Journal

Goal setting is best approached by breaking larger goals into smaller approachable ones. Setting micro goals that align with the end goal allows for consistent checkins and celebrating when you achieve them. Spring 2017: I was beyond displeased with my current work situation. I loathed going into work everyday and being a punching bag for what wasn’t going right in the organization. My closest coworkers were amazing and our relationship was part caring about each other and part informal group therapy. They are all that kept me somewhat stable. But this isn’t about that place, and details aren’t important or beneficial. My work environment was beyond toxic, and I needed an exit strategy. ...

You don’t need to be an expert to teach others, even teaching people who have more overall experience than you do. The matter that someone has a wider breath of experience overall does not equate to knowing a particular system in depth. Fear of speaking and feelings of an inadequate technical knowledge base can often be a paralytic combination, especially to those newer to a technical field. Imposter syndrome and feelings of inaptitude can easily become dominant, resulting in a self-fulfilling prophecy with high levels of inertia. ...

Imagination is the living power and prime agent of all human perception. ~Samuel Taylor Coleridge I am so excited to announce that the redesign of my portfolio and blog is finally live after going back to to the conceptual drawing board and rebuilding it from the ground up. It has been an exciting journey to implement new development and design concepts that I have picked up since May 2017 when I built the first version of the site. At the time, it was the first full site that I had put together, and was substantially more involved than the relatively small projects I had done to that point. Since then I worked on more complex applications, built a full stack travel application with a team of two other developers, and dove headfirst into React. ...

The true benefit of converting the logic to a HOC came to light quickly when I started to create the quote slideshow component—it was a simple and efficient process. The creation of the HOC enabled me to reuse all of the logic and keep the component’s code dry. This was a week of pushing myself towards things that I have not utilized before, and confronting things that had previously made me nervous. I decided that I wanted to incorporate a quote slideshow in the About section which would utilize the same basic logic that I had already created for the slideshow. I am not a fan of copying code across files, and appreciate modularity when possible… Due to the carousel component using state and methods which directly alter the state I was not able to simply export the functions. After some research, it seemed like a higher order component would serve the need that I wanted and I decided to finally research them more. ...

We have a propensity to look at the end product and marvel at how it was built and the complexity of it all. Unless we start mentally breaking down the larger complexities into smaller, more tangible ones we continue to fight analysis paralysis and may never make the first step. 2017 was the start of the journey from the directionless doldrums to an unbridled creative passion. I started the year looking for a job in a similar field as what I currently am employed in, believing that a change of scenery would help recover some of the drive and passion that has faded in my current position. Each day was a struggle to overcome the feelings of being beat down and unmotivated. My work ethic precludes me from outright giving up, but I was clinging on to the last few threads. Around the beginning of March, I had still not made much progress in finding motivation or a position I thought would be much better, and I started to rethink my career trajectory entirely. Did I want to continue working in this field? Did I like the progression of where it was taking me? The more I considered those questions, the more deafening the response. I needed a change. ...