I’m amazed at what I can get done when I’m passionate about something.
I’m an independent software contract developer during the day. The majority of work I perform for clients is firmly planted in the corporate financial world. It pays pretty well, but I find it extremely boring and unfulfilling. I spend many hours a week developing software that will make or save other people and corporations a ton of money, but these projects rarely inspire me. Infact many days I wish I could leave the industry all together. Maybe it’s the mystical burn-out that I’ve heard so much about, but I believe it’s just the lack of interest, inspiration and passion.
Since I decided to take on this game development project and to write about it here, I’ve found an incredible amount of energy, inspiration, and enjoyment. In a word, passion.
I routinely jump out of bed in the middle of the night to jot down game design ideas. I can’t wait to wake up in the morning to work on my design documents, event though I hate writing them for my clients’ projects. Every Friday, I can’t bear to sit and look at C# code on a Windows PC another minute, but as soon as I get home, hug my wife hello, I attack my Mac keyboard to either record game ideas I had during the day or to tackle another Objective-C programming tutorial. I used to have nightmares about corporate code, now I dream about solutions to how I’m going tackle my projects. At work I hate my incredibly uncomfortable Aeron chair, at home I love my Aeron chair that has been set just perfectly for my body shape.
There’s an amazing abundance of power and energy coming from me that is all generated from the passion and excitement of working on my own software projects. Every day I feel my momentum get stronger. All this makes me feel like I can’t fail. The steps to success feel like they are all laid out right in front of me, I just need to pick them up and put them in the right order.
Obviously, I have not succeed yet — far from it. But when “experts” say follow your passion, do what you love; I believe they are right.