From Hero to Zero

It's often talked about in programming that you can go from a state of feeling like you know everything to nothing in a matter of minutes. This has happened to me several times in the past few months, but none more so than now. Will Sentance's "JavaScript: The Hard Parts" was taught so simplistically that I felt like I could do anything with the language. I immediately thought that I was a senior level JavaScript developer with the power to build anything. Then, I started Kyle Simpson's "Deep JavaScript Foundations" and felt within the first 15 minutes like I wasn't capable of the cognitive capacity to involve myself with JavaScript at all. Will spent the allotted 7 hours going over very few topics deeply, stopping to check for understanding constantly and explaining every single line of code. Kyle is flying through a breadth of information and leaving me to pick up the pieces.

I was ready to give up completely, but I reached out to a friend I've met on Twitter, Matt Bear, who spoke very highly of the course in the first place. I told him I was completely lost and I felt out of my depths. He reassured me this is completely natural with this course and that the level of difficulty was vastly higher than Will's course. He spoke of watching this course multiple times with scrutiny to truly understand it. After he has a better general understanding of JavaScript, he's come back to this course to understand it better than the last time. I asked him if I should jump ship to the safety of one of Will's courses or stay the course. He suggested I should push through and glean what I can from it, and not to worry too much about the pieces that are over my head. With that in mind, I'm committed to focusing as much as possible through this course to find the tidbits that help, while not getting discouraged by the information I just can't yet grasp. Thanks, Matt!

Part of the issue of my frustration may be due to my current state; I worked 13 and a half hours in 90 degree heat today, finishing my 5th of 6 days in a row. Tomorrow, I finish up the week with an easy 10 and a half hour day inside the golf shop. It's been a trying week, leaving me with little time or energy to focus on my studies, but at the same time I feel accomplished. I haven't missed a day of studying hard, getting in at least 2 hours of learning while still keeping up with this daily blog and posting to Twitter to track my progress. This builds character and work ethic, as well as reinforcing the habits I'm hammering in to my daily routine. While I'm on day 33 of #100DaysOfCode, I'm really in my 5th month now of studying an average of 4 hours a day, without a single day missed. Considering I was fairly listless before taking on this adventure, spending most of my free time consuming Netflix series like it was my job, this is quite the detour from the life I was living. This hard work will pay off eventually, I just have to remember where I've been and understand it's a long road, sometimes easier said than done.

Until tomorrow!