How Fast Is Fast Enough?

No questions; we have been living challenging and unprecedented times. Despite all of that, as usual, technology does not stop in time and things keep moving forward in all sorts of fields: medicine, engineering, research and development, data analysis, finance, education and so much more. No matter where you decide to focus your attention, technology has reached there and changed the way we see things. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very good sign of progress and evolution, as we tend to use technology to help us understanding difficult problems and find solutions to make our lives easier, but how do we keep up with all of that? I mean, how fast is too fast to keep up with it? Not too long ago we didn’t have to worry about learning things overnight and the access to information was somewhat a luxury due to the fact one had to collect many encyclopedias at home or have frequent visits to the local library. There was no YouTube, Google, Udemy, LinkedIn or any sort of social media, even the concept of social media didn’t exist about 20 or 25 years ago. It took us that long to get to the point where we are today, having meetings online and getting to know people across the globe without ever meeting them in person, the world became our backyards in a sense. These changes, more than ever, have changed our way of seeing life and beyond that, it has changed the way we experience life in a deep and meaningful way. Today we have more processing power on our cell phones than the entire processing power NASA had when they sent men to the moon, we can send more information through a beam of light than Thomas Edison could in 20 tons of cupper wire and this only makes me wonder what else we will be able to see in the coming near future (20 years or so) that will make our current technology look like we were from the stone age. So, where do we fit in all of that? Not only as witness of these crazy fast changes but as a professional how do you contribute to this fast and evolving progress? Well, by taking one step at the time and just moving forward, in my opinion. Those who had the opportunity to watch these things unfolding overtime possibly learned through the years that trying to know in super details about everything is probably the not recommended way to go. I say that because it gets more clear to me as the years go by that no matter what is your specialization (when it comes to technology directly), things will change soon and you will have to update your skills anyways. It appears to me that the rat race just become super powered under the steroids of a more demanding society. Let’s be honest, it’s pretty difficult to decide where to go when one decides to get into this craziness called new tech and make sense of it at all. So many technologies to pick from, so which one is the best? To answer this question, I would like to quote Linus Torvalds, who once stated: “ The fact is, there aren’t just two sides to any issue, there’s almost always a range of responses, and “it depends” is almost always the right answer in any big question.”

So, my answer to this question is: it depends. A long time ago I learned that to answer some questions, one needs to ask even more of what is being asked and this made me realize that some processes are endless, because the only way to find the right answers is by asking even more difficult questions. In science, we had to learn new mathematics to send men to space, but in developing the technology that would make this possible, we had to face more and harder questions to answer. The fact of the matter is that whatever you choose to do (if you want to direct your path to the technology development), start simple and gather the facts you need for the next step. For instance: answer some important questions, such as what would you like to be doing in the future? What do you see yourself involved with in terms of high-tech? What are the challenges you are willing to take to achieve your goals? Then try to work things backwards by trying to see what are the basic foundations that you need to achieve your ultimate goals.

Technology is like a tree with many branches, some of them one can reach a little easier, some of them are longer than others and some are on the top of the tree with difficult access and weak points along the way, meaning you can break the branch and fall all the way down to the ground. If this ever happen then, before you get back to the trunk and start climbing your way from the ground up, choosing better ways to get to the top and avoid the weak points that can lead you to the ground may not be so difficult anymore. The secret is (if you fall) learning your lessons and getting back to the trunk again to start climbing up as soon as you can and as many times as you need to.

In my opinion, this is the way to take charge of the direction your career may take in the future, rather than letting changing technologies dictate how, when or where your direction should be taken, never stop climbing the tree and making sure that you have a firm grasp of the basics, so you can build upon the new discoveries and understand the changes that are coming in a much faster way and perhaps, use them in your favor to speed up your reach all the way up to the top.