The Inevitable Unknown

👽 Greetings. I come to you from a weird place.

Physically, I am in Boston - which is welcome, because I’ve been traveling nearly every three weeks or so for the past five months. More on that another time!

In a nonphysical sense, I am everywhere. This is mostly because I’ve rolled onto a new project at work, and I am experiencing a great number of thoughts and emotions for the first time. Primarily, my brain laboratory seems to be concocting up that feeling that all game devs warn you about: the dreaded impostor syndrome (cue amogus jingle).

It’s a miracle that I’ve avoided it until now, but as I find myself surrounded entirely by senior developers, I can’t help but feel the churn of uncertainty and fear in my stomach. What do they expect of me? Will I be able to meet my own expectations, let alone theirs? What the hell am I doing? Do I even know anything? Is anyone up there?

My close friend and fellow dev Atsina Corrington reassured me when I came to her in a whirlwind state after having contributed maybe three sentences in a team meeting. It’s okay, she said. We’re just babies 👶. (I’m paraphrasing here, particularly the baby emoji, but you get the idea.)

The Lovely Phone in my Animal Crossing: New Leaf bedroom from 2016 tells me not the things I want to hear, but the things I need to hear

Thanks to Atsi, the source of my uncertainty dawned on me - hello! I graduated less than a year ago; of course I’m going to fear the unknown as I approach it. But it is the inevitable unknown, and I’ll need to handle it to the best of my abilities if I’m going to learn and grow from this experience.

What prevented me from understanding this about my little point in time before, I wondered? The answer: a combination of rapid life changes due to pandemic/family/age/etc that caused me to move so fast through the days that I never stopped to absorb anything. Now that I’ve settled a bit, even if only for a short time, the reality of my situation is starting to wrap around me again. I’m normal. This is normal. This is fine. This is what it feels like to, uh… feel.

That’s Sick, But What Are You Trying To Say

I like my work. I want to do well at work. These are statements made by me as an individual and as an employee who has not been hypnotized by her employer - I promise. It’s really just that I find ultimate fulfillment, pure and whole, in the things I create. And I happen to create at work.

To achieve this goal of mine, even on my currently daunting team, I’ve developed the following personal principles - which you, dear reader, may find helpful if you are also melting like a little jelly ball at work. These are not newly spat-out ideas in reaction to my current situation, but thoughts I’ve hardened into concrete points over my years of working on many things for many people in many places. I have yet to fully complete this list, and I have yet to fully do everything this list.

> HOW TO OVERCOME IMPOSTOR SYNDROME, BECAUSE I TOTALLY KNOW

• Be confident in your craft. You’re where you are for a reason, and you have the ability to do what is expected of you.

• Absorb the fuck out of everything. Take in everything that is happening around you. Listen to what people are saying and pay attention to how they think. Commit it to memory. Understand that this is how things happen in the world.

  • Okay, that was super vague, but I’m serious. Don’t be cocky! The more you understand your environment and the decisions people make, the more valuable knowledge you gain that you can apply to other places and situations.

• At the same time, be flexible and aware - take everything with a grain of salt, because context, cultures, and biases change. Be wary about blindly learning, even from the people you respect the most.

• Learn. Even if you’re not in school, you’re not done learning. You can always improve, and this will help you build confidence. Look for resources that will help you hone your knowledge and skill set.

• Understand when you need to change.

• Talk to your seniors in times of uncertainty. Getting more in touch with the people who are in the places that you want to be will ease your anxiety. Plus, no one, or at least, no one good ever denied a hungry child. Unless they were in a meeting.

• Check your work twice before you submit it to Perforce

  • especially if you’re a fast worker

Disclaimer: I don’t know how to overcome impostor syndrome. I’m new in town and I’m not you. Stress is different for everyone; these steps will not quell every tide. But this helps me ground myself when I need to, and maybe it will help you.

Disclaimer 2: sorry if this reads like an overconfident self-help book from the Business section of Barnes and Noble. i’m not that guy, i promise

Truly A Labor Of Love

Sorry to get a little sappy (I’m not actually sorry), but ultimately, I think these thoughts because my life consists of making art, and I value making art.

Where would I be without the ability to create art?

Where would I be without art?

I commit myself to betterment for the sake of the irreplaceable anchors in my life that I value. The same goes for the people I know, appreciate, and love. It can be tough to stay en route - but do right by everything and everyone, and hopefully everything and everyone will do right by you.

Anyways, phew. This one was short. Reasoning being, it’s 3:30AM and I need to wake up early tomorrow to get my work to a place that I’d like it to be at. So, as always, thanks for reading! 💖

P.S., you may have noticed that there’s a lot of vague language in this post, and that’s because I’m under like eight NDAs.

P.P.S., that write-up of Mini Motorways is coming soon. I promise.