This day, sitting in front of the monitor,
I wrote down this principle of mine with my keyboard:
Always on the way
The proportion of time I actually focus on the thing itself when doing things isn’t high.
Instead, I spend a lot of time on self-dialogue and self-thinking.
Whether before, during, or after the matter,
thinking about problems from an outsider’s perspective is always particularly interesting.
And to cross the long river of years and events,
I use thinking as the rope
to bind canes of principles together,
forming my little bamboo raft.
Today the principle I want to share is called:
Always on the way
If not sticking to the expression itself,
this sentence could also be “Never stop,”
“Life is in the tinkering,”
“One step further atop the hundred-foot pole.”
More concretely elaborating on always on the way,
it’s:
If a thing is done in a day,
go back and review the results a week later;
if you built a friendship with a new friend in a week,
let this friendship continue for another year;
if a year later you stood at a different height,
let such a journey continue for a lifetime.
Always on the way at work
At work, the “always on the way” I believe in
is doing every single thing better today than yesterday,
even when everyone thinks the matter is already done.
I can see many people doing things
only doing the matter itself well.
After it’s done,
maybe “if you’re not in the position you don’t manage its politics,”
maybe they think the thing is already good enough,
the result of this matter wouldn’t get better than the result.
I won’t choose to do things this way.
In 《Why I Love Engineering Culture》,
I mentioned my company’s the Hitchhiker's Guide to ZaiHui Dev,
nicknamed the “Newbie Village Quest.”
Three years ago when I joined, I pushed to complete this document,
and I’ve maintained it in my spare time ever since.
Including all the refactored content, I’ve contributed over ten thousand words,
totaling several of my articles…
But it’s because of this one article
that I can comfortably tell our interview candidates:
“Maybe our whole engineer training system isn’t perfect,
but after you complete this Newbie Village Quest,
you’ll directly feel the style of how we do things,
and come to love this place.”
Like the widely-shared saying:
“Leave after one day, blame the process;
leave after one week, blame HR;
leave after half a year, blame the Leader;
leave after three years, blame the culture.”
Even something as mystical as culture
is made through day-by-day maintenance, upgrades, optimizations.
Always on the way in emotions
In emotions, the “always on the way” I believe in
is facing all emotional exchanges with original heart,
not making binary-logic decisions.
Humans are like four-dimensional beings shuttling through a three-dimensional world,
they walk through different worlds.
Many former good friends
will slowly drift apart because shared experiences decrease;
emotionally stable pairs
will separate because of “our relationship is fine” complacency;
more often,
we see one-sided judgments of “no one understands him better than me.”
You can often see surging viewpoints on social platforms now,
but those emotions swept along by the surge
are only momentary “honestly, this thing is nothing more than this” understandings.
Behind those consumerist records of beautiful life,
《How much debt do you 90s kids have?》 is perhaps the more authentic mass emotion.
Emotions are complex,
but fortunately, people are complex too.
Always on the way in life
In life, the “always on the way” I believe in
is using every method to avoid
“This person, died at 20, buried at 60.”
I sighed long ago
that I’m afraid of becoming the kind of person where
“3 years of work = 1 year of work + repeating for 2 years.”
Like the “Three Laws of Technology” jests,
in real life many people die in their comfort zone at a certain age.
But I’m different.
Even if I also die in my comfort zone,I’ll still shout from the grave with my rotting vocal cords
I’ll just die a bit later :)
Recently because I’ve spent less time reading books,
and a lot of what I read has been self-help…
so when writing I often feel my writing skill is insufficient.
Though I used to feel my writing skill insufficient,
the recent shame also includes:
“after writing for so long, my writing is still insufficient” feeling,
making my head even bigger.
But every time I look back at the articles I wrote in the past,
I can see, from the clumsy diction and rough sentences,
my unique thoughts back then,
and often these thoughts bring me different inspiration years later.
Naturally,
my thoughts and my actions inherit and develop over time,
making me feel the activity of my own life.
Closing
At the end of 《How to Build an Engineering Team》,
I wrote:
Like Edmond Dantès’ final gift of “Wait and Hope” to Maximilien.
My friend, as an engineer I want to send you two words,
they contain the inner philosophy of “recursion,” “compound interest,” and even “cosmic expansion”:
Think, and persist.
Always on the way
is just this kind of principle.
(End)