### FIXME
+One of the most challenging aspects of programming that I've seen is in reaching out and asking others for help. We tend to avoid it because we don't want to seem foolish or less of a capable programmer. We might have had instances where we've asked for help only to be told that we didn't do enough research into the issue we're having. It's difficult for us to admit that we need to rely on others for support. Often there's the feeling that asking questions or asking for help is a sign of weakness. If we can't do everything on our own then perhaps we're unworthy of being considered a programmer. We discount our knowledge and label ourselves a fraud for needing external support.
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+There's also the fear that we'll become a burden if we ask for help when we struggle. These feelings can be magnified if we've had issues with learning, or are suffering from PTSD, chronic fatigue, or any number of physical, mental, or emotional constraints. There's the tendency to want to do more for ourselves, even if that is unlikely to work for us.
+
+I know from my own experience that
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## Giving up
Programmers don't like to think about giving up. We work on machines that have so many possibilities that we feel we should be able to make anything work on them. But sometimes we don't want to see those possibilities. Sometimes we look at the list of things we should be learning and wonder if it's all worth the effort. We look at lists of job prospects for our set of skills and see that the only fit for those skills is nothing but work that we find meaningless. People learning to program ask us what it's like to be a programmer and we wonder if it's OK to tell them that we're not happy with our decision and crush their dreams this early in their careers. The joy that sustained us into learning the craft disappears and we're left wondering if we will ever cultivate that feeling again.
projects / themediocreprogrammer.git / blobdiff