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Comment by twodave | Hacker News Reader

Maybe mildly off-topic, but one thing I can't help but keep in mind during my day-to-day is this continual unspoken fight I have against the mundane. I'm sitting in the 10-15k hour range right now, and I already feel like many of those first hours were wasted on banal/repetitive things. There are moments in software engineering, no matter how smart we try to be, that can make one feel like a human Turing machine.

In other words, these people didn't spend their 30k+ hours sitting around writing CRUD apps and collecting an easy paycheck. Rather, quality hours really move the needle.

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There is always room for improvement. I get what you're saying, and I used to think that way...

What changed my perspective was getting into meditation, and embracing the idea of awareness and deliberation in every moment, trying to do well every single thing I take up, and not just in programming, but also in cooking, eating, sleeping, walking, speaking, thinking, seeing, peeing, pooping, etc.

There is always room for improvement, space and time to do it "just right", what is in Russian called "sovestno", meaning "without shame and in good faith". The closest approximation I can think of in English is "consciensiously".

Once I started thinking this way, my perception of banality and repetitiveness fell away. No task is banal, no task is a repetition, but each one is unique, and must be perceived as such. Once you see it that way, you'll begin to find room for improvement everywhere.

I think it has helped me a great deal in becoming better at programming.

(See also: Bruce Lee, 10000 kicks quote.)

> “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

I have a similar way of thinking or at least intellectually try to remind myself of.

Also somehow this reminds me of a go term "honte". https://senseis.xmp.net/?Honte

Interestingly it seems to mean shame in French.

Agreed with the idea that at some point you plateau with the thing you are doing. Its frustrating, because you can't always see a way to change it. Sometimes that is life, I guess - because there is more to life than just being the absolutely best at one thing in life. It is ok to plateau and "collect dividends" (paycheck, nice hours, promotions over time, etc) and focus on challenging yourself in other aspects of your life.

Isnt what they say: 10 years of experience or 10 times 1 year of experience.

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