Tao Te Ching, Verse II: Make Your Work Impersonal

I want to draw your attention to the last two lines of the verse.

"Work is done, then forgotten.

Therefore it lasts forever."

This ties in pretty well with one of my favourite quotes of all time, which is:

"The love we give away is the only love we keep."

As a Software Engineer, I don't like to take any credit for my work. I don't mean this in a workplace setting. I mean that ultimately, my work doesn't come from me.

It comes from something greater than myself. I discovered coding for the first time at the tender age of 28.

It immediately felt impersonal. Immediately it felt like a gift or talent that was given to me that was not mine.

Almost overnight, I dropped everything to pursue this calling.

I was so grateful to have been single, living a quiet (in its own way) life with no commitments outside of work, and no real social life (booo! we are still working on that). 

I was completely free to pursue what I wanted to be doing - and what it was that I was meant to be doing.

Making Your Work Impersonal

I don't believe that we should do things for ourselves.

I think that we should do things for the greater good. I think that we should do things for something bigger than ourselves - by that I mean the limitless being that we all are. 

The one reality that we all share.

Every time I write a LinkedIn post, I try to forget that I have written it immediately. 

These posts are not written "by me" in a way - they are all impersonal. I channel them - they just come out of me.

And then I let them all go.

Similarly, with my blog posts.

On Software Engineer Princess, I write my blogs in the memory of Alan Turing. Yes of course they are to help me learn, but they are to help others as well,

Learning Lessons

On the last day of my meditation retreat, a beautiful friend from Egpyt gave me the most beautiful present that I have ever received in my life. (Or one of them - I've received 3 exceptionally beautiful gifts this weekend, and so they will all have to take joint first place).

Just before my meditation teacher Rupert was talking about how God is a woman and she likes to improvise things - she might suddenly tear a page out of a script, she might suddenly change everything.

And so I thought: does God maybe have another passion for me? But right after this I slipped out to the bathroom and then met my friend in the corridor and then she gave me her Computer Software Engineering bag that she had had from a friend. It was like the biggest sign that I had ever needed from life.

I am still meant to be doing what I am doing.

As I hugged Rupert goodbye later that day, I thanked him for so many things.

I told him I loved him and he told me he loved me back. The love we share is universal. I love everyone on my retreats and actually going beyond that, I really do love everyone and everything.

I thanked him for some beautiful words that he had said to me the day before - I had had an incredibly emotional time and asked an incredibly deep and emotional question - and he had said some beautiful words to me.

My self confidence was transformed by those words.

But lastly I thanked him for helping me to find my passion for coding and software engineering - specifically in the fields water and renewable energy tech (utilities). As I stood in his great presence, all designs and barriers that I had built up around myself fell away.

And there was only my great passion for coding and software engineering.

I cannot kid myself anymore - this is what I love to do.

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - chapter 2

Under Heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.

Therefore having and not having arise together.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short contrast with each other;
High and low rest upon each other;
Voice and sound harmonize each other;
Front and back follow one another.

Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no talking.
The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease,
Creating, yet not possessing,
Working, yet not taking credit,
Work is done, then forgotten.
Therefore it lasts for ever.