Swizec Teller - a geek with a hatswizec.com

Senior Mindset Book

Get promoted, earn a bigger salary, work for top companies

Senior Engineer Mindset cover
Learn more

    the trashcan metaphor

    Your teacher puts down a trashcan at the front of the class.

    "Ok class, crumple up a piece of paper and throw it in the bin from where you are"

    You can stand up, climb on your chair, even your desk. Your ball can be loose or crumpled hard, light paper or heavy. But you can't leave your spot.

    Ball in trash is an A. Rim is B, side of can is C, everyone else gets an F.

    That’s equality as it works today. Something feels unfair πŸ€”

    In life there are no guarantees and that's okay. Guaranteeing success wouldn't be fair either.

    But you have to understand we're all running a different race.

    Some of us ran a marathon to start the sprint. Others have a broken leg or wind in their face. Yet others get 3 extra balls to throw at that stupid trashcan.

    You play the cards you have, not the cards you wish you had. Help others play theirs.

    Cheers,
    ~Swizec

    Published on April 30th, 2021 in Opinions

    Did you enjoy this article?

    Continue reading about the trashcan metaphor

    Semantically similar articles hand-picked by GPT-4

    Senior Mindset Book

    Get promoted, earn a bigger salary, work for top companies

    Learn more

    Have a burning question that you think I can answer? Hit me up on twitter and I'll do my best.

    Who am I and who do I help? I'm Swizec Teller and I turn coders into engineers with "Raw and honest from the heart!" writing. No bullshit. Real insights into the career and skills of a modern software engineer.

    Want to become a true senior engineer? Take ownership, have autonomy, and be a force multiplier on your team. The Senior Engineer Mindset ebook can help πŸ‘‰ swizec.com/senior-mindset. These are the shifts in mindset that unlocked my career.

    Curious about Serverless and the modern backend? Check out Serverless Handbook, for frontend engineers πŸ‘‰ ServerlessHandbook.dev

    Want to Stop copy pasting D3 examples and create data visualizations of your own? Learn how to build scalable dataviz React components your whole team can understand with React for Data Visualization

    Want to get my best emails on JavaScript, React, Serverless, Fullstack Web, or Indie Hacking? Check out swizec.com/collections

    Did someone amazing share this letter with you? Wonderful! You can sign up for my weekly letters for software engineers on their path to greatness, here: swizec.com/blog

    Want to brush up on your modern JavaScript syntax? Check out my interactive cheatsheet: es6cheatsheet.com

    By the way, just in case no one has told you it yet today: I love and appreciate you for who you are ❀️

    Created by Swizec with ❀️