It took me into my forties to realize that I needed to stop thinking about what I want to <i>be</i> and focus on what I want to <i>do</i>. Only then did I have enough perspective to understand that when I tried to make career decisions based on expectations about what it means to be in a role, it always steered me wrong.<p>OTOH, when I focused on <i>doing</i> what I wanted to do or enjoyed doing, I generally ended up both happy and successful. It has, however, led me into roles where I have a hard time explaining to people what I am, exactly.
On the side, from the title I was picturing actual knitted parachutes, which isn't the first time. At work, we had a student cansat team who did just that. To everyone's surprise, it worked better than regular ones. Here is a video where she explains it.<p><a href="https://www.esero.no/prosjekter/cansat/" rel="nofollow">https://www.esero.no/prosjekter/cansat/</a>
<a href="https://vimeo.com/866239028" rel="nofollow">https://vimeo.com/866239028</a>
It's a scary thought I think many of us are facing now. I know that my only future is in software, but <i>what</i> that is going to look like now has me terrified. The next ten years of our industry is going to look absolutely nothing like the last ten, and I don't know if I'll be able to make the jump. Maybe none of us will, and software work ends up as just a highly paid small niche for a few super geniuses running and tweaking the AI for us all. I just don't know anymore, and that's the hardest part.
I met David Sparks back at WWDC in 2018. One of the real ones. Definitely one of those internet people who inspired me make the jump out of Silicon Valley to do my own thing a few years ago. Meeting him made it real. Glad he's writing about it.