How has programming changed you for better or worse in your life?

Recently, I started wondering how my career choice impacted my life. I am coding for 20+ years and I consider myself really lucky since I love it, but there are days when I have no motivation and sometimes I feel burnout.

I am trying to reflect on how this lifelong love of coding impacted other areas of my life? Spending lots of times coding will change you in many ways that are hard to notice.

Here are a few not so great ways how coding affected me:

• Introvert: I think being an introvert is a given and coding gave me an excuse not to improve in this regard. It was always easier to go into code instead of talking to people.

• Patience: when coding or debugging changes happen immediately. It is very easy to see the outcome. Other areas in life are not like this: gardening, investing, or SEO. You make a change and you will not see results in weeks, months, or years even. It is harder for me to start with that kind of thing because there is no instant gratification.

• Control: being in control and understanding your app. Managing all things down to the minuscule details. This is an important thing for me in coding. I expect to be able to control everything. Like I mentioned in the previous point, other areas in the non-digital world are not this black and white. The outside world is not in your control. Other people not in your control. Life is not black and white like when you coding...

• Shiny objects, There is always a new shiny object that I am dying to know more about, learn about it and try. In the 30 minutes, it took me to write this article I found myself reading Svelte. Sometimes, it takes me a great effort to focus on my tasks and finish things.

How coding is affected you and how do you try to overcome the not so great things in it?

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