What happened to my ambition?
Over the last few years, I’ve had a bit of a personal focus-shift. For some reason, as I was reading the account of LinuxWorld ‘08 at the Haiku site, this realization hit me. Hard.
Maybe it was JLG stopping by the Haiku booth. Maybe it was that in the back of my mind over the last month I’ve been wishing I had time to just come home and instead of spending hours working on finishing a home remodel I started two years ago, that I’d get to code projects that I’m personally interested in.
I found myself asking the question, “What happened to my ambition?”
It’s been re-assigned.
I remember the late nights spent coding. I remember the weekends spent pouring over AWT code. I remember (fondly) the 4AM code-jams with Andrew as we raced each other to re-write components and implement behaviors. I remember too many of the details of reading thermal zone information from ACPI (and oh how I wish I’d finished that work!)…
As fulfilling as that all was, as fun and challenging as it was, and as many friends as I made doing it, it pales in comparison to the importance I put on this.
Kylene and I have the opportunity to raise a child that could have a far more significant impact on the world than any amount of code I could ever produce.
My priorities have shifted. My time allocation has shifted.
Without entirely realizing it, I’ve undergone a Focus-Shift.
August 11th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I read you loud and clear buddy…
The home remodel thing hits me pretty hard as well – we started renovating our house in 2003, and we still haven’t finished yet. It seems that life has become a never-ending list of projects, in between the day job, the family life, and the hobbies. At this point, we’ve learned to be content living in an unfinished house :)
As my wife points out all too often, those other things will always be there, but your kids will eventually grow up and leave before you know it.
So, I completely understand your situation, and I even still struggle with the proper balance that works for me as well.
We did get a a few questions about a Java port at LW – it’s sort of sad that the progress has essentially halted. Perhaps someone with the knowledge and motivation will step forward and champion the project in the near future.