I often experience information anxiety. Later, I overcame it. I think I have the right to speak on these topics.

I think I don’t have to do that. There are countless pieces of information in the world; I only need to care about what I want to care about.

All the media in the world are vying for our attention—don’t let them succeed.

Follow my heart, learn what I want to learn. I’m best at being yourself. Be myself, then I’ll on the right road. (This sounds a bit like a motivational cliché, haha. But it’s true.)

I use RSS and X to follow what I want to follow:

• ElixirForum Hot - Elixir Programming Language Forum - Top topics
• ElixirWeekly - https://kill-the-newsletter.com/feeds/j2grm7ns17qnbk27.xml
• Twitter - follow josevalim and chrismccord

And, check above source every week. In some spare moments, I occasionally browse forums, trying to discover something new.

Don’t become an information addict. The things I need to know will always reach me through some channel.

Both.

I like thinking and creating, and find satisfaction in them. Dopamine drives me forward.

If I feel tired and lack passion, take a break. Don’t let myself burn out. The most important thing is to live happily and healthily.

When I get upset by the so-called civilized life of the world, I look up at the sky and tell myself: “When an eagle soars in the sky, it enjoys all the freedom and glory.”

I eventually stoped caring.

There is just too much everywhere. There will eventually come up an occasion where you find it because you need it.

There is no algorithm. I use what I think I need, and I prefer what I have used in the past.

I can’t learn without using. Those contrived examples everywhere don’t help me, as they usually don’t cover edge cases (which I have the tendency to always hit with full speed).

As I usually learn by using at a project, finishing the project is also what keeps me learning.

Things are much better than you think.

It’s very often not about what you know and that you have to know everything, it’s about cultivating the mindset of being a problem solver and not being afraid of new and unknown problems because the only guarantee in programming is that you absolutely will stumble upon those and will have to learn the solutions as you go.

That’s one of the top reasons why we are paid a lot. If I were to become a car mechanic I can bet a hefty sum that I can learn 99% of every potential repair edge case in 2 years of interning at a popular and busy place.

Programming will never give you that; you have to keep your eyes open as you solve problems and finding the common threads among them. That’s why formal computer science education is actually important.

Be at ease. You can still explore – I still do even after 22 years of programming – but you have to be curious and not going full throttle and burning yourself out because that’s going to hit you VERY HARD at one point; you’ll hate the job and you’ll even start hating programming as a hobby. From then on it’s game over for you if you can’t take a 2-3 years of vacation and go on a literal and metaphorical self-discovery journey which, you guessed it, most people cannot financially afford.