“Turn the negative events in your life to a source of motivation to accomplish your goals. When I got rejected, I used the feelings to compose and write a new song, when I got sick and lost my job, I used the time I had to study and took it as an opportunity to improve my programming skills. When I felt betrayed, I took it as a chance to write a new book that helps evaluate situations in a person’s life. You will not always be at the bottom of the wheel. You just need to look for opportunities when everything in your life seems to be filled with chaos, failures, and pain. Turn your pain into a tool to find inspiration to make this world a better place.”
Change and Get Rich by Rodrigo Bonzerr S. Lopez
The Value of Resiliency – A Programmer’s Mindset
“Don’t be afraid to start over, you might like the new story.”- Unknown author
The ability to look at a negative situation and see through the possibilities and opportunities that a certain challenge may offer. The ability to be resilient to failures that you encounter and evaluate what will be the next steps you will need to figure out a solution for a problem you have encountered.
When I attended a church during a Sunday. One of the things that really got inculcated in my mind was the story of the ball that we try to bounce on a soft pillow vs a ball that we bounce on top of a solid hard surface or floor. If we drop a ball on top of a pillow. The ball most probably will not bounce up high, on the other hand if we try to drop a ball on top of a solid floor. The bigger chance that it will bounce back up higher.
The preacher spoke of the importance of looking at a challenge in front of us as an opportunity to bounce back up higher. If you are to train your child to be prepared to the realities of life. It is important that you train them by letting them face difficult challenges on their own.
Think of all the rejections and failures as an opportunity to bounce back higher, and redirection to something better in your life. For a purpose to become successful and for you to be able to help others. These failures are only chapters in your story that teaches you valuable lessons. If you’ve learned and reflected from the failures you’ve encountered. You can then use these as tools that will carve your way to success.
I believe resiliency is what I love most in programming. There are times that we encounter bugs or errors that we feel we can’t solve, but then suddenly when we have already gotten enough rest. Time to reflect doing other things, redirecting that negative feeling of frustration due to that bug that kept us awake for a couple of days every evening. Then suddenly it hits you, the solution that you need for that problem that you’ve encountered.
I love the programmer’s mindset of finding solutions to problems you encounter, and every problem can have multiple or a number of ways you can try to use or approach in trying to find a certain solution. There are so many possibilities, you just need to believe in yourself first, that you will be able to figure it out and have the willingness to approach people for help when necessary.
I like a quote from one forum that I’ve read and he said that we should become a developer and not just a coder. Because a developer is someone who tries to sharpen his / her skills in terms of problem solving. It’s not just about following along coding tutorials, it’s about becoming innovative and trying to improve on an old idea to make something new out of that old idea. Developer’s are able to pick up quickly because of their mindset of becoming problem solvers, valuing the concept of research, and patching things together based on the different solutions that have been figured out by other fellow developers.
As a musician who encourages other’s and fellow musicians to write their own original songs in our local community of indie bands. I always tell fellow musicians who I admire a lot, on whether they are interested to write their own original songs besides from playing cover music. I have big admiration for fellow musicians who are really good with playing their respective instruments. When I was in my secondary studies, I was one of the laughing stock of my friends because i was really out of tune when singing. I don’t mind them making fun of me, because I do enjoy playing music and singing. I also enjoyed writing. I wrote and wrote and wrote more songs that led me to having a bunch of original songs that I’ve written that I have kept in a binder. At some point, I finally got a chance to start the band Sidhaya with my cousins and some friends. I really enjoyed playing music with them because of our chemistry. This is why I always encourage younger musicians to just enjoy what they love doing. As long as you’re not hurting anyone and your not hurting yourself go for it.
Another thing that I’ve enjoyed in programming is game development. I can really apply a lot of things that I’m really passionate about. Such as coding, problem solving, music composition, story writing and collaboration. I’m lucky enough to have met good people who I enjoy building projects with in our team at HomeTeamGameDev.
I remember when I was a kid I really enjoyed playing games and now I create them. This year I started my first indie game project Datus Quest. I planned how to build an indie game from Jan to April and did plenty of research and watched a lot of tutorials. Then I decided to commit myself to the 100 days of game development and 100 days of code challenge to keep myself motivated to accomplish publishing my first indie game on https://rodprogramdev.itch.io/datus-quest.
For this year 2023, my goal was to implement what I’ve learned in game development through engaging myself in building some solo projects while still contributing to other projects with my team mates and possible other game jams, so that I can start building more game prototypes that can help me expand my knowledge in the different skills that a game developer needs to have. I wanted to further enhance my skills as a game developer, so I am continuously working on improving the necessary skill sets and enjoying the bugs and errors that I encounter along the way.
I hope that you enjoyed reading this article and it helps you in your own journey into overcoming challenges that you might encounter with your learning goals and other aspect of your life.
Rodrigo Bonzerr Lopez 
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