March 30, 2020March 30, 2020 Dani Szwarc

Reinvent yourself

IBM i - Basics

The COVID-19 Pandemic has placed us all in uncharted waters. A lot of unknowns. News are all over the place: TV, Social Media, emails from our financial institutions, governments, local leaders, co-workers, relatives…it surely is overwhelming.

Everyone will be touched by this, somehow. 

From my end, I have relatives in Argentina, some of them are part of the vulnerable population who is at higher risk. Some of them are doctors and are in the front line. Some of them require surgery and it’s uncertain whether it will be possible or not.

We are all learning to accommodate ourselves within this new scenario. I am lucky enough to have been working from home for a long time now, probably 4 years, so I have a very comfortable setup. At the same time, my kids are grown enough so everything flows quite well at home. (Steve Pitcher has a very interesting thread on Twitter about how to work from home.)

However this is not the rule. I have friends who simply can’t find their way to it. Some of them have small places, so there is no dedicated space for them to create an office space, a place to concentrate and work. Some have young kids who require attention almost all the time. We all have questions. We all have doubts about how to go through this. From a mental health perspective. From a financial perspective. There are fears about our jobs and incomes. All this is indeed challenging.

So what is the idea of this post?

I believe that this is a perfect time to reinvent yourself.

What does it mean? To me, it means learning something new; it means preparing myself for unexpected events. But it can mean anything. 

There has been a sudden stop. And it can actually be positive, if we know how to keep moving, while in quarantine.

I always thought that the only thing I can control and cannot be taken away from me is my knowledge. The more I learn, the more prepared I am for new challenges. My wife is taking a lot of courses and she motivates me to learn. I must say I am very luck as she is a natural born organizer so she helps me big time. So the environment, the context helps. Having a good environment is key.

This post may not be related to IBM i…or it can – as a matter of fact – be 100% related to it. It all depends on the direction I decide to take during this reinvention. It is the time to look at the To-Do list. To organize, to come up with a plan and to follow it. We don’t know what will happen with the economy after this crisis is over. We don’t know if our employers and clients will be there. And this is where the “reinvent yourself” fits in: I want to prepare myself for whatever is coming next. I want to have options. I want to become an option, a solution.

In my own personal list I have the following:

• Personal Finances
• NodeJS
• Python
• RPG
• Data Science
• Lua Scripting – Roblox (my 11 years old son hired me)

Quick comment on the above list: In order to organize all my learning process, I have a large white board and an even larger cork board. All notes, schedules, ideas and reminders go there. 

I want to be ready. I want to continue learning and growing. This time, this moment, is a huge opportunity to reorganize our priorities. 

So for me, at this moment, the big question is “what and where do I want to be when all this ends?”. I may not have a clear idea yet and tons of things come to my mind. I do know one thing:

I want to reinvent myself.