Mix: Long Game Learning, Atmospheric Pressure, Bitcoin
Long game learning
It took around two and a half years from the time I started learning to code to the day I was able to switch my career 100% to web and software development.
There are plenty of stories of people who have made that journey in a quicker time but I had a particular path in mind that I wanted to follow. And it turned out that I was able to navigate that path pretty closely to this point, by the grace of God.
When I look back at the different side projects I took on and the different things I worked on learning, it’s now easy to see how those things built one on top of the other to form the skills I needed for that time and for the levels to come. Each new thing I learned could've been insignificant on its own, but when all put together it became career-changing.
That's what long game learning is.
I've seen firsthand how important learning is and how learning something new can change your life.
As a programmer, learning is part of the job but that doesn't mean it's not easy to become complacent in learning.
Last week I realized that I had been putting off learning something. When we do this, or at least when I do, I think it's often because we're trying to get something done and we feel like taking the time to learn this other thing will take longer than it would to get the current job done. But most of the time this is not true, especially in this particular situation.
I had been putting off figuring out how to use the debugger in my IDE. The crazy thing is that it really didn't take long to learn once I decided to just do it. What's even more silly is that if I had done this a long time ago, it probably would've saved me a lot of time to this point. But thankfully, it will still save me time in the future.
More important than saving time, though, is the fact that delaying learning is delaying your next level. Even if the thing that needs learning doesn't translate directly into that next level, it's part of the building blocks that will get you to that next level. If everything I learned in the past comes together to form the skills needed for where I am now, then the skills needed for where I want to be in the future will be formed by the things I am learning now.
And that is exactly what I consider long game learning to be. It's not necessarily about learning for tomorrow, it's about learning for next year and the year after that. So what have you been putting off learning? I'll tell you what else I've been putting off learning... marketing. So it's time.
Atmospheric pressure and the head
For years whenever the weather changes it has seemed like I can feel the pressure change in my head. About four days ago I began feeling that change in my head again and haven't been able to sleep well during this period either, so I finally decided to look up weather data and see what's going on.
The weather stats showed that the atmospheric pressure had dropped and the drop correlated right in line with the timing of the pressure I was feeling in my head and sinuses. After doing a few other searches, it turns out that that atmospheric pressure actually does affect people's heads and sinuses in the exact manner I was experiencing.
As I was looking at the weather data yesterday, I noticed that the pressure was forecasted to increase yesterday and into today. So fast forward to this morning and interestingly enough, last night was the first good sleep I've had in around four days. And I feel significantly better today – sinuses are head are both clear.
Now, it's nice to know the cause of these symptoms – I even found an app that will notify you of incoming pressure changes – but now I need to see if I can find methods to combat the effects of the atmospheric pressure changes. We'll see how that goes.
Bitcoin and the S&P 500
Last week I looked at Bitcoin and the S&P 500's charts and pointed out that we were at the current multi-month downtrend's resistance area and I surmised that we were likely to see a move further downward.
And it turned out that both Bitcoin and the S&P 500 did just that with the S&P having the steeper drop before Friday's close.
Friday's close for the S&P brought the closing price below the multi-month point of control which could very well act as an area of resistance for any attempts to bounce back up which would hold it below $4150.
Bitcoin also has some decisions to make in the upcoming weeks and months. The current downtrend's resistance line will be intersecting with some key levels over that time so we'll find out if we lose those levels at $19,000 and $17,000 or if we stay above and break out of the multi-month downtrend that we've been seeing.
That's all for today. Have a great week.