| Walk away for a little while. I've been programming and playing with a computer since I was around 10. There were a couple times in my life where I completely walked away because I wasn't sure that it was actually what I wanted to do. The first time was in high school. For three years I barely even used a computer. I took a course in Pascal but once I got my assignment done I was doing other things. Before high school I was pretty much glued to my computer 24/7 hacking this game or that. The second time was a year into university. My freshman year I was on my computer hacking all the time. Learning new web tech etc. After my freshman year I pretty much got sick of everything computer related and even ended up not going to class and the next year dropping out completely. The time away allowed me to explore new ideas and other worlds that I never did when I was glued to my computer all the time. Learning computer tech is not an easy thing, and it takes A LOT of time and dedication. Some people may make it look easy, but I think those people are in the minority. After taking a year off I realized that I really missed working and creating stuff computer related. It gave me a lot of motivation to go back to university and start learning stuff again. Suddenly university was actually easy, who would have though listening in class and taking notes gets one 75% of the way there. Leaving computers behind for a while was the best thing I ever did. I look back fondly at all the experiences I gained during those times. If you find that there is a hole that programming will fill, you will know it. Picking it up again is easy. Its like learning to ride a bike, you may get a little sloppy but it comes back relatively fast. Oh and stop visiting HN. It is good at depressing people. Realize that HN is like the rest of the news out there, it focuses mainly on the success stories. Not many people write articles about projects they never ended up finishing. Trust me everyone does it. I have around 20 half done projects. HN gets me depressed as well, and I think i'm a pretty competent programmer and had a chance to work on some awesome projects. Your not alone... don't let the successes on HN get you down. Learn to program because you yourself get off on it, not because you care what anyone else is doing... |