Introduction
There is an old fable that has been attributed to various sources, which I’m not concerned about verifying but it goes something like this:
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up knowing it must outrun the fastest lion, or it will be killed and eaten. Every morning a lion wakes up knowing it must outrun the slowest gazelle, or it will starve to death. It does not matter if you are a lion or a gazelle…when the sun comes up each morning, you’d better be running.
Face value
The message here is clear. To survive, you have to keep moving, else become extinct. This is so applicable to the world of IT. Things change so quickly. Of course dinosaurs in IT do exist but in today’s climate more than ever, they are struggling to avoid being relegated to irrelevancy.
Reading between the lions (sic)
In my opinion, the fable offers far more value if you ask yourself whether you would rather be a lion or a gazelle, figuratively speaking, from the point of view of an IT professional and the information explosion we face on most days. How best to deal with it?
Would you rather be a gazelle, trying to be ahead of the curve, having to keep up with every new technology, every vendor’s new product release, every new protocol, read every blog post, twitter feed, RFC, book, listen to every podcast, lab every scenario, attend every event, etc., fearful that you may be gobbled up if you stop?
Or would you rather be a lion and filter out the noise, focus on what is relevant, feast on the juiciest knowledge, that which will sustain you, make you stronger and still give you time to spend with your pride, comfortable in the knowledge that you are at the upper end of the food chain?
Summary
The art of survival is not just about making it through the day. It’s about focussing your efforts in the right place at the right time so you can keep enough energy for the other important things in your life. Be sure to refocus on whatever you are currently doing. It’s less about what you can achieve on a day to day basis but rather what you can sustain throughout your career and life.
Till the next time.