Mind Matters in Coding and in Life
What imposter syndrome feels like to me
As someone who is a Professor of Arabic, I will be the first to tell you that I am no stranger to imposter syndrome. Even after almost 10 years of teaching Arabic to hundreds of undergraduates and seeing handfuls of them go on to achieve fluency or win major awards or admission to prestigious graduate programs, I can still hear that voice whispering to me in the back of my head that “you really aren’t that good of a teacher, nor that good at Arabic, and it’s only a matter of time before people realize it and the jig will all be up”.
Perhaps paradoxically, this nagging imposter syndrome voice seems to be the loudest for me right after I have achieved a huge success for myself, like it was when I won a teaching excellence award last year.
I think this is because, the more success I achieve, the more I feel like I must really be an imposter, and therefore the harder I need to work in order to avoid being found out as an imposter. That hard work has a way of leading to more success, that since I am an imposter, I won’t feel I can fully take credit for, and so the whole vicious cycle has a way of just perpetuating itself.
But the good news is that what has helped me break out of imposter syndrome in my more enlightened moments is the realization that the work of teaching and coding, or for that matter any work as well as life itself, is a process and never a finished product.
Therefore, instead of a final destination which is never really reached, I aim to make my authentic participation in the process of continual self reflection and improvement my definition of success. By this definition of success, even what seems to be an overt failure can become a success as long as I am open to the process of learning what went wrong and why.
While my years of teaching have given me plenty of experience feeling imposter syndrome, they have also given me plenty of experience in cultivating a more process based mindset so as to overcome it. My hope is to be able to apply that same wisdom to coding, where I would be lying if I told you I have yet to experience some imposter syndrome also!
What I have learned about the tech world that I am happy to know
I have learned lots of things about the tech world I feel very happy to know, but without a doubt the number one among them is the industry’s culture of open source, not only in sharing code, but more importantly in the rightful value placed on sharing ideas and extending mutual support and encouragement among developers in finding new and creative ways to tackle problems.
Coming from my current industry of academia where I have sometimes found that original and creative ideas can be stifled by institutional rules or arbitrary definitions of rank, the open source culture of the tech industry feels like a breath of fresh air to me.
Although granted I am still very new to coding and still learning about the tech industry, so far in speaking with or reading the blogs, websites, and repositories of much more seasoned coders, the sense that the only difference between myself and them is a matter of experience is palpable and uplifting.
Why the way I talk to myself in my inner mind is so important and how it can effect my well-being
One of my real new year’s resolutions for 2021 has been to get back to a daily practice of Buddhist meditation for a few minutes. Even this humble commitment is easier said than done, but I am always amazed at how perspective-balancing even a 5 minute meditation session can be for me amidst a busy day.
To me, the powerful lesson Buddhism and the practice of meditation have to teach us is that our thoughts about ourselves, like who we are, or what we are or aren’t capable of, are ultimately ephemeral thoughts that have no basis in ultimate reality and therefore need not define our own personal reality either.
For me, I don’t need to be sitting on a cushion to meditate: any activity like running or laying down and looking at the sky can be meditative, so long as I set an intention to be fully present and free of distractions, and more importantly to observe my thoughts non-judgmentally, no matter whether positive, negative, or neutral.
Mindfulness like this is what helps me reconnect with the present moment and to truly act authentically based on where I am within it, instead of to merely react to whatever thoughts are flying through my mind.
What about this course is challenging you the most? How do you think you are growing through it?
One of the most challenging things about my coding course through Austin Coding Academy for me personally has been overcoming my tendency to be a perfectionist when coding a project. Perhaps this is related to my discussion of imposter syndrome above. I have spent entire days stuck on problems at times when upon reflection it would have been much better and kinder to myself to give myself some space away from the computer and come back to it with fresh eyes and a fresh mindset a few hours later or the next morning.
What has been helping me a lot in growing though this challenge is reminding myself that when it comes to hard work, more of a good thing is not necessarily always better. I have always seen myself as a hard worker and I will always pride myself on my value for a solid work ethic and the doors in life it can unlock for me. But hard work has limits and diminishing returns and becomes self-defeating if not punctuated by enough breaks, rest, and long periods away taken to really empty and rest my mind.
To remind me of this truth and to do the much harder things of actually acting on it when I really need to, I wrote one of my favorite lines of classical Arabic poetry on a post-it note and stuck it to my computer monitor. The line, by the medieval Islamic scholar and poet Al-Shafi’i, goes like this, in Arabic and then in English:
رزقك لا ينقصه التأنّي وليس يزيد في الرزق العناء
Taking your time and being careful won’t take away from your livelihood, and not will trouble and toil add to it.
I have also been inspired by a quote often stated in my course textbook at ACA: “Don’t let great be the enemy of good”.
How has podcast listening influenced the way you think?
As an unabashed podcast junkie, breaking into the world of tech or coding podcast listening has been a great experience. The thing I like most about listening to podcasts about coding is that it really forces me to think abstractly about the problem solving act of coding in and of itself without relying on looking at particular lines of code on a screen. In this way, listening to coding podcasts has been a great way for me to think more deeply and reflectively about coding while going for a run, cooking, sitting in my garden, or taking another kind of needed time away from the actual computer.
After some podcast listening which helps focus my mind on overarching principles more than nitty gritty details, I have found that when I do sit down to code, the whole process feels much more streamlined elegant.
One of my favorite coding podcasts so far is The CSS Podcast. I find the show hosts’ enthusiasm infectious, and, as I have come to love in general about the culture of the tech world, they give off the confidence that there is no one right solution to a particular problem but in fact many solutions.
What my spare time looks like in comparison to what it looked like a year ago
A year ago, which was the beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic, a lot of my spare time was spent trying my best to enjoy the additional relative free time at home. Having been one of the lucky few who not only didn’t loose my current employment, but also was able to work from home, at first this additional free time felt like unlimited time to pursue my hobbies: music, cooking, gardening, exercising. But somewhere around August 2020 with months of social isolation behind me, I found myself feeling maxed out on even my hobbies, and it felt hard to enjoy them with such a sense of uncertainty about the future.
So I found myself wanting to take advantage of all the additional time at home in a way that would help me really learn a new skill that, once all this at home time comes to and end, would position me to make a brighter future for myself and for my family. One year later, with the pandemic’s end hopefully in sight, but while still spending most of my time at home, I feel I have found that in learning to code.
Using this extra relative spare time I don’t know if I will ever soon have again to focus in on studying coding has helped focus my mind positively on the things that can be possible for me to achieve in the near future in a way I hadn’t really felt for much of 2020. It feels liberating and empowering.
