Its not a bug, its a feature

 


I was always a little odd kid, compared to the rest of the children in my surrounding, that is. When all the kids were chasing the empty can they found on the street pretending to play "football", I was looking at how that exact can bounces of the curb, admiring the symmetry of the collision angles. I was fascinated by the intricacies of the bouncing trajectories, from the simple act of playing marbles to the mesmerizing chaos that unfolds as balls disperse across pool tables. 

Long story short, I was the strange kid in the bunch. That impostor syndrome persisted in me for a long time through high school and college, just the topics changed. I was always considering it a bug, part of my non-fitting-in character. 

What I realized growing up, was that a small perception shift can change my bugs into features. The paradigm shift was: What if I can use a given peculiar quirk of mine into a skill I can get a value from. I don't mean like business point value, I mean more like improve the world for the better, in any way possible. And then something clicked. 

  • If being bad at playing football is a bug, learning how the Coriolis effect works on the flying ball would be a useful feature for all sports. I later competed in my high school volleyball team.
  • If not understanding some topic would be a bug, asking dumb questions until I grasp the gist of it, would be a feature. I use this skill every day since then. 
  • If not being able to play a guitar would be a bug, learning how to build one from scratch would be a feature. Now days I can talk "guitar" to any musician
  • If being a vegan is a bug, being able to cook vegan meal would be a great feature.
  • If being a poor photographer is a bug, being able to code a Photoshop plugin is an awesome feature.
  • If noticing tiny details and obsessing over potential problems is a bug, honing debugging skills for memory leaks is great feature. This became my job actually
Bottom line is, I stopped identifying myself by my bugs, and devoted my time on upbringing my strange skills. It was a great paradigm shift. So cherish your quirks, but make them valuable, for you and for the rest of the world.

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