The inevitable dead-end of my coding journey (and why that's OK)

 I share this journey I'm embarking on in hopes that you can relate to it. Better yet, relate to it in the past tense. There's this hamster wheel that always calls out to me, like the shiniest object, with visions of grandeur and promises of endless productivity and output. The wheel of course spins in place and leaves me feeling no better than...well, a hamster.

 You may even call it a tutorial purgatory of sorts. It's that first part of a new adventure where you have access to limitless resources, courses, videos, playlists, material, information, discord channels, twitter handles to follow, books, podcasts- get the idea? The irony is that we often start these journeys of by laying out and planning our lofty goals and what the finish line looks like. Tag Adam Clear into this picture and you would have a MUCH different (and more effective) approach which is focused more on processes, systems, cues, and habits. Perhaps a post for another time.

In my life, tutorial purgatory typically consists of starting an exciting new hobby (currently it's programming), building out an awesome roadmap to achieve some semblance of competency in a reasonable amount of time, stopping to consider alternate paths,, starting something tangential (i.e. changing the programming language I decide to learn, JS -> Python), stopping, and then rinsing and repeating until you've put in a ton of effort and essentially gotten nowhere.

 Add in a sprinkle of UDemy courses, Youtube playlists, podcasts, books, and a host of other really qualified content that does absolutely nothing for progress if it does not beget action. And that is where the rubber has failed to hit the road with meaningful force.

 I digress.

 I'm back at it and adding a new ingredient to the recipe and it can be a potent one if performed well . . . public accountability. This entails frequent write-ups to explore the mental battles, the success of setting up habit cues, the off days where I put in suboptimal effort, and everything in between. What's working and what isn't. A public diary that everyone can relate to (or perhaps not - - which is a good thing I suppose?).

 Full disclosure: I've already ran into a shiny object this week. I love the creative visuals coming out from guys like Jack Butcher @ https://visualizevalue.com/ and Janis Ozolin at https://ozolinsjanis.com/ and all of a sudden I find myself wondering what my content would be like with some creative illustrations. YouTubing tutorials of Figma, wondering if I should buy those courses, only to look back at my Patrick Collins Youtube Course on Blockchain, Solidty, and Web3 (https://youtu.be/gyMwXuJrbJQ - HIGHLY recommend) and feel disappointed that I've yet to hit the play button ONCE today.

 There are good rabbit holes (programming, literature, journaling, espresso, etc) and then there are shiny objects disguided as rabbit holes (ancillary skills to what you're trying to accomplish, additional resources and tutorials, etc).

 Avoid the latter at all costs. Who's with me?

 So back to why my dead-end journey of coding is OK? Because it's all of the metaskills I'll be growing along the way and what this skill represents. It's a challenging endeavor, requires consistent effort, provides plenty of opportunity to learn how to deal with frustration, exposes you to the pitfalls of chasing BSO's (Bright Shiny Objects), and is a LONG-game without any guarantee of an ROI.

 This almost sounds abysmal . . . but to me these are the skills that then unlock just about anything else I want to learn and implement. If I can master the ability to create atomic habits, deploy creative juices at will and no wait for the lazy Muse to visit, and ultimately embrace the process regardless of outcome - I've won.

 Ultimately this is why my coding journey, while it may never lead to an actual career pivot or any impressive projects I can ship for profits, will still pay off dividends. I'm just assuming and expecting them to be in non-quantifiable ways.

 Here goes nothing !