What's relatable to me about your post as well as the ancestors posts is mostly about the comfort level allowing one to actually enjoy the industry.
For example, when I wasn't comfortable, I was always chasing the next language/framework so that I was marketable to someone else's company, and this was actually at the expense of the best solution for whatever company I was at. It was always like "lets make this new microservice, in this new language", "let's refactor this whole project but blame 100% of it on the prior developer and no other ulterior motive whatsoever", "what's the personal development budget again? sure, I'll tell you all about my goal of learning this new language you don't use". Most of the engineers are doing it. If you're drowning, save yourself first.
and now its fantasticaly liberating for me to simply not have to do that! It opens up other possibilities I couldn't understand, such as learning a super niche and new language even if the payoff wasn't clear, this allows me to contribute to projects that I would have ruled out and ironically become more marketable when the premium is highest. It allows me to dive deeper into more time-tested languages, and more.
For example, when I wasn't comfortable, I was always chasing the next language/framework so that I was marketable to someone else's company, and this was actually at the expense of the best solution for whatever company I was at. It was always like "lets make this new microservice, in this new language", "let's refactor this whole project but blame 100% of it on the prior developer and no other ulterior motive whatsoever", "what's the personal development budget again? sure, I'll tell you all about my goal of learning this new language you don't use". Most of the engineers are doing it. If you're drowning, save yourself first.
and now its fantasticaly liberating for me to simply not have to do that! It opens up other possibilities I couldn't understand, such as learning a super niche and new language even if the payoff wasn't clear, this allows me to contribute to projects that I would have ruled out and ironically become more marketable when the premium is highest. It allows me to dive deeper into more time-tested languages, and more.