The Passionate Programmer

In our culture, there’s something sacred about following the advice of your parents. It’s seen as a child’s duty and ranks up there with doing one’s religious duty as The Right Thing to do. Books, movies, and television plots are hinged on the parents’ wisdom as a moral. But for careers in our industry, this moral is wrong.
Your parents would rather you be OK than have a remarkable career at the cost of great personal risk. More than any other third party you might look to, your parents are going to give you fear-driven advice. Fear-driven advice is geared toward not losing. Thinking about not losing is not the way to win! Winners take risks. They think about where they want to go—not where the rest of the pack is. Fear-driven career planning is more likely to land you in a cubicle farmfor the rest of your life than on the path to greatness. Sure, it’s safe, but it’s no fun.
A generation ago, fun wasn’t a deciding factor when we talked about career choices. Jobs aren’t supposed to be fun. They’re supposed to bring home the bacon. Fun is what you do on your off days. Fun happens in the evenings and weekends. But if your job isn’t fun, as we’ve come to realize, you don’t do a fantastic job at it. It’s not so much that
things are different now, but our cultural understanding of what it means to work has shifted for the better. More of us understand that passion leads to excellence. And without fun, there’s unlikely to be any passion in a software job.
Another career decision-making factor that is likely not in line with your parents’ view of the working world is that it’s OK (and often preferable) to change jobs.