Fear of Coding

So today I had a hard day.

Actually, it has been a hard week. Never mind that I have been sick for the last 2 weeks. I mean, really sick (really, now is that time I get sick)!
Never mind that I had to re-start my final project this week.
Never mind that for whatever reason, the right code just won’t come into my brain and out through my fingertips.

Hence, today was a hard day for me.

So I didn’t freak out, (cause my project is due in a week!) like I would have done in the past. I decided to come home, recharge a bit, and then reboot to start anew. Maybe working on a side project would get me into the groove of things again?

Never mind side project, even you are not working right (I wrote the form, but its not rendering….anywhere…wtf)! So, ok, fine…I get it. Today is not a good coding day, I decided that if i can’t code properly right now, the least I can do is do some online reading to help myself out and see what I can do better so that tomorrow is a better day.

Lo and behold I find a Quora question: How do I overcome fear of coding?

I couldn’t help but read the answers to that one. And truly, they surprised me. I didn’t know that there were experienced programmers that felt the same way as I did. And what was more surprising….there were a bunch of other questions being asked just like this one. All of being asked along this theme of being afraid of coding, feeling insecure that they can’t do the job. Even a programmer with 10 yrs experience, many successful projects, scared about doing their own side projects. There was also a beautiful rank about the emotion of programming, and how you must repress it to get through the project of coding.

So this isn’t just a me thing after all.

Here’s hoping that tomorrow is my day to feel like a programming God. I could sure use the pick me up after the last week I have had. At least I am not afraid.