Learning how to learn: The most important developer skill

“If this is what learning to code is supposed to feel like every day, I’ll be miserable. Is this really my passion?”

“Wouldn’t this be easy for me if this was my passion? Do artists struggle to produce art? Do writers struggle to write a great book? Do athletes struggle to do well in a race? Are we supposed to struggle when we’re pursuing our passions?”

I can't answer the first question but the answers to the remaining in the second paragraph are: not really, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Running a race is shin splints, ice baths and years of stressful practice. No one has ever written a book worth reading without a lot of pain during its gestation. Learning to code comes with hours of staring at a function that a pro could so solve in seconds and re-writing an entire app because you can't figure out database corrupted. Passion is created and comes from your values not from just loving and being good at the the thing you do. Coding became a passion - it wasn't something I even liked when I started.