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Avoid Pride

Pride is an inconveniently overloaded word. There is the “he takes pride in doing his job well” kind of pride, and then there is “he couldn’t swallow his pride and ask for clarification” kind of pride. It’s more the latter kind of pride that I recommend avoiding if you want to grow.

I won’t go much into details of why people feel pride. They are important — without understanding them it can be difficult to keep pride at bay — so do spend some time contemplating this.

The main reason pride sucks is that it is orthogonal to objectivity. And if you want to improve and grow as a programmer, you need the ability to objectively assess your own and others’ skills, ideas, code. You also need the ability to take feedback, and analyze its contents and applicability, irrespective of who it comes from. If code you wrote, and were happy with at the time, is actually of poor quality, you should feel comfortable admitting this.

Sometimes pride can be considered a necessary evil, for example at workplaces where facades are important. I luckily have no experience with such workplaces, and it seems unforgivably wasteful to spend energy on presenting yourself as something more than yourself. I’m thus in no position to offer advice to people for whom living and dealing with pride in the workplace is a daily reality, but I’m certain that in order to truly grow, you’ll at least need to keep the “facade as a necessary evil” and “keeping a pride-less and objective view of oneself” separate and in control.

Next: Reduce Uncertainty Proactively ⇒

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