Most of us in IT got started in IT because we had some lead-in interest that helped us make the transition easier. For me, the VP of Operations at StormWind, I played video games. And so, the natural hobby that led me to IT was building PCs, gaming rigs, coding games, and optimizing the system for games. I could spend countless hours tinkering with memory management, overclocking, and cooling. And when I got the system dialed in, I kept on reading about new hardware (and games) on the horizon.
My hobbies morphed over time. It was PC building, video game coding, back to PC building, then to Cisco networking. And then… whammo! It stopped there. It didn’t happen overnight. It took a while for my hobby to wind down. But when it did, I didn’t realize it, and left it unattended to burn itself out. I equate this time in my life to when Thor decided to let himself go and play console games. Feels good for a while, but there’s an extremely negative effect.
For some of this, we keep our hobbies as a lifelong interest. I must admit, this wasn’t the case for me. And I’m now fully realizing how losing my hobbyist spirit is a detriment to my relevance. But for the last three months I’ve been hard at work rectifying this issue.
I’ve poured myself back into an advanced technology that I’ve always found intimidating. Reading books, white papers, building a laboratory and prepping for certifications. The hobbyist in me is slowly being rekindled. It is work sometimes. But my goodness, it has settled me down in a way that I haven’t felt in years.
That said, there’s real benefit in taking on a similar posture in IT. Think about a technology that you could make a hobby: Azure, AWS, cybersecurity, wireless, containerization. Get some confidence with these technologies, maybe a cert or two, and you’ve just transformed yourself in a very meaningful way. And remember how much fun it is to be a badass at something. And if you haven’t felt that, I assure you, it is fun. It’s fun like when Thor learned he wasn’t the god of hammers, but the god of thunder and lightning.
