Build With Joy

Why is Joy Important When Building?

For some strange reason, we deny the feeling of joy in so much of the work that we do. We confuse it as being a distraction. We think that work requires a grind-set mentality: serious uncompromising focus. Joy is play, and play is not work.

This is an absurd way to approach work. Joy is not a distraction to work done well. If anything, joy amplifies good work. We work quickly when not slowed by the dragging weight of reluctance, boredom, or disinterest. Joy keeps this weight away. Same as a rolling stone gathers no moss, a joyful worker gathers no apathy.

Approaching our work with excitement, with joy, with good will and openness to being wow’d, this is the best way to approach work because it positions you closer to that many named, well-known state of effortless work. Here we’ll call it flow.

Joy is an incredibly powerful source of motivation. The more joy you feel doing your work, the easier it becomes, the less it wears you down. If you don’t feel joy when programming—and it might not come right away—but if it never comes, then this job might not be for you. You need to love it to handle the gut punches of a challenge that defeats you. To keep getting back up and trying again, actually becoming more stubborn, more determined, more excited each time because you feel this joy of doing. This is incredibly important.

There’s another benefit to building with joy: it makes others want to work with you.

We limit our ability for collaboration by limiting our willingness to be and show excitement.

That is from Joe Hudson. Working with someone who is fresh and excited is a breeze—you want to work with them. Working with someone who is downcast and unbothered is hard. No one wants to work with someone like that. So the more we build with joy, the more we improve our ability to collaborate with others, which is extremely important in becoming a strong programmer. Why? Because community is everything.

References

Lenny’s Podcast - How Embracing Your Emotions Will Accelerate Your Career ~17:07 Joe Hudson does a supreme job of explaining the usefulness, the necessity of joy when building.