Learning is hard, constantly learning is harder.
There is a point at which when you learn something you think you will get to put it to use, but what I’ve found is that in reality that is not always the case. I’ve spent a great deal of time learning Elixir, Phoenix and live-view. Today a vast majority of the time people want something else. They care little about what I know and believe that I will just learn what they want because they put more value on the fact that I can learn more then they care about what I’ve learned. This is also true when being interviewed for a job in the past. Most of the time if I can convey that even if I don’t know something that I can learn it, this leads to me getting the job more so than if I show great competence that I have learned or mastered a given thing. While trying new things and exploring new ideas is great and rewarding in its own way it can also be devastating to your mental health especially if what you are learning is not what you desire and contradicts what you have learned in the past.
Getting fired or quitting a job is not always failure
If you have ever left a job that made you upset or held you back you get an odd feeling. Pain mixed with relief. There is always a sense of failure due to the fact that something likely ended without the intended results, but it almost always comes with a sense of relief that your pain and suffering is over or coming to an end. This can be rejuvenating an inspiring but it too also has its limitations. It will get harder to keep up the persistence to keep moving forward with every failure unless there is a clear and deceive understanding about why and how you failed. This is also not including any failed relationships that come with your failure. How you choose to fail matters. You can’t burn every bridge without there being consequences. This also doesn’t mean you can’t make new relationships, it just means it will getting harder each time if you are left jaded by your past.
Starting over
When starting over do not be defined by your failures, take from them what you need and leave the rest to history. If you don’t you will only repeat the mistakes and never rise above them. It will always be painful at the beginning because you are making something from thin air. But most importantly don’t do it just because, do it with intent. That is your first task when starting over, define your intent. That intent will hopeful guide you and motivate you and will define almost all actions that come after. This is my most important lesson from my past failures. Have, respect and honor your original intent. Let it be the goal of your success.