To be whole is the goal

In Nat Eliason’s post “Be Yourself, Not a Niche” he encourages us to blog about whatever we are interested in, instead of fitting a specific niche. When I made the goal of consistently blogging in 2021, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it up if I was trying to stick to a particular topic. Reading Nat’s post was encouraging.

I’ve been thinking about past attempts at maintaining an online presence and how I stuck to a niche - Front End Development. Doing so has led to promising career opportunities. Unfortunately, the act of maintaining such a presence is ultimately unsatisfying.

Brené Brown distinguishes between fitting in vs. belonging in The Gifts of Imperfection.

“Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.” - Brené Brown

If I am being honest, I have only fit in to the Tech Industry and Development community; I have never really belonged. It is impossible to belong when you feel you have to prove how smart and talented you are to be worthy of a place.

There’s a YouTuber I follow, Ruseberry. I subscribed to her because her channel had videos about being a Web Developer. A few months ago, she started posting videos of her dancing. They are freaking awesome. It is an absolute delight to see her embrace femininity and joy on her channel. It is almost antithetical to the typically lauded and rewarded masculine qualities in the Web Development/Software Engineering community. She inspires me to bring my complete self to this little spot on the internet, without second-guessing.