Discussing the dead ends and motivational issues that we can face.

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@@ -73,6 +73,16 @@ Part of the approach I'm outlining is to help you learn how to learn. Being able
 
 Longer-term goals are just goals that have been broken down into shorter-term goals. Focus on the short-term goals and allow yourself to course-correct as needed and follow a few connections as you desire.
 
-## Dead ends
+## Dead ends and lonely roads
 
-There are some times when we've picked something that we thought was exciting but turns out to not be exciting at all. There are languages that I've encountered that I don't find engaging at all. 
+Sometimes we'll find ourselves learning something that's a dead end. We're not making the progress that we thought we'd be making. We're not finding it as engaging or as exciting as we'd imagined. We're realizing that what we're learning is an evolutionary dead-end in the realm of programming. What then?
+
+Part of the learning process is in realizing our expectations of how something will turn out can be completely different from how things actually turn out. We can envision all sorts of rewards and platitudes that never come. Does that mean we're at a dead end? I don't think so. What we can realize is that we brought our own expectations of how we'd be engaging with this material and realize that it's not what we thought it would be. 
+
+Engagement can also be related to our expectations. Programming demands a certain amount of fun and reward and if we're not finding the experience fun or rewarding then we're more likely not to engage with whatever topic we're learning. When we're not engaged with the material we dread learning the material and wish we were doing anything else. We wonder if we're doing the right thing by still trying to learn this. Shouldn't we be enjoying this?
+
+And then there's the things that we're learning that are evolutionary dead ends. The community of developers around this concept have abandoned it in favor of something else: new technology, new methodology, or just plain lack of engagement. We find ourselves getting curious looks from developers when we mention what we're learning. "Why would you learn that? We've moved on to this other thing". We find our support withering from neglect and our motivation to learn dwindles.
+
+All three of these can pose their own problems for learning but it's up to us to take a more critical look at why we started this whole process of learning. What did we bring into this?
+
+(Discuss our expectations and how they can help and hurt us, and how to be mindful of our expectations).