The ULTIMATE Virtue In LIFE (For Programmers Too)

Today I will give you a topic which I think is a good important lesson in life that even applies to you as programmers.

And in this video, what I’m gonna be talking about is something called non-attachment.

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Transcript Of The Video

John Sonmez: I thought I would give you a topic today which is something that I’ve been talking about on my other channel, the Bulldog Mindset. And I’ve been talking about in terms of dating and relationships and I still feel like you know what, just such a good, important lesson in life that even applies to you programmers, that’s right. And to your careers and to life in general, right? So what we’re going to be talking about is something called non-attachment. If you guys are just joining me for the first time, I am John from simpleprogrammer.com and this channel, what do I teach you on this channel? I guess a lot of stuff about life, about career, about software development, mostly the stuff that other people don’t tell you, the soft skills so to speak. I’ve got a good book on the subject called Complete Software Developer Career Guide.

Look up in the cards or in the link and description below. It is the number one best selling software development book on Amazon right now in the software online category for Kindle Books so go check that out. I’ve got an audio version as well. All right, what are we talking about today? We’re talking about non-attachment, okay? What this means is that it’s really like the way that applies to you in your life in general is that it means that you are able to experience life, you’re able to open yourself to go fully into life, okay? To whatever you’re pursuing, okay? And again, you might be saying, “Well, how’s does this apply as a software developer?” I’ll get there just chill with me for a second here. What I mean is that you go into life, okay, and you’re open. That means you’re open to experience, that means you’re open to rejection, that means you’re open to losing, to failure, to scraping your knees a little bit, okay?

But you don’t attach yourself to the outcomes or to the things in your life, right? Let me give you some instances here, right? Again, I was talking about doing this on the Bulldog Mindset channel where I talk more about masculinity type of topics, being a man, dating, that kind of stuff. If you’re interested in that, go check out that channel. But in that context, I was talking about how you can fall in love, okay, but not be attached.

I was talking about how a lot of us guard our hearts, right? We’re afraid of being hurt and so we act like zombies, we don’t give ourselves fully and we’re doing that to protect ourselves because we know that we will form an attachment if we open ourselves. But truly to ascend to the higher state of living of really experiencing life requires you to get to a point where you can still open yourself, give yourself fully let’s say in a relationship, you could fall in love, okay, maybe in an instant, all right? And you’re willing to let that go. Maybe it’s a short-term, maybe it’s just a fling, maybe it’s just some girl you met at the bar then you fall madly in love with her, okay, for a night and that’s it. And you’re fully expressive of yourself and who you are. And then the next day, you’re willing to just let her go. You don’t have to but you’re willing to. You don’t hold onto that thing, you have a non-attachment. You’re living your life to your full passion, okay, but you’re letting everything go.

Again, now let’s apply this to you as a software developer. How does this apply to your life in general, okay? Well, you have all these ambitions, don’t you, right? I hear it all the time, right? You guys email me you’re like, “John, my parents want me to do this. They want me to become… I want to make money. I feel like I’m…” You have all these things that you want to do, okay? These are things you don’t have control over, okay? There’s a lot of luck involved in life. I’m sorry to tell you this, but that’s how it is, right? But we do have control over what your actions are, what you do. In your career as a software developer, can I guarantee you that as you’re learning Python or C Sharp, whatever language that you’re going to be successful, I can’t guarantee you. What I can guarantee you is that if you put in the work and you’re open yourself and you’re willing to take the risks, you will have the best shot possible.

But if you do nothing, if you’re afraid to open yourself, if you’re attached to what you’re holding onto in life right now where you’re at your security right now and you’re not willing to take that risk, then you won’t make it. You won’t get there. You’ll just stay where you’re at. And so this message of non-attachment, right? Opening, but non-attachment, right? Being fully present, but non-attached, it’s a message for living your life, it applies to your career, it’s about being outcome independent. You don’t care about the results you care about the process, right? I talk about trusting the process, right? I got a shirt that says, “Trust the process.” I used to be able to buy through Simple Programmer, okay?

I made that shirt for a reason is because when you trust the process, what you’re doing is you’re saying, “I’m going to do what I know is the best choice based on information and knowledge that I have right now and I’m going to go forward with that. And whatever happens, whatever the results are, that’s not me. That’s not my responsibility. I’m not responsible for the goals. I’m responsible for executing as best as I can on the process and trusting that process and trusting that if I follow the process, if I do the thing, that that will give me the best opportunity of having the best results even though I can’t control those results.”

And again, that’s not attachment. It’s letting go. It’s letting go of the expectation, right? To really take the non-attachment to the highest level, it’s to say that everything in your life is borrowed. You own nothing, nothing belongs to you. She doesn’t belong to you, your money doesn’t belong to you, even your body, right? All the atoms that make up your body, guess where they’re going someday? They’re going back, okay? They’re going back from whence they came, to the dirt. And when you realize this in life and you accept this, all of a sudden all those negative emotions that you feel guess what happens? They disappear. Why? Because the negative emotions comes from expectation. It’s when we expect something but we don’t get it. Someone doesn’t meet our expectations, life doesn’t meet our expectations. When we let go of all those expectations, which is non-attachment, we no longer feel the negative emotions because we’re willing to accept, acceptance is part of this, whatever it is.

And when you carry your life through that that way, what will happen is that that feeling you have in your stomach of, what if I don’t make it. Or I have all this pressure from my parents. I got to be a success and I got to make good money. I got to get through school and my friends are making more money than me and I don’t know. I don’t even know how to talk to girls and am I ever going to have kids? Am I going to get married? Am I going to… All of these things, right, it just dissolves because it doesn’t matter because it’s not yours, you can’t control it anyway. You can only do the best that you can and you’re not attached to those things. It also allows you to leap, to take a jump from this stone to the next stone to cross the river because you’re not attached to the stone you’re standing on.

You’re not attached to the job, you’re not attached to the relationships that you have right now. You’re willing to let go of the things that no longer serve you like the Phoenix burning up after one life has finished and then being reborn through those flames as a new life. You’re able to do that when you let go. That’s my message for you guys today. Let go, be non-attached and live your best life. Do what you can, trust the process, right? Figure it out what makes sense in your life and then go for it. Don’t worry about all this shit, don’t worry about what your parents say, don’t worry about what the world… Don’t worry about what you’re supposed to do, doesn’t matter. None of it’s yours anyway, you don’t get to keep it. We’re just playing the game, we’re just dancing, we’re just dancing. This is just the dance.

You have to enjoy the dance because the music is going to end someday. And you know what? It’s not going to be about who made the most correct dance moves. And we’re not playing DDR, Dance Dance Revolution. It’s going to be about the experience of it. So you got to treat life that way. You got to let go. You got to be non-attached. All right, guys, hope you enjoyed this video. It’s kind of fun to make but we’ll get back to some more serious topics next week.