You don’t need to have idols

Throughout our careers, we meet really nice people, not necessarily in technical skills, and that’s what make us want to stay near them, to learn through and with their experience. It can happen even with people that we don’t know personally, but whose work we follow and appreciate in the developers community and whose professional growth is inspiring. But that is only natural. Everyone wants to be better and, from what I see, staying close to these people is the best way to do it.

The problem is, in my point of view, when you stop thinking with your values and opinions and start just repeating the ideas of the people you admire. It can be even worse when your reference of a good professional is just one person. One of the best characteristics of the C.S field is its plurality, such as the variety values, thoughts and ideas. There are so many ways to be a developer, so many different paths to develop software, to become an entrepreneur and to be always improving at it.

The silver bullet is a myth. Just one person doesn’t have all the answers, neither all the people in the world together. You don’t have to follow someone’s career choices. You don’t need to have idols, nor follow their paths. Trying to follow other people’s course, in the best scenario, can guide us to be more like them, but I think that’s not good enough. There are so many good developers and professionals out there that you might not know. Being capable of stepping out of your comfort zone can help you see beyond, to meet different people and accomplish even more than they did, in a different way, of course. But with your own values. In your own way.