The only difference is the people around me. I used to be surrounded by people I looked up to, who seemed to know everything.
But now everyone around me has become mysteriously less and less competent and they're acting like I am the established authority, which just shows how little they must know!
I'm also OK being the same fraud I've felt like since my 20's. Starting to be comfortable in my skin, I just wish it wasn't so wrinkly now that I can enjoy it.
I feel as we gain experience we learn that most of the things can be learned! It kinda removes a lot of magic from the world but also is weirdly freeing. I dread if there's the other end of the bell curve somewhere out there where we start to think that learning is not possible or practical anymore.
I don't see my coworkers getting less competent, I'm just aware that I did way more stupid shit than they did and have the benefit of experience.
Younger coworkers are inevitably much better than I was at their age. How could they not be? Everything is better, and enlightenment is always just a few clicks away.
But the internet can’t teach you everything. Like when to give up and try a different strategy. Or that there might be different strategies to even try!
We all feel like that image of a dog in front of a computer with the subtitle “I haz no idea what I’m doing.” Some of us manage JVMs, some others are CEOs, no-one know what they’re doing, but we have a world to govern.
Some of us have countries and nuclear weapons to govern…