The definition of BEST and the purpose of LIFE

Years back when i was just out of college and the fire of coding had just started, one of the first questions i was asked was, where do you see yourself in 3 years ?

My enthusiasm in those early moments was very high, and my immediate response would be i want to be the best.

I was certainly too over confident about my self, highly over estimated my skills and intellectual capacity and definitely did not realise the depth of my statement.

Today 3 years after writing code as my job and passion, i realize what it would require to be the best.

Let’s start with an example :

Somewhere around the late 1990s and in the early 2000s, imagine yourself as a very successful developer playing a major role in writing a java j2me app or game ( the tiny little .jar apps you would download and install on the symbian and java phones )

You would be on top of the world, thinking that this is it, this happy little world of yours would last forever, but the thing about technology is that it keeps changing for the better and few years from then you have android, ios, blackberry and what not.

A few years back AngularJS came, a lot of web developers liked it, a lot of companies built their products on it, and a while back Google released a complete rewrite of it, All that time spent understanding a specific framework… boom… all gone…

So what do we take from all this ?

The best developer is a relative term bound to the time you live in…

There is no rest, the only way to be ahead is to keep learning new things, keep contributing, thats the only way…

Never forget your roots…

The basic rules are all the same and most important, the implementation changes with time,

Also listen to people who have more experience than you, they might have come from technologies which may seem ancient to you but they have lived through it, they see the bigger picture which the young blood flowing through your veins fails to visualize…

This applies to life too, never forget where you came from, and never make this your destination,

As for me, i now realize that im just a tiny ass spec in one hell of a dynamic ass universe,

Being ahead in this technolgical rat race no longer amazes me, that being better than before makes much more sense than being the best,

My passion hasn’t changed nor my thirst for knowledge, But i truly believe now that it is much more important to learn things the right way,

That learning is a life long process, i can’t finish within a day or a year,

That a software is just a partial representation of the real world,

I dont want to be the best anymore…

I want to learn Spanish,

I want to trek in the rain forests

I want to go on a road trip with the people that never change, unlike technology.

I want to spend time with the people i should,

I want to see places, make new friends, realize my mistakes, forgive myself, forgive others, and finally live the life ive taken for granted since such a long time.

I may have got distracted from a childish goal, but may have found my purpose along the way