Be More Humble
Changed All Of My Social Handles.
Err On The Side Of Being More Humble
Don't Say Anything Negative
Thanks and best regards,
Jim
Writings about one coder's stories & experiences.
After talking to a good from and colleague about life and the "famous coders" in the programming industry, and it really made me reflect on my own "online engineer brand". All of this sort of coincidentally coincided with New Years 2020, and while I hardly ever make real resolutions I made a lot of goals for myself in this new year and new decade. Be More HumbleOne thing that I have noticed is that people naturally like someone who is humble more than someone who is not. Especially as you progress in programming and become enlightened with how to write and leverage good automated tests, it becomes easy to be arrogant and condescending. I am trying to resist that, to always be open-minded and be aware of other people's feelings, and to be as humble as possible at all times. This is inspired by a combination of sources including the book The Unfettered Mind which is about becoming buddhism and becoming a master samurai swordsman. I'm also inspired my Kent C. Dodds. His front-end expertise, passion for good automated tests that tend to be very similar to mine own theories for testing, and just overall "nice-guy" vibes makes him an excellent role model for any aspiring software guru trying to be more humble. Thanks Kent. Changed All Of My Social Handles.Yep, it's true. I felt that names such as "JimTheMan" (my GitHub and LinkedIn handles) and "WebWhizJim" were too cocky and juvenile. In today's border-line overly-sensitive politically correct culture people don't want you to have some goofy stage name; they just want the real you. And so I decided to use my real name. Just "Jim Lynch" was taken of course so I went with "JimLynchCodes". I figured there is nothing arrogant about that- it's just my name and implying that I write code. It could be good code, bad code, anything. Idk, maybe I am just here writing bad code this whole time. haha. See? More humble.😁Also, the domain name of this blog at the moment is, "wisdomofjim.com". I try to explain it as, "it's a public place with anyone to learn some wisdom of Jim", but the truth is that is you have to explain to everyone that it actually is humble if you squint really hard then it really is not humble. It isn't humble at all, really, and it will probably soon change it. Anyway, all of my handles now are @JimLynchCodes so please follow me on your favorite sites! 🙏 (Using the pray hands emoji sincerely is another form of being humble as it sort of represents bowing to the other person, a common sign of respect in many cultures). Err On The Side Of Being More HumbleTaking the "be more humble" idea to somewhat of an extreme, I've decided that I will try to always choose the more humble thing when presented with options. Do the little things like saying please and thank you, being nice to strangers, and typing names with uppercase letters out of respect. A perfect example of being presented with a clear choice between humble and not is the, "display your Github Pro account" setting. Interestingly, they give "Pro" users the checkbox option to toggle it on or off. Up until now I had the tick box checked. However, the more humble Jim sees leaving the box checked as a merely a unimportant means to flaunt one's baller status that he or she spends the whopping $7 every month for the pro account. Perhaps it can serve some useful purpose in rare cases, but really the meaningful contributions to the dev community will speak but louder, and if they are there then that in that case there is no reason to try so hard in appearing to be a professional coder that I should opt to choose the less humble option. So yes, I will continue to pay for the professional account because I do have a lot of private repositories and could not even imagine moving them to something else because I love Github so much, but I will now have the box unchecked. I will try to apply this to every area of life- donate anonymously, never claim to be any better than decent, and do not crave recognition and glory. In the near future I will also revamp this blog to be reflect the more humble Jim. Like come on, could it be any less humble than "wisdom of jim dot com"... 😅 Just guide others towards building great things as you discover for yourself what that entails in any given situation. And do it not because you desire to be "famous" like Kent C. Dodds... do it just because you know you can and because you recognize that with great power comes great responsibility. Do it because it is the Way. Don't Say Anything NegativeIn the same line of thinking as "err on the side of humble", another good rule of thumb I'm trying to follow is to only say positive things. When giving criticism, try to really express it with only positive ideas. Also, avoid "but". When you say, "that's good, BUT" then it is basically implies the next phrase is about something not good; kind of like a backhanded compliment. Not saying anything negative can even be interpreted to include "don't lie", "don't complain", "don't say things that offend or hurt others", etc. Staying true to this rule can be especially difficult when someone is mean to you or says things that hurt your feelings. I have found that often the vocal and angry people have a logical reason for being angry, and you should reflect on all feedback, no matter how bad it is (indeed, sometimes the worst feedback is exactly what you need to hear most). A good catchall reply to any hurtful things throw at you, especially as it relates to coding (or whatever your craft happens to be), is simply, "Thank you for the thoughtful feedback." It definitely will not be easy to avoid saying negative things, but if the goal is to always be just and fair then often that negative statement will directly contradict this. If you catch me slipping feel free to call me out on it, and as always, let me know what you think on Twitter @JimLynchCodes and in the comments below.
Thanks and best regards, Jim
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