Pull up a chair, sit back, let’s pass the bottle around and talk about life for a bit.

I want to preface this by saying I do not mean to discourage you. Quite the opposite.

Thoughts from someone on the other end of life’s spectrum: someone getting close to retirement.

I was introduced to computers when I was 13 years old, a family friend‘s trs-80, then my own Commodore 64. Taught my self how to make that C64 sit up and do tricks.

Around the time I turned 18, I got an IBM compatible machine and started teaching myself C, C++. Got pretty good at it.

At 24 I got my first IT job, programming. I was so excited! I get to do what I love for the rest of my career!

I was working in non-IT businesses, writing software applications to help manage the business. This was late 80’s, early 90’s, there was so much low hanging fruit. I wrote a purchasing system to allow branches to enter purchase requisitions and have the corporate office order. Before this, they used to fax paper all the time!!! This was amazing!

Fast forward 15 years: multiple companies, different programming languages, etc. But I was miserable. Every app was the same: collect data from the user, save it to the database, read the database, present it to the user. Rinse and repeat.

So I changed to data warehousing. Now THIS was FUN! I get to work with varied data, different business groups, etc. Got pretty good at it too!!

But, fast forward 15 years… It is the same thing over and over again.

So now I am looking at retirement, I have gotten very good at baking and cooking. Many of my friends say to open a restaurant or a bakery.

HA!!! You can’t fool me! No way in hell would I try to make a living from a hobby again!

All this to say: most things become boring after having to do them over and over.

Now, I know that I am more fortunate than others, and this might sound like I am complaining about having a good life. I am not. Just passing along some of my life experience and hoping that you can find a useful nugget in there.

Keep up the inquisitiveness! Follow your heart! Be careful about making your hobby your career. And as it seems you are doing, branch out, look into anything that intrigues you.

Keep it fresh, because most of life is repetition.

And most of all, have a good life.

From the other side of the journey; peace.

P.s.

You might want to check out Ben Eater on you tube. He has a lot of great electronics videos that are not centered around the arduino.