an exaggeration.) Until I decided to maximize my time teaching online courses at Safari, I used to rack up a lot of frequent flyer miles every year. I've been a 1K member on United for several years now, and I'm silver on Delta as well.
Venkat passed 250K miles this year by May. That's right -- he'll travel at least the distance from the Earth to the Moon and back every year. He thinks nothing of flying to India -- in coach, no less -- to speak for two days and then return to Europe or South America or wherever immediately afterwards.
I've written three books and will soon have a fourth, with a fifth (and possibly a sixth) on the way within the next six months or so. Venkat has a book on everything, as you can see on his web site.
I gave five talks at the NFJS event this weekend. I've given as many as eleven talks in one conference (and was about ready to collapse immediately afterward). Venkat has ... well, let me put it this way: on the tour we decided that if you give a talk in every available slot, that's a Full Venkat. If you also give the keynote address and sit on the expert panel, that's a Royal Venkat. Once, at the Rich Web Experience, there were 17 available slots. My friend and fellow NFSJ speaker Nat Schutta once spoke in all 17.
Venkat not only did that, the keynote, and the expert panel, he even added an extra informal talk after hours for some attendees who wanted it. We called that a Full Metal Venkat.
I could go on, but you get the idea. Don't get me wrong -- I love the guy. He's warm and friendly and helpful and unfailingly both humble and polite. But if we weren't so nice, I'm sure I'd hate the guy.
But of course, that way lies madness. Comparing yourself to others can be motivating, but it's ultimately self defeating. As they say, when you see the wonderful lives your friends share on Facebook or other social media, "never compare your rehearsals to other people's highlight reels." Besides, everybody is going through something, and you have no idea what anyone is really like beyond what they choose to share with you. Professional jealousy is a real thing, and anything beyond a tiny dose is just poison.
But I just wish I didn't have to see how much he did in his Kotlin book while I'm desperately trying to finish mine. Sigh.
The whole idea of comparing yourself to others, and how that leads to false measures of success, is part of my talk Mental Bookmarks and the Fractal Nature of Success. As usual, I gave that as my last talk of the NFJS weekend, and, also as usual, it had a strong impact on a couple of attendees. Once described it as the "hidden gem of the NFJS tour," which was good to hear. It's very hard to describe that talk without hearing the whole thing, but I'll say this much: our entire society is designed to make you feel that you're not quite good enough. No matter what you've accomplished, after a while all you can see is the next level of success above you, and there's always another level above. The "fractal nature" of success is really about self-similarity, meaning no matter how high you go, it always looks the same. There's yet another level above, and it's easy to discount the level below.
They key is to realize those aren't true measures of success. They're the product of advertising, or our whole way of life, which is always trying to get you to reach a little farther, to get a little more, in order to be happy, only to discover if you get there that there's another level beyond you and you're still not happy.
A lot of my talk comes down to the concept of awareness -- hearing and seeing yourself exactly where you are at any given moment. Of course I feel jealous of Venkat. How could I not? On any measure, meaningless or not, I can't reach his level.
(Do you know I have about 3800 Twitter followers? Sounds like a lot, right? You know how many Venkat has? Over 40,000. Because of course he does.)
So I feel professional jealousy, but that's not all I feel. I'm also proud to know him, and I like the guy, and I'm glad to be his friend. Of course I feel bad, at least briefly, because I can't help comparing my accomplishments to an obviously impossible standard. But I can get beyond that, too.
(Speaking of impossible standards, you know how Venkat writes the first drafts of his books? He speaks on relevant topics during the year, then he takes about two weeks around the holidays and isolates himself. Each day he gets up at 4 am and writes all day long, with minimal breaks, until about 10 pm at night. He repeats that every day, and after about two weeks, he has a draft of a 300+ page book. Now let's be honest -- that's physically impossible. But he does it every year. You know much time and effort I put into writing a book? I don't want to talk about it. Grrr.)
At the end of my talk, I present a framework for success called Ikigai, a Japanese word meaning "reason for being," or, more properly, a reason to get up in the morning. It came from a study of centenarians (people living beyond age 100) on the island of Okinawa. It's an interesting framework, which I don't completely believe, but there's definitely some truth in it.
The framework suggests you try to find your life's work in a way that satisfies
Something you're good at,
Something the world needs,
Something you can get paid for
Something that you love
Again, I'm not sure I agree with this completely, and I must admit I didn't follow it myself. I only read about it after I had already found my way in life. Still, there's a lot to like in it.
And you know what's NOT in that figure?
Venkat.
(Okay, maybe he's there indirectly, in the "what you can get paid for" group, but as long as there are enough jobs to go around (more or less), you can forget about him.)
There's more to my talk, as you might expect, but I've been giving it all year and each time I get one or two people who really like it. Personally I feel like I'm still one iteration away from really figuring out what I want to say in it, but it's pretty good now and I enjoyed giving it in Boston.
I'm sure I'll have more to say about both the talk and the relevant topics in future newsletters.
For the rest of the week, let me just mention some miscellaneous items:
The Kotlin Fundamentals course is good, but I've reached the point where I need more time than I have available. For next near I'll put together an advanced version, which will also go on the NFJS tour.
The bootcamp students had their entire goals changed while I was at the Oracle Code One conference last week. Now they have an actual project they have to do and present, and their interviews will be at the end. I helped them with the project, and this week we'll do some sort of code review to get them ready. Since the group has a wide variation in experience, I expect very different levels of projects from different people. My goal, as always, is to help them do well enough and sound convincing enough to get them in the door. Then the real learning can begin anyway.
Last but not least, let me say this: the Downton Abbey movie was perfect. If you liked the show, you'll love the movie. It's a love letter to everyone who ever cared about the show and the characters in it. I finished a rewatch of Breaking Bad (partly in preparation for the movie in that series coming out on Netflix in October), and didn't realize until I was in the theater how badly I needed this as a counterweight.
Last week:
Kotlin Fundamentals on Safari online
Another day with the bootcamp students
NFJS event in Boston (actually, Framingham, MA)
This week:
Finish the Kotlin Cookbook, or get as close as possible
Last two days with the bootcamp students
Did I mention I have to finish the book? Yeah, that's a thing that needs to happen.