Exploring new ideas, experiences, hobbies, and careers paths are about being able to handle the frustration of being completely over your head. I’ve never been one to take things on that I knew wouldn’t be a challenge. If I wanted to settle, never be challenged and never take risks I would’ve stayed a metal fabricator.
The more I dive deep into coding the more I realize just how much learning something new is incredibly frustrating. First off as far as Ruby on Rails is going, I get it; mostly. There’s more too Rails though and what I want to learn just as much as Rails as I do Ruby, the core programming language. This, to me, is a series of frustrating endeavours trying to hack my way through it and learn as much as possible in a short period of time.
For me the frustration is part of the joy and yes I know that sounds bat shit insane. Why would anyone find joy out of being frustrated? Well because I know that the frustration will lead to breakthroughs and the breakthroughs are going to launch me to the next level. For every frustration I encounter I grow in my skill exponentially when I solve the frustration. This is a valuable premise when trying to learn something new.
I simply do not baby step the learning process, if I wanted to take the long, less frustrating approach of learning Ruby and Rails then I would’ve stretched my learning out over a longer period of time which would result in not putting as much pressure to learn things quickly and more importantly finding a balance between quick and efficient. It takes a strong will to decide to smash through the material and jump in head first without a safety line. There is immediately resistance. There is immediate failure. There is immediate rejection. These things will completely break a person if they are not willing to face those negatives and push through until they can be rewarded with the positives.
It’s easy to learn something new if you decide to stretch it out over a longer period but if you want instant gratification and instant result with learning something new you have to take the immense push backs and frustration with a grain of salt. We’re all much more resilient and stronger willed than we may think but it takes tackling something new and something big to prove to ourselves that we are capable of overcoming the more frustrating things we will face in our lives. Embracing the obstacles and the frustrations for what they are and accepting that they will always be there will give you a competitive advantage when striking out on a new path.