If you don't know (seriously?), Luffy is the main character of Manga/Anime One Piece. It's about his journey to search the greatest treasure in the world, One Piece. He wants to be a pirate king, and in his journey, he met some friends to go along on his journey.
Me? I am a web developer, still shaping my career here and there. So what I can learn from Luffy? Of course, it's not the gomu-gomu thing. Or become a pirate, even though looks like fun.
For the last, maybe, 6 months I started One Piece marathon. I watched it from Fishman Island Arc until now Land of Wano Arc (shit, now I have to wait to watch the next episode). Every arc has something in common. At the critical moment, there will be someone to help him or his friends. Help from anyone, even from the enemy. Let's take an example :
- The dugong, help Luffy and Law from Pet Pet fruit eater. Luffy met Dugong and fight him and become their master at Arabasta.
- Wadatsumi, help Thousands Sunny escape from Big Mom. Wadatsumi was a bad guy at Fishman Island Arc.
- Mr. 2 (my favorite), help Luffy escape from Impel Down. Even he sacrifices himself to let Luffy go, and remember how he encourages Luffy to get better after got poison from Magellan. T_T. Mr. 2 was a bad guy from Baroque Works.
- Vinsmokes, they help Luffy from Big Mom. Vinsmokes are Sanji's family.
Watching One Piece makes my mind-blowing sometimes. Everything connected.
How I can relate this to my career? I am doing this web developing things from 2011 until now I have met many people and have worked with some companies. Sometimes I didn't realize that what I did some years before will affect the present.
Let's take an example.
Around 2013 I joined a digital agency and that company is using Foundation as their CSS framework. At that time I just knew Bootstrap, Bootstrap is everything. Inside of me insist why should I use Foundation, Bootstrap is more in here and there. But I continue using Foundation. Later I joined my next company, I am still I am using Foundation. Foundation is my number one CSS framework.
TL;DR
I got my first remote job. I worked for a Malaysian company. Someday, there is a chance to meet another team member in Malaysia. And we talked a lot. That time I discovered that I got the job because I mentioned I am using Foundation, not my skills. At least the boss, interested in me because of Foundation. There is some dude who has better skill than me.
That brings me back to 2013. Let say I give up, and still insist on using Bootstrap at that time, maybe I am now still working in Jakarta, struggling with traffic.
See where I am going with this?
Whatever are you doing right now, even the small one, just do it with pride. We don't know what it will bring in the future. And be nice to people, we don't know what the purpose of that we know some dude in our life in the future. There no such things as coincidence.
If you don't get what I am talking about, Pandji has a better explanation.