wolfgang ziegler


„make stuff and blog about it“

The Best Job In The World

May 9, 2014

I like doing my regular workouts, and I like working out in the early morning before I start my day at the office, writing code. But sometimes I almost can’t bring myself to going to the gym – simply because I would so much rather head directly to the office and start coding.

Wait … What? Did I just say that?!?

Yes, I did - I just said that. I genuinely feel like ditching the gym sometimes, not because working out is exhausting and my body is sore (that happens too, admittedly), but because I would so much rather sit at my desk writing code and developing software!

Is that crazy? Does that make me a weirdo? Well, maybe it is and maybe it does - you are entitled to your opinion. But I beg to differ.

morpheus

I genuinely think that I have the best kind of job in the world and could not imagine doing something different while still being happy.

Of course this does not mean that everyone should become a software developer now, in order to achieve happiness and fulfillment at their job: I am not naïve. Do whatever works best for you, do what you love, but then – and this is important! – appreciate it!

The main reason I am writing these lines is because sometimes we stop appreciating the privilege of having a job we genuinely love and start nitpicking.

Of course, there is no such thing as a perfect job and we should always strive for improvement, but the essential thing is to ask oneself this simple question:

Do I like, what I have to do each day?

Since I realized for myself, that my answer to this question is “yes”, I found myself to be a much happier person both in my job and at home. For me, working with a computer still offers the same kind of fascination it did when I was a kid. I just forget about that from time to time.
But then again, I realize that I actually get paid for writing and refactoring code, tracking down bugs and designing software - and it blows my mind! These are the exact same things I like doing at home but - while at work – I get paid for doing them. I could almost feel guilty about that - don’ tell my employer though ;)