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42 things you MUST stop obsessing about if you want to become a good $PERSON

Being French, I have lots of practice at being cynical and ironic against people who think they know everything but in fact they know shit.

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You may guess that this character trait can easily backfire, and in fact you are right.

France is a country where people have built pretty much everything they need to be happy but at the same time struggle to be happy because everything in France is so terrible.

Doesn't that sound pretty much like the software industry?

Permanent Stress is making you insane

I have been reading a lot of what you write here, guys and girls.

And I have noticed something:

You are stressing out like crazy for a lot of things that don't matter very much and this is not helping you at all.

OK, so now I have a very productive way to use my French skills for a good purpose.

Whenever I see that you are being stressed out for 42 little things that do not matter very much, I will be really glad to use French irony to help you find out that the 42 things that are stressing you out, well, they do not, in fact, matter very much.

You MUST and SHOULD do all those things but in fact no

I can see that you are sweating for a lots of things like:

To have a job as a junior developer, you MUST answer those 42 meaningless interview questions

Oh no, you don't!

To become productive, you MUST try out immediatly those 42 distracting tools instead of fixing that little bug that you have right now on production

Oh no, you don't!

Here are the top 42 best practices that you MUST know because they are helpful to smomebody but not you.

Oh no, you don't!

Here are 42 top programming books that you MUST know to be finally good enough.

Oh no, you don't!

Here are 42 open source projects that you SHOULD check out immediatly instead of doing something meaningful with your life

Oh no, you don't!

Here are 42 powerful rich dudes with an inflated ego that you SHOULD pay your reverence to

Oh no, you don't!

Here are 42 tutorials you SHOULD do this week if you don't want to be a failure

Oh no, you don't!

Here are 42 hype buzzwords that you SHOULD understand even if they meaningless if you don't want be to be left out.

Oh no, you don't!

Here are 42 crazy things you MUST do if you want to become successfull like those well known powerful jerks!

Oh no, you don't!


Ok, I continue on and on but I think that you are starting to sense a general pattern.

You are overthinking it

Top comments (16)

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midasxiv profile image
Midas/XIV

This feels like a dis to the click-bait articles xD.
It would only make sense if this article was called '42 things you should stop giving F#CKs about' XD.

would be interesting to know how you came to the number 42 ;P

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard • Edited

This feels like a dis to the click-bait articles xD.

Click-bait is a part of it, but frankly I think it's more a symptom than the problem.

The real issue is that we are all insane in this industry and have a high level of permanent stress.

It would only make sense if this article was called '42 things you should stop giving F#CKs about' XD.

Good idea, done!

would be interesting to know how you came to the number 42 ;P

lmgtfy.com/?q=what+is+the+answer+t...

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sandordargo profile image
Sandor Dargo

The real issue is that we are all insane in this industry and have a high level of permanent stress.

Whaaaaat? I live and work in the South of France. Very few people are actually stressed because of their jobs. They live their life, eventually do some work when they are not on strike and don't really give a shit...

Stress is not a standard of any industry, it comes from individuals who cannot give good answers to fake problems.

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midasxiv profile image
Midas/XIV

I was joking about the article name πŸ˜‚ but the new title looks more friendly.

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard • Edited

Yes and thanks a lot, because joking is the perfect remedy to stress.

You cannot really laugh and be stressed at the same time.

Don't believe me? Try do both.

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juanfrank77 profile image
Juan F Gonzalez

I'm curious, why everything in France is so terrible?
And yes, I completely agree with the "stressing about everything" stuff. I have a co-worker who on occasions we talk for hours on this. "I'm stressed because I have too much work" and others are like "I'm stressed because I haven't been assigned to a project and I feel I'm not doing anything".

And others stress about the traffic, and the weather, and the politic situation and on and on...

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

I'm curious, why everything in France is so terrible?

It is not!

France is just a normal country with flaws and a lot of beautiful things.

The economy is supposed to be horrible all the time, but in fact it is much better than the propaganda about it would make you and us believe it is.

On the bright side: if the U.S. would be able to transpose some of the features of the French Healthcare systems, that would be a massive improvment of lives for millions of americans - things like thousands of babies not dying, people being more free to work whereever they work, everyone living a number of years more - while ALSO sparing a lot of billions.
ukessays.com/essays/economics/fren...

Now the specific problem a lot of my fellow frenchen struggle with, you can find it by asking two different questions:

  • A) How are things generally in France right now?
  • B) How happy are you personally in your life right now?

The typical french answer is:

  • A) Things are terrible for everyone in France right now
  • B) But I am personally quite happy, thank you very much.
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grsahil20 profile image
Sahil

I like the idea, there is nothing I must, everything is I should if I WANT TO

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard • Edited

Congratulations, you now know everything that I know, which is that the complexity is almost never of fact of Nature, but, in fact, the result of smart people being good as making simple things as complex as possible.

Now you can play the same game as me if you see that your friends are being over-stressed over super complicated things. You know less than them about this super complicated thing (since they are the one who obsessed about it since weeks) but you do know that it's probably not super complex.

The only thing they need, is you, their friend, helping them to realize that they are overthinking it.

This is more or less the algorithm to do French Irony(*)

Friend: Oh man, this shit is so complicated
You: Oh yeah. Very complicated. It's the most complex thing in the world.
You: But why?
Friend: I MUST do all those 42 things.
You: Are you sure?
Friend: Yes of course, I SHOULD do this and this and this and this in order to XXX
You: Mmmh I see. That sounds terribly complicated indeed.
Friend: Yes. What can I do?
You: Well, you are not the first woman ever to try to do XXX 
You: Did they all have to do those 42 things?
Friend: Mmmh let me think.
You: OK
Friend: No in fact the real problem is that $OTHER_SHIT is so complicated.
You: Are you sure?

(etc)

At some point, friend realize herself that she was overthinking it.

And you both laugh together the stress away.

(*) My greek friend would point out, and rightly so, that we didn't, in fact, were the ones that came up with Socratic Irony

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weeb profile image
Patrik Kiss • Edited

What if I want to become a good $$PERSON?

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mbougarne profile image
Mourad Bougarne

You're already a good PERSON without $$ you don't need them to be a good person.

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

I think you nailed it πŸ”

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

I wanted to make a good joke about recursion but I can't find any. Sorry

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mbougarne profile image
Mourad Bougarne

Conclusion is you don't need to do what all others do to be a good one. Just do what you like and the basics.

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codefinity profile image
Manav Misra

I have learned to skip over pretty much any post anywhere that lists more than 3-4 things that I 'must' read/do, etc. Too many choices or information overload...no thanks.

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jameseirvingi profile image
jameseirvingi