On Interests and Progress
I have varied interests that extend beyond my two respective vocations, and while at times I’ve worried about that distracting me, I’ve come to embrace it. There are certainly times where I have to be diligent about what I need to focus on, but I’ve come to understand that this as a matter of acknowledging those interests and recognizing when I need to focus on other priorities.
It’s always a work in progress: prior to the pandemic this year, I was so busy with everything that by the time I had a moment to think about anything else, I was too exhausted to do so. On the flip side, sometimes I swing to the other extreme and spend too much time researching, reading, or otherwise not addressing what I need to be.
For instance, while planning to launch this website, I ended up going through a few online classes to teach myself coding so I could better develop the site. It’s still very much a work in progress, and it took me quite a bit longer than I wanted to, but it was fun to tinker and I learned a great deal in the process. Beyond some fundamentals of coding, I learned about different methods of teaching coding, how to find reliable resources for reference, and by the end, I was staring at websites and imagining how they’re coded to achieve a certain look. I also made judicious use of view source code to learn about how other sites were coded.
As someone who is prone to over-thinking, over-analyzing, and then feeling too overwhelmed to take a chance, this project has been good for me to bring to life. And instead of having a finished, polished project, there’s plenty for me to work on, little by little, as I learn and grow. My favorite things to learn from follow that process, so this will be all the better for me to do it in turn.