My joy has tended to be external to work to a large extent, with my son who has cerebral palsy and was expected to only live to five or six, and despite epileptic fits etc. will be turning 30 in February next year. I am not saying that joy cannot be found in working conditions but is solely dependent on the organizational culture in a particular organization. Having worked for 47 years in financial services i can confirm that they tend more towards command and control than Joy.
Many thanks for this, Robert. This is a really good example of how joy can arise even in difficult circumstances, in fact may arise _because_ you're in difficult circumstances. For you, there would, I presume, be a certain amount of justifiable pride in your success from all of your hard work with your son's challenges, and a real sense of quiet joy at those successes, too.
On "I can confirm that they tend more towards command and control than joy" - well, yeah, that rather illustrates the point, doesn't it? (though there are some people who _do_ find their joy when they're in a context of command-and-control). It's perhaps not so command-and-control itself, but the use of command-and-control to _suppress_ joy, to emphasise that you are here to be an under-control-at-all-times slave, with enforced misery and soullessness as a means to remind you of that status. Others' joy is a threat to the covert-crybaby types, because it indicates that you may break free of control; and also creates intense jealousy and envy because joy is perhaps the one state that they can never achieve.
We each have to find joy where we can, in our own contexts, sometimes in the workplace but more often away from it.
I'd like to suggest that rather than looking for joy that progress in our work is what helps. What I mean is it's a clear sense of progress relative to a meaningful goal or objective that brings satisfaction. Alas, with much knowledge work 'immeasurement' is a real problem.
"rather than looking for joy" - oh, a definite 'yes' on that. That's why I ended the post with "wherever we allow ourselves to find it - or, perhaps, wherever we allow it to find us."
"progress in our work is what helps" - again, a definite yes (as indicated by the builder's story, for example). Joy is quite different to happiness - the latter can often be quite short-lived, and can often also be triggered by known, predictable activities or things. By contrast, joy creeps up on us, quietly, accumulating over time, as you say. And if we push for it to happen, it's likely to vanish, or fade away into the distance: it doesn't work the same way as that (in)famous 'pursuit of happiness'.
Perhaps one of the best analogies would be Robert Pirsig's description of 'fishing for facts': if try to force it to happen, it'll disappear into hiding; but if we allow it to happen, maybe one small fish will take a nibble at the line. It's probably not the right fish - perhaps a moment's brief gaiety, in this analogy - but if we let that happen, and accept when it goes, rather than trying to hold on to it,, then that little fish may have friends who drop by for a longer stay; and the right kind of metaphoric fish may be in amongst them. That sort of thing, anyway.
People are obsessive about fun than joy. Joy is a longtime reward.
Whenever I am down I just browse through playstore apps. There are millions of apps, so much enthusiasm.
https://app.daily.dev/ , dzone, infoq so many nice articles. These are all our own efforts.
The Three Rules of TDD by Uncle Bob
1. Write production code only to pass a failing unit test.
2. Write no more of a unit test than sufficient to fail (compilation failures are failures).
3. Write no more production code than necessary to pass the one failing unit test.
Scaling of Agile similar to that Scaling the above idea
1. Use something in life if there is necessity. (A failure to to be atttended)
2. Simulate the failed production test to feel the reality. Do I need this, that etc let's review
3. Don't develop more than what was required to fix the simulated test.
Let's analyze the case.
1. We are already in sort of abundance world. Failure on our part evidently is we are wasting resources, time.
2. List down our daily activities and what makes our day.
3. Discard or let us not entertain those that is not required "to make our day".
The above will build gratitude on Nature. No Joy without gratitude. No gratitude without sincerity. No sincerity without living in reality. Living in reality requires courage to accept pain (austerity).
I'll admit I don't follow the connection to code-development - that's your world rather than mine (though it used to mine too about forty years ago...). But on this point, yes, I understand fully: "Discard or let us not entertain those that is not required "to make our day"." It reminds me so much of the literal meaning of the English term 'satisfaction' as 'enough-making' - Latin 'satis', enough, 'factum', to make. Satisfaction, going no further than we need, is a well known factor towards joy.
I cancelled my audible membership as I have dozens of unread books. It costs Rs. 199 per month which is one taxi ride. I can afford. But by cancellation I have shown I am respectful for the app, books, authors and not taking that facility for granted. May be I will resume once "yet to listen" list comes down (i.e., once backlog is cleared). Anyways that's my attitude. Job loses may happen if all have that though 😊
Glad you got the main point. "uncle Bob 3 TDD" you can search. Very famous from clean code book. The 4th step he says refactor and remove duplication and encourage re-use. So we have to reuse our resources than buy new, ofcourse where possible, in that analogy. It's the level of regulated way of living we live than living like on whims and fancies. In castaway movie Tom Hanks had lots of gratitude for that volleyball.
Hi Tom
My joy has tended to be external to work to a large extent, with my son who has cerebral palsy and was expected to only live to five or six, and despite epileptic fits etc. will be turning 30 in February next year. I am not saying that joy cannot be found in working conditions but is solely dependent on the organizational culture in a particular organization. Having worked for 47 years in financial services i can confirm that they tend more towards command and control than Joy.
Oh well,
Many thanks for this, Robert. This is a really good example of how joy can arise even in difficult circumstances, in fact may arise _because_ you're in difficult circumstances. For you, there would, I presume, be a certain amount of justifiable pride in your success from all of your hard work with your son's challenges, and a real sense of quiet joy at those successes, too.
On "I can confirm that they tend more towards command and control than joy" - well, yeah, that rather illustrates the point, doesn't it? (though there are some people who _do_ find their joy when they're in a context of command-and-control). It's perhaps not so command-and-control itself, but the use of command-and-control to _suppress_ joy, to emphasise that you are here to be an under-control-at-all-times slave, with enforced misery and soullessness as a means to remind you of that status. Others' joy is a threat to the covert-crybaby types, because it indicates that you may break free of control; and also creates intense jealousy and envy because joy is perhaps the one state that they can never achieve.
We each have to find joy where we can, in our own contexts, sometimes in the workplace but more often away from it.
I'd like to suggest that rather than looking for joy that progress in our work is what helps. What I mean is it's a clear sense of progress relative to a meaningful goal or objective that brings satisfaction. Alas, with much knowledge work 'immeasurement' is a real problem.
"rather than looking for joy" - oh, a definite 'yes' on that. That's why I ended the post with "wherever we allow ourselves to find it - or, perhaps, wherever we allow it to find us."
"progress in our work is what helps" - again, a definite yes (as indicated by the builder's story, for example). Joy is quite different to happiness - the latter can often be quite short-lived, and can often also be triggered by known, predictable activities or things. By contrast, joy creeps up on us, quietly, accumulating over time, as you say. And if we push for it to happen, it's likely to vanish, or fade away into the distance: it doesn't work the same way as that (in)famous 'pursuit of happiness'.
Perhaps one of the best analogies would be Robert Pirsig's description of 'fishing for facts': if try to force it to happen, it'll disappear into hiding; but if we allow it to happen, maybe one small fish will take a nibble at the line. It's probably not the right fish - perhaps a moment's brief gaiety, in this analogy - but if we let that happen, and accept when it goes, rather than trying to hold on to it,, then that little fish may have friends who drop by for a longer stay; and the right kind of metaphoric fish may be in amongst them. That sort of thing, anyway.
People are obsessive about fun than joy. Joy is a longtime reward.
Whenever I am down I just browse through playstore apps. There are millions of apps, so much enthusiasm.
https://app.daily.dev/ , dzone, infoq so many nice articles. These are all our own efforts.
The Three Rules of TDD by Uncle Bob
1. Write production code only to pass a failing unit test.
2. Write no more of a unit test than sufficient to fail (compilation failures are failures).
3. Write no more production code than necessary to pass the one failing unit test.
Scaling of Agile similar to that Scaling the above idea
1. Use something in life if there is necessity. (A failure to to be atttended)
2. Simulate the failed production test to feel the reality. Do I need this, that etc let's review
3. Don't develop more than what was required to fix the simulated test.
Let's analyze the case.
1. We are already in sort of abundance world. Failure on our part evidently is we are wasting resources, time.
2. List down our daily activities and what makes our day.
3. Discard or let us not entertain those that is not required "to make our day".
The above will build gratitude on Nature. No Joy without gratitude. No gratitude without sincerity. No sincerity without living in reality. Living in reality requires courage to accept pain (austerity).
I'll admit I don't follow the connection to code-development - that's your world rather than mine (though it used to mine too about forty years ago...). But on this point, yes, I understand fully: "Discard or let us not entertain those that is not required "to make our day"." It reminds me so much of the literal meaning of the English term 'satisfaction' as 'enough-making' - Latin 'satis', enough, 'factum', to make. Satisfaction, going no further than we need, is a well known factor towards joy.
Other than that we seem to have tried everything else for climate change. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/10/23/be-change/. Like Presidents nature also seems to say "with me or against me".i
I cancelled my audible membership as I have dozens of unread books. It costs Rs. 199 per month which is one taxi ride. I can afford. But by cancellation I have shown I am respectful for the app, books, authors and not taking that facility for granted. May be I will resume once "yet to listen" list comes down (i.e., once backlog is cleared). Anyways that's my attitude. Job loses may happen if all have that though 😊
Glad you got the main point. "uncle Bob 3 TDD" you can search. Very famous from clean code book. The 4th step he says refactor and remove duplication and encourage re-use. So we have to reuse our resources than buy new, ofcourse where possible, in that analogy. It's the level of regulated way of living we live than living like on whims and fancies. In castaway movie Tom Hanks had lots of gratitude for that volleyball.