He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe. – Zeno of Citium
Reflection
You've been heads down for a while.
One bug leads to another. Something breaks. Something holds. Then it shifts again.
It's close now. Feels steady. Reads well. Nothing feels rushed.
Then things shift. The goal moves, or someone new steps in with a different take.
You feel it settle in before the meeting even ends.
That edge in your gut. The part that wants to resist it.
But the work wasn't lost. It taught you how to start again without losing your footing.
The Stoics understood this kind of disruption.
Zeno said, "He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe."
In development, that means working with change instead of resenting it.
No roadmap stays fixed. Feedback always arrives late. You don't get to steer the wind, but you do set the sail.
The developers who last don't treat change as a threat.
They pause, get clear, and move with it.
They rebuild with less noise and more intention.
They write code that adapts.
Their systems hold steady when things shift.
What follows is often stronger than what they started with.
Today's Insight
You don't control the shift.
You control how you move through it.
Action Steps
- Sometimes, the best first move is to do nothing - Let the shift breathe. Let your thoughts catch up. Clarity shows up when the reaction steps aside.
- Get clear on what changed - Talk to the person behind the request. Try to understand what shifted on their end. Most confusion comes from not asking early enough.
- Write like the code will need to move again - Keep your functions small. Name things so someone else won't have to guess. Build in ways that let the structure grow without breaking.
Consider This
Think back to a moment when everything shifted late.
Did you meet it with resistance or pause long enough to adjust with clarity?