I've been a part of the Dev.to community for a few months now and have only lurked. Frankly, I've been scared to put my thoughts out for people to read and evaluate. Fear. I have, for the better part of 5 years, lived in fear that what I know has little value. I've lived in fear that I'm going to be thought of as being inferior or dumb.
Recently I started pushing myself to refresh skills that I haven't used in years and learn new ones. A lot of learning on Linux Academy - Linux and AWS. Within my job I've been able to really connect with the platform engineering team who manage our AWS/Linux services. This engagement has helped me regain my confidence, not only in what I already know but asking questions about what I don't know.
I really love the openness and ease of access here on Dev.to. People who are experts in a domain and they are so willing to share what they know. People like myself who are coming back into development or operations can get help without worrying about being degraded for what we don't know.
A quote from one of my favorite people ‘Kindness expressed to someone in a moment of vulnerability can be one of the greatest forces in the world' ~ David Blake, Degreed.
It takes vulnerability to ask others for help, when you take the time to help, you are changing someone's life. It may be a small change but you are empowering them and helping them be even more than they were previously.
Thank you, Dev.to, for allowing this old lady the chance to be a part of this amazing community and regrow my skills.
Top comments (2)
"...I've lived in fear that I'm going to be thought of as being inferior or dumb...." This sounds like imposter syndrome. Don't fear, every_single_person has this at one point or the other.
"...Linux and AWS." HMU, I'd love the chat about these with you. :)
"...when you take the time to help, you are changing someone's life..." I've... never thought of it that way. :mind-blown: :O
Don't be afraid to share you experience and knowledge, I'd love to know what you know _.
Hi David,
Thank you for taking the time to reply. Yes, Impostor Syndrome is something that I have struggled with for awhile now.
Currently I'm getting ready to take my Linux Essentials cert through Linux Academy. This course has been a good refresher for things that I've used in the past but no longer do day to day. So it's easy to forget. My goal is by years end to be back in a sys admin type role.
imgur.com/a/lzD8DZH . This is just a small part of my test lab at home. Multi CentOs 7 boxes in a LAMP config using MySQL and NGNIX as the SQL and web servers. Then Datadog for some basic alerting that I'm pushing to my private Slack.
I've started working with Vagrant and Docker to get accustomed to server and application build/deploy/destroy.
I work in eComm and we use AWS/Linux so the lean towards these tech stacks is driven by that. I'm just really starting to get into the basics of AWS EC2 and S3. Gotta start somewhere, right?
I think part of my issue is that I used to know a lot, life hit me really hard, I stopped my career in IT, then came back 6 years later and everything had changed. Life adjustments have made it difficult to regain my confidence and there have been a few jerks along the way. I just haven't believed that I'm good enough, even for a junior level position, to work as a sys admin or anything of the like.
I'd love to chat about any tech subject. I've also been teaching myself Ruby and that's been a lot of fun but weird, I come from a C# background.