Playtime (Chapter 4)
Once in Italy my partner and I were sitting in a restaurant. The waiter arrived to take our order. He was a charismatic guy, full of energy and passion. He made few jokes and recommended his favourite wine. In few minutes he made us feel really good and comfortable.
The restaurant was not fancy or expensive, but with this waiter the service was excellent. It was clear that he likes his job and he does it very well.
Everytime I met these passionate people, doing the job what they love, I realised, there is a good chance that I can also bring passion into my everyday work. But what would that be? It’s a funny question, what these days a lot of people started to ask and it is becoming a good business to guide people find their ‘dream job’. As I look back, whenever I tried hard, I never succeeded.
Years went by with experimenting different things, imagining if that would be THE job for me. Then one day as I was working on a side project (I was building a website for kids to practice maths) I got blocked and needed help to figure out how to proceed. I found a tutorial, where a funny guy explained on a playful way how that topic works. His name is Travis Neilson who is a self taught designer. He made even more videos, which are more design focused with so simple explanation. Without noticing, I made a step back from coding and I started to design the math app. It was fun and I was like: when to use what color? How about the typeface? Can I make kids feel something just by playing around with visuals on the screen?
Later the math app failed as a project, but I won as a person. I hopped on the design train, started to learn, practice and I never stopped again. I am making thousands of mini discoveries in this world which is moving me forward. My favorite one comes from Travis: playing with something brings understanding, sitting and reading makes you sleep.
