"Programming is not for everyone. You either have it or you don't, and YOU should not do it because you don't like it," my friend Jake told me. He's doing a Ph.D. in Computer Science. He got into programming in the 3rd grade when he wanted to hack things. He tried quitting programming and doing something else but he always ended up coming back to it. I guess he "has it," in his words.
A year ago, I started learning web development online on free code camp to try and make a career out of it. My friend Conor, who used to be a library technician, started learning web development online for free using the Odin Project, and a year later he got hired at a startup. I thought, "If he can do it, so can I."
Fast forward a year to today. I've finished the HTML and CSS portion on free code camp but haven't even gotten to the projects section of JavaScript. I was struggling with the intermediate algorithm scripting exercises and dreading the projects, which were described as "similar (to the exercises) just much more difficult."
Why had I made such little progress in a year? You could say lack of discipline. Each time I had to force myself to sit down and code. I only did it a little bit at a time.
Recently I reconnected with an old elementary school friend from Korea. When she found out I'm learning programming, she told me to find something less stressful that I enjoy more. She said she's seen friends who got a job in that field after forcing themselves through school, but it wasn't a good fit, so they ended up quitting and doing something else. This got me questioning myself.
I reached out to a web developer friend who recently got fired during a massive layoff. She said, "There are many awesome roles in the IT field, but it is a highly competitive market. Everyone can join with low barriers of entry. You have to learn things after work since the framework changes every 2-3 years. Working in IT means you have to work over 40 hours (people will tell you that you can have work life balance but it is not true; they spend weekends studying) and you gotta do it for 30 years. It is especially stressful debugging when you can't find help from colleagues or stack overflow. Layoffs can come every few years."
This reminded me of Jim Carrey's dad, who went into accounting to pay the bills but got fired one day.
“I learned many great lessons from my father–not the least of which is that you can fail at what you don't want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.” - Jim Carrey
So what else could I do if I'm going to give up programming? The only thing that comes to mind is video editing. I only know the barebones as I am self-taught and just use the bare minimum to make videos myself.
I recently got paid to do video editing for a friend, and it was doable. Not frustrating or stressful, like I find programming. I could learn to be a better video editor and get a job doing that.
So I've made up my mind. Ditch programming and get into video editing. I wish I would have made this decision a year sooner, but better now than later.