Don’t build a house on bad foundations

Or why I needed a career change in the first place.

Switching a career is not an easy task. The first thing to do is to assess if this marathon is a race you should be considering.

Do you want to do it because the ads make it look easy and profitable? Or to impress others? These are all short-term motivators and can only take you so far.

If you are lucky you should not even be reading this because you knew in those teen years what was the career you should pursue. Many people, myself included, took a shot in the dark. 

It took me many years to figure out what is that mystery career that I should be pursuing.

Subtle signs

Some 12 years ago, during my early student days, I had a lot of fun (and a little bit of profit) tinkering on my own with vanilla HTML and CSS making static webpages in plain old Notepad.

This was actually where I got my first (and only) gigs, and more importantly, my first taste of very basic coding. Mind you, the feeling was absolutely phenomenal.

This was a short-lasting flick because my Civil engineering faculty demanded an ever-increasing amount of my time every year.

After a five-year-long break, I started meddling with Python to make macros in certain software. I was simply thrilled to be able to automate certain computing-heavy tasks. I was spending more time trying to make cool macros than finishing my thesis on time!

I finally graduated and started working in the construction industry.

Again, this took me away from programming for a time.

Roughly a year of work later I started a massive course on full-stack web development with Node.js. I loved tinkering with browser dev tools and coding in JS, but after a couple of months, I got cold again and stopped doing this course. It was simply too long a course, I kept making long breaks and redoing past lessons to refresh my memory…it was demotivating.

Notice here the inconsistency of topics that attracted me - first HTML and CSS, then Python for automation, and now full stack with Node. The only common denominator here was that it was always some form of coding that pushed my buttons.

Bad foundations

When the time came to choose a faculty, I was a die-hard player of a certain online game.

All I cared about was playing it. I could not care less about preparing for the faculty enrollment.

Back then, the Civil Engineering faculty had a lower bar for entry than the CS-oriented faculties, and it also seemed like an easier faculty to graduate on (boy, was I wrong on this one).

When choosing my faculty, my motives were that it should not be too hard so that I could keep my social life. It also had to have a low bar for entry so I could spend time gaming instead of preparing for enrollment exams. A perfect case of building a house on bad foundations.

After seven long years of faculty, I have worked in many different roles in several companies.

I did not feel fulfilled or happy in any of the various roles I filled.

In my free time I never consumed construction-related content. It simply did not interest me much.

On the contrary, I was always attracted to programming topics and technology.

Finally, I came to a point where I could not picture a role in the construction industry that I would be willing to apply for.

This felt like the end of the road, after only 6 years in the industry.

Through all those years I have had one regret.

I regretted not going for a Computer Science degree.

Plot twist

Right around these times of despair, in the fall of 2021, I started a new affair. 

This time it was with none other than C#. 

I quickly got fond of it and felt that this was the language that could hold my attention in the long run.

I completed the free Microsoft Learn C# Learning Path, bought some cheap courses, and finished those in a week; still wanted to learn more and I had no problem paying for more.

I started reading blogs, watching random videos, pondering future book purchases... You name it.

I caught myself devoting every moment of my scarce free time to learning and practicing. This was going on for a couple of months before it finally hit me.

Hey, I'm spending all this time learning and practicing and nobody is paying me a dime for it! 

This is the same organic addiction as with those games that, ironically, got me into the wrong faculty! I never had this relationship with my existing job!

This was a bullet-proof sign that I should be working in software development.

I had a choice: spend the remaining 30-something years regretting one bad decision or do something to change things.

Takeaways

1. Don’t build a house on bad foundations.

2. If you have some big life regrets, you can keep regretting your whole life, or do something about it.

What is the REAL motive you want to do X? Look deep down. Is it because all your friends do it? Is it to not disappoint others? Is it just because of money?

Try to dig deep and figure it out. An appropriate answer would be that this thing is driving you. You do it just because it's interesting, addictive, and fun. You can't get enough of it.

I’ve started to make decisions by comparing things with basketball (I love to play pickup games). If you were to ask me If I'm up for a game, I would almost always say Yes. Even if I'm tired, even if my schedule is tight, I want to play. It's not a willpower thing, it's just pleasure. It's organic. 

This is how I feel about programming. This is why I took the trouble. 

Hopefully, this article has helped you to assess if you have the right motive, be it for a career change or other big life decisions.

Thanks for reading, catch you in the next one.

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