A Hero's Journey - Crossing the Threshold into the Digital Unknown

In the late 1940s, Joseph Campbell introduced the world to “The Hero’s Journey” in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The book is very hefty and dry for my liking - he was an academic after all - so I would watch a YouTube video or read a blog post if you want to learn more. In short, this is the formula any good mythology, book, movie, or story has. The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars are great examples of this formula.

Throughout their lives, people go through their own hero’s journey as well.

Leaving home for the first time. Marriage. Kids. A new job. A lose of a job.

We all go through our own personal journey into the unknown - whether willingly, or unwillingly - where challenges and hardships form us into the people we are.

Now, I’m not saying I’m a hero, but I’m ready to cross the threshold into the great unknown of learning how to code.

I have been in the software industry for close to fifteen years...and never written a line of code. Sure I have had to write my fair share of SQL or JIRA queries, but never have I built an application. I know the technology, terms and lingo, and so many acronyms it would put the military to shame…and yet I haven’t built anything an end user would use.

I’m looking to change that now!

Anyone that knows me knows that I need to find the “why” in anything I do. I need to know the reason behind doing something, and will probably philosophize about it until I determine what that is for me. Work is no different.

Almost ten years ago I had my “aha moment” when it comes to work - specifically work in the software industry. I remember coming into work on a Monday morning and hopping on a call with one of my customers. During the call she said, “Jason, you know what I did Friday and this weekend?! I was able to go to my son’s baseball game, and then hang out with him for most of the weekend! I haven’t been able to do that for the longest time because of my job. It wasn’t until we starting using your company’s software that I started to get my life back!” That’s when I found my “why” when it comes to the software industry.

You see, at its core, good software solves problems, or eliminates mundane tasks, and gives people their time back, saves them money, or ideally both. This allows people to spend more time with friends and family, frees them up to pursue a hobby, or even use their reclaimed time and money to make the world a better place by serving in their communities and solving other problems.

If the pen is more mighty than the sword, than programming is more powerful than a bomb!

In my lifetime I have seen new inventions in software lift countries out of poverty…or send countries into upheaval. And until now, I have only been involved in the way a publisher is involved with the author. Don’t get me wrong, without a publisher an author’s work will most likely remain unread, but it is the power of the author’s words that can touch a person’s soul.

I want to take a stab at being the author instead of being the publisher for once.

I don’t know if I want to do something like programming full time, but I at least want that option.

At the end of the day I want to be involved with delivering high quality software that will change lives, and having a core understanding of the building blocks that make up that software will lend itself well to that pursuit. During my time in the industry I have been a Customer Success Manager, Team Manager, Program Manager, Delivery Manager (Scrum Master), and I hope to someday fill the role as a Product Manager. I feel like I have been able to do all those roles well, but in some of those roles I feel like I could have been even more effective if I had the basic understanding of how the software was written and operated. If this journey does only that then I will have accomplished my mission.

So on that note I am introducing this series I am calling “Dirty Bits”. You can think of it as my public journal or diary as I venture out into the digital unknown. Maybe no one will read it…and that’s ok. I am doing this more for myself than anything. I’m hoping that as I publish these short entries that it will be a way to hold myself accountable to continuing on the journey instead of turning around and heading home. I’m hoping I will someday be able to look back on these posts and see the progress I have made (and probably see how dumb my present self was). And if it does encourage others to start their own journey to do something that they have been fearful of….than even better!

So here I go….into the unknown!