Original link: https://codechina.org/2022/10/no-choice/
Many times, we will face countless choices in our life, how to choose is often the most common problem. The article I wrote yesterday, ” How to Deal with Involution and Be a Better Self “, actually talked about strategies for facing involution. Today we will talk about what strategies should be for facing choices.
To put it simply, it is today’s title. The best choice is to make no choice. But this title sounds like useless correct nonsense, it is not, I will analyze it for you in detail.
career options
When I was young, I actually didn’t have any ideas, I was the kind of obedient and obedient scholar. My mother’s education for me is relatively strict, and I rarely have my own opinions. Everything is fulfilling her expectations. That is to go to a university.
This is of course also related to short-sightedness. I grew up in a compound environment, and I was even isolated from the locals in Tianjin and Tanggu. We often say that the state-owned enterprise compound is a small society, but it is not the case. The state-owned enterprise compound is a very closed and small society that is much simpler than the outside world.
Before I went to college, my understanding of society was almost 0. All the adults and neighbors in life are essentially colleagues of their parents. The relationship in the whole environment is simple and warm, and it can even be said that it is almost difficult to meet strangers.
My parents are not highly educated. It also means that they basically have no way of directing my life choices after I graduate from college. Because this is also a foreign problem to them. They keep telling them that going to college is the ultimate hope for me. The only thing they can imagine is that I’d better graduate from college and go back to the big state-owned enterprise where my family works and become my dad’s little colleague.
In fact, this is the trajectory of most of my classmates.
However, the university made me feel rebellious, my parents were not around, and I had a lot of my own opinions. I had no interest in my mechanical major at first, and any majors, even mathematical physics, were no longer of interest to me. I just want to spend all my time digging into programming. Because at that time, I was most obsessed with programming. I believe that computers are the future and total solution of this world.
After college, I stayed at home for three months. Not returning to our big state-owned enterprise is the only thing I know. I think that when I go back, I will become a screw in a big company like my parents. Although I should have no worries about food and clothing in my life, there is no challenge or hope.
However, I don’t have any direction either. Many people ask me how to choose my career after graduation. I have no idea. I have no sense of direction. I still write programs and surf the Internet every day, trying to find purpose and a sense of direction.
Until one day my mother picked up the stick after many years and said, you have graduated from university, even if you don’t return to the unit. You can’t eat idle meals at home either, hurry up and get out of here.
So I participated in the first offline job fair in Tianjin, and after submitting a resume, I became a network manager and programmer of a company.
It can be said that for one of my jobs, I had no choice but to submit a resume, and I didn’t even go to the second booth.
But after 20 years, I don’t think I chose the wrong company for the first time. Not to say how good this company is. But before entering the industry, there is no point in talking about choices. There is a high probability that I will find a better company, and my life trajectory will not change too much.
The value of the first company in my life was just entering the industry, which made me change from a student to a professional. Let me start to slowly understand what our industry is like and what the level is in the industry.
So, two and a half years later, I switched companies and moved to Beijing, which doubled my salary.
This is not the power of choice. But when there is insufficient information, instead of thinking about how to choose, it is better to start directly, accumulate information slowly, and then choose, it is not too late.
If you haven’t graduated yet, you can participate in more internships and enter the real workplace to experience more. That little internship salary, the few things you can write on your resume, is not that important. More importantly, you can start to understand the industry, understand how your goals should be set, and how your value should be assessed.
What is the future of this world? How should I choose the path of the future
When I first entered the workplace, this was already a very difficult subject. More so now. How will the Russian-Ukrainian war go? How will the world economy develop? When will the epidemic end? Will our community be blocked in the future? These are questions that are difficult for us to answer.
One way of thinking is that we study all the variables and choose how to adapt to the world.
For example, what should we do when we encounter a tiger? What should we do when we meet a lion?
But these questions are difficult to answer. When encountering a tiger, is the whistle enough? Is it possible to practice a stunt like Wu Song? If you kill a tiger, do you want to go to jail?
Too difficult to solve.
How will the world develop, how will the industry change, and will a company lay off employees next year? We can’t judge and we can’t deal with it. What should I do?
In fact, it is often the wrong question.
Just like the article I wrote yesterday about invoicing.
If you face a colleague who leaves work an hour later than you every day, and you want to compete with him, you simply leave work an hour later. But you may soon find out that he is another hour late. Are you all over the competition? And what if you win?
When I was working in a certain company, I was often rejected by my colleague, Xiao A. He has a good relationship with the leaders, and he does ordinary things, but he is valued very much. I’m not very good at dealing with people, and sometimes I offend him by speaking directly. The leaders also had opinions on me. At that time, I was still young, and I was still dazed. She is also shy, not open enough when interacting with people, and sometimes not polite enough.
So I am often excluded. But I never care, the work that should be done continues to be done. It’s time to keep playing. Continue to learn something new in your spare time. Colleagues who have a good relationship ask me, why don’t you know how to have a good relationship with Xiao A and the leader? This will make it better in the company.
I said I don’t care. He was very puzzled.
After a few months, I found a new job with a bigger company, a more interesting product, and a higher position. The salary is higher than the original leader. At this time, my colleague finally understood.
I said, this pool is not enough for me to use, it is better to do what I should do than to have a good relationship with them. Don’t waste that time and energy.
So are many questions.
What you worry about is how to deal with a tiger. But in fact, the problem you encounter in the workplace is often that a bunch of you encounter a tiger, how should you deal with it. The answer is to buy a good pair of running shoes, or practice running early. It’s not the one who falls last.
You worry every day that the economic situation is bad and the company is laying off employees. But is this something we ordinary people can control? What can we do? If the company lays off 30% of the bottom performers, and I’ve always been in the top 10%, why lay me off?
Even if the company goes blind and lays off me, I am a leader in the industry and naturally have all kinds of opportunities, so what are you afraid of?
In 2009, my friends and I were starting a business, and we were going to get a Series A investment. At this time, the consequences of the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States affected China. We couldn’t find investment anywhere, so we declared the startup a failure.
I was bored at home for a month and didn’t know what to do.
Then, suddenly my senior brother from Tencent came to Beijing, and we had a meal. After chatting, he found that I was one of the few programmers who could write iOS at that time, and I had already made the iOS version of Youdao Dictionary, which was the most downloaded app at that time.
He invited me to Tencent, with a high probability of being responsible for the research and development of the iOS version of a big product.
I was at a loss, so I went to visit Tencent once.
I haven’t decided whether to go or not. At this time, my entrepreneurial partner told me that he had already joined Shanda. Shanda happened to be the Shanda Innovation Institute at that time and was in urgent need of various technical experts. I hope I can visit Shanghai and talk about it.
Later, I chose Shanda. After this failed start-up, I stayed at home for only a month, and I didn’t even prepare my resume. He was forced to make a choice between the two largest companies at the time and joined the company.
The reason is very simple. When I was starting a business, I was constantly researching new technologies. I was completely self-taught on iOS development. I didn’t say I was going to pick my next job for iOS. I just want to learn more fun things. However, inexplicably, he stood in a position that was contested by others.
Therefore, how the world develops has its own path, and we cannot control it. We don’t rely on choice, we rely on preparation, so there is no need to think too much. Because I am born with talent, it must be useful, the premise is preparation, talent, not insight into the secrets of the sky, knowing what the most correct choice is.
study what? How to choose which book to read?
For a while, people often ask me what should I study? Java or OC, front-end or back-end, Python or C++, and so on.
How did I choose. I don’t choose. I probably know more than 10 languages.
My favorites in college were VB, Delphi, and the Borland C++ builder. After graduation, I used Borland C++ builder to write programs for several years. After I arrived at a certain company, I learned to use VC to make Com components and browser plug-ins. My friend and I did a project as an amateur. I used VC as an Outlook plugin and Python as an MSN chatbot. Later, I wrote a search server in Java. With iOS I use Objective-C and Swift to write apps. In order to make the Android version of my own App, I also learned Kotlin to make the Android version. I have used Ruby and PHP for my own personal website. This does not include the various languages used in some temporary small projects.
I didn’t choose, what to do, whatever language the project needs to use, I will learn whatever language.
First of all, the first one is not optional, all languages are essentially the same. Even when it comes to details, it is nothing more than static, dynamic, compiled, interpreted, object-oriented, and so on. It’s not complicated, and if you know one, you should be able to learn the other by analogy.
Just like people often ask me, Mr. Tiny, I want to learn PHP, how should I choose a book?
I don’t have a choice when it comes to this problem.
The way I like to do it is to go to the bookstore, find the PHP category, buy 10 books at a time, start from the simple to the deep, get started in 21 days, and explain the in-depth, it doesn’t matter, buy them together and look at each other.
It’s a waste of time to find which book is better, so it’s better to buy more and read more.
People often ask if it’s worth it.
I said, I learned a language, switched companies, and doubled my salary. In order to learn this language, I spent 10*100 yuan to buy books. Are you saying it’s worth it?
Someone asked, is it worth it to take three months to learn the language?
I learn fast and can usually work in a week. But three months is certainly worth it. Because it took three months to learn a language, and then the salary doubled, and two months earned the original four months’ money, you say it’s worth it.
Need to choose? unnecessary.
This article is reprinted from: https://codechina.org/2022/10/no-choice/
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