Yeah seriously dude calm down bro

Why am I painting this picture?

Because I’ve caught myself and many others in my profession in the role of the man with a hammer. A good friend and mentor of mine sat me down a long time ago and told me “You need to think of yourself as a leader, or a developer — which ever works. You can’t be Python and Python can not be the one thing you are passionate about.”

What stood out for me was that as we talked, I defended my stance and belief — I was a Pythonista, I wrote Python, I believed in the community and the tribe and the norms and This is Who I Was. He was gently trying to warn me not to be defined by my tools — not to love them — to love something is to enjoy it. He was warning me against the danger of my id, my sense of self and belonging becoming the tool.

In hindsight, I had already learned this in a different way — playing dot-com and post bubble startup games. I waded into each startup and rapidly my id and ego and sense of self worth became that startup. If it failed, I failed. If we were running out of cash, I’d grow depressed and despondent. If we were blazing trails and building things my heart would race and I would work 24x7 to get it done.

The same applies to, well, the tool I used — Python became my hammer of choice and the community welcomed me and made me feel needed and warm and even though gradually my sense of self was solely defined by the Job I was Doing and the Community I Was Part of. It was everything to me.

Oddly, as I think back to what my friend and mentor was telling me I kick myself. We were three or four startups deep at that point and I had already adapted my brain to accept eventual failure and to always be thinking about the next thing.

Well, now many years later I’ve had my sense of self torn away from me several times— I had to back away from the community That Was Me. I don’t program that much anymore as a leader of people. I don’t get involved in a lot of open source things and tend to avoid community things. Same thing goes for work — for a while I would still let myself be The Guy Who Does That Thing, meaning if I worked on Project X, it was my everything, my sense of definition and I would go to all out war to defend it. When I was married I was in that dangerous loop of “all I am is a parent this is my job and I must do it”. No “me” time. Work. Kids. Work. Kids. Work. Kids. This is new normal and no time for my partner and me, just keep the ship going, achieve magic at work. Be a superhuman.

Danger.