Thank you for all your advice.

One day of doing is worth a billion years of thinking.

The world is material, not imaginary.

There's nothing admirable about charging head-first in the wrong direction.

Perhaps you are a psychic but that is not my case.

"Charging head-first", even in the wrong direction, is the only thing worth doing.

That type of logic is generally used to address the problem of being unwilling to act, for fear of making the decision; and it's reasonable in that context. But taking the time to understand the situation so that you can make the best decision possible (with the available information) is almost always beneficial.

Ya, I guess, or you could just measure twice and cut once

I would argue just the opposite. Thinking without doing accomplishes very little. Doing without thinking might accomplish something, or it might be utterly destructive and take 1000x the amount of "doing" (and a lot of thinking) to undo.

Agreed, but would add that deciding not to do something is an underappreciated action of doing. If the thinking process results in deciding your deployable resources can be better used, how would that not also be "doing". The act of relentless material production seems so wasteful tasteless.

You and GP and all others in this thread of comments.

Can you share anything you've done so that we can all see it?

I'm not sure I see the point in that, since you wouldn't have the context involved in each decision to know if we made a good one. Unless you're specifically looking to identify that we haven't done anything _you_ consider valuable, so our opinion that thinking before we act is important isn't valid.

I can say

- I have a wonder family that loves me (and vice versa)

- I have a place to live and can pay the bills

- The people I work with are glad I'm working with them (and vice versa)

- I've been a software developer for decades and I get to solve new and (what I find) interesting problems on a fairly regular basis. Most of that problem solving involves thinking; with a minor bit of doing at the end.

So overall, I'm pretty happy with where my life philosophy has taken me.

Those things are great things to have, unironically.

You're blessed.

> I've been a software developer for decades and I get to solve new and (what I find) interesting problems on a fairly regular basis. Most of that problem solving involves thinking; with a minor bit of doing at the end

Great answer overall, but this bit specifically is so crucial to maintaining interest long-term. Mechanistic programming needs to be done sometimes, and it's every junior's first impulse when presented with what they think has an obvious solution (see the problem -> start coding, or "why don't we just refactor this? I'll just put in a ton of extra unpaid hours and make everything better"), but that wears thin very quickly to the point of risking burnout.

You need to develop perspective on why you do something and what impact it may or may not have on small or large scales, and put yourself in positions where the majority of your labor goes to understanding how to apply your skills or resources in a sufficient way, given the constraints in front of you and down the line; this isn't just to advance your measurable skills or your resume, but to maintain your interest in what can quickly become incredibly dull and soul-sucking.