Every time I tell someone I work with computers, they light up. "That's so cool," they say. For a long time, I didn't get why.
Most of my actual day looks like this : staring at a screen, stuck on something that'll take hours, sometimes days, to figure out. Not exactly cinematic. People picture me hacking Netflix passwords or dodging the FBI, straight out of a movie. The reality is a lot less exciting — and a lot more satisfying, honestly, once you get to the good part.
Because when I do finally crack the fix? I get happy like a five-year-old. There's a kind of satisfaction in solving something after weeks of digging through a codebase that I don't get from anything "conventionally cool."
The catch is, that satisfaction doesn't clock out with me.
I love spending time with my family. But I've caught myself thinking about some random React property mid-dinner, while everyone else is talking about curtain colors. Weekends are the same — I genuinely struggle to figure out how to spend my free time, because "free" would mean not thinking about tech, and that's the one thing I can't seem to do.
That's the paradox : I love this work more than almost anything. I can't picture a version of my life without computers in it. But loving it this much means I've had to learn, the hard way, that peace isn't the absence of effort — it's the presence of boundaries. Something like, one screen-free day a week, or maybe a hobby that has nothing to do with tech.Even my hobbies are based on tech.(inserts awkard emoji)
I'm still figuring this part out. If you've found something that works for you — pulling yourself out of desk-brain and actually being present — I'd love to hear it.
Have a good day!
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