A Bigger Box
If you had to call yourself one thing, what would it be? Writer? Designer? Engineer? Maybe it’s more like Ambitious, Generous, maybe Down To Earth? Got it? Okay. Now, whatever it was that first came to mind, do me a favor and forget it.
Too often we put ourselves in little boxes full of things we already know and are good at. Hey, I don’t blame you. It’s comfortable, it fits naturally, it feels good. But as time goes on, you find yourself getting stir-crazy. You start to notice your box has holes and is getting smaller every day. I realized this for myself about two months ago when I moved to Brooklyn. So I did what any sensible person would. I started building myself a bigger box.
The thing I most like to call myself is a writer. It’s what I’m good at, what I enjoy, and what I do (almost) every day of my life. It’s no surprise it's claimed a pretty big spot in my box. Because of that, I’ve worked in agencies, on small startup teams, and most recently by myself as a freelancer but each one of these environments have challenged me to be so much more than a wordsmith. The tech industry is all about combining ideas to solve a problem, so it's essential to be collaborative if you want to be successful. I've found the easiest way to do this is to learn the full spectrum of a project and for me that meant getting to know designers, developers, and analysts. I've had the fortune to work alongside some pretty talented people and getting inside their heads was a great way to expose myself to new perspectives and workflows.
But before we dive in, a little background: I taught myself how to code HTML and CSS around the age of 13. I would spend days designing N'SYNC fan sites—creating banners, networking through blog rings with other young boyband fans and promoting my site by signing guestbooks. I'd solve my site's problems and get excited when I figured them out. I did this all by learning bits and pieces at a time. Looking back, it was my first foray into front-end development and had I realized at the time how valuable these skills were, who knows where I'd be. But somewhere between slicing images in Photoshop 7 and <a href>ing to my heart's content, I lost interest in creating websites from scratch and went down the art school path. It wasn't until recently that I got a chance to reminisce a bit. One day I sat down with the closest developer I could find (my brother) to co-work with him and a few other young entrepreneurs in Harlem.
As I watched him writing code—making things work and come to life just by typing on a screen—I was reminded of the beauty of programming. I realized that if I understood his process and technique closer than over-the-shoulder, I could begin to understand a lot more about my own job and role as a writer. Contrary to popular belief, when you write content for a website, it doesn't just magically appear on the page. There's a lot that goes into it behind the scenes and I wanted to know more. Now, a lot of advancements had taken place since 2002 and the thought of how much I'd have to learn (and relearn) scared me. But with a quick Google search, I found myself sitting down with Codecademy in my free time (read: while watching Netflix) and forged on. HTML came surprisingly easily, CSS a bit more shaky but tolerable. And then, inspired by my brother, I took a leap. I decided to learn an entirely new language: JavaScript.
I had no idea how much different JS would be, not to mention the amount of math and logic required for the simplest of commands. (Remember the whole art school thing?) The syntax was almost impossible to remember and could actually work in a variety of ways unlike HTML/CSS where there's a bit more rhyme and reason. But eventually something happened. I figured out a lesson all by myself. I made a choose-your-own adventure game (albeit terribly basic) appear on my screen. I created something with code that I wrote with my own two hands and it actually worked! I felt more accomplished in that breadth of {'s and }'s than I had in the past year of writing copy for global brands. And that's exactly the moment my box got a little bigger.
Nowadays it's hard not to silo yourself off, especially if you have job that pays you well to use a fancy signature and rep a specific department. But it's so important to have a thirst for new experiences. One of the most important things you can do to grow personally and professionally is to explore things outside your comfort zone. Outside your box. According to the lesson plans, I'm about 53% done with JS fundamentals. I can't build a gorgeous, high-functioning, bug free website just yet but I'll get there. And that's what you have to keep telling yourself. You can't be afraid to try new things because if you think about it, we were all just beginners in the first place.