Knowledge Alone is Not Enough to Succeed

By | December 14, 2013

I’ve been reading technical texts for years; ever since I saw dinosaurs come to life in Jurassic Park. I went to the library and started reading all the books on genetics a middle school library might have. I didn’t then and still don’t really know what I was reading, but I just kept reading for a while until my interest waned. Somewhere along the line I got the idea that this was how to be successful:

  1. Read non-fiction books
  2. Learn “useful” knowledge
  3. ???
  4. Profit!

I continued this trend when I first began my interest in computers. I tried staying away from books that covered a product (FrontPage!) since they moved so fast. I read several books talking about compilers, but I never got anywhere. I couldn’t find that piece to take the text in the book and run it on my family Windows computer. I was stuck programming on my calculator which taught me a lot of basics. None stop reading, I kept reading technical books and haven’t stopped for years. I just finished getting an MCSD that took four books. I’m so tired of working like this though, there has got to be a better way of making it in life. In my quest to master one thing I’ve become a polyglot programmer, never feeling certain if the path I’m on is the one that will lead me to the financial success I seek.

That’s what it ultimately comes down too, what technology can one become invested in that will take them to financial freedom they desire. Work for yourself, or at least remotely the majority of the time. Own a nice McMansion home you can decorate during holidays that has a two car garage in a neighborhood you can feel safe in and that has great internet speeds. I’ve found out the answer; there is no right choice.

I jumped ship on Flash development a few years back but even with that I could have continued and move into Flex and Air, both are still being used in enterprise development. That leaves me with trying to make educated guesses about which technology will enable me to reach my goal faster. Technology is wonderful and a kind of hell in that way. You can get work and complete a task in a myriad of ways. Too many choices can lead to over analysis and a paralyzing feeling that I’m making the wrong choice. There it is again, the fear that I’m making the wrong choice to get to my end goal.

There is no right choice, no one technology that will open a door that wouldn’t have opened otherwise. So long as you have your nose in a book and your head down learning you’ll never take enough action, you’ll never see the door open when it finally does. It’s not enough to learn something without acting upon it. So here’s to action over planning, to decisions over analysis in the new year. No one will see all the knowledge you’ve got and point you to that open door. Don’t wait, write, program, start something, because just knowing how to run a program won’t get you anywhere.

One thought on “Knowledge Alone is Not Enough to Succeed

  1. friedbeings

    Agreed!! I feel like you are my brother from another mother…and another country…and another ethnicity…and another language….yet somehow…that resonated with me! Keep up the good writing.

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