The Challenge To Avoid Bad Karma As a Software Programmer

Programming software is a mental challenge. I have 20 years of programming experience and want to tell you a lesson about my insight from a spiritual point of view. To meet the project goals you are under time and quality pressure and at the same time your mistakes and the consequences of these mistakes cause negative thoughts which result into bad karma if you are inexpertly of the necessary spiritual methods to avoid such bad karma. Proper contemplation, mind and thoughtfulness especially about your own criticism on others and meditation can help you to stay balanced. However many programmers lack of these spiritual skills and cause unnecessary negative thought spirals in their jobs that often ultimately result to a cancelation of their job position and hiring of other candidates for the same tasks. This is true for other technology related jobs as well because they all require not only technical and mental skills but also social and spiritual skills as well.

So how can you avoid such negative spirals in the first place? First and foremost you have to realize that you have the option to be happy not only when things match your wishes but also when things go wrong. Also wrong might be wrong in your view but right in the view of somebody else. You realize new truths when you let loose of your fixed opinions and help to form a collective opinion of the whole team. The world is not made to fit to us but we must make us fit to the world! See your mistakes as opportunities to learn from your mistakes and develop a growth spirit that always searches for the next even bigger challenge. Clearly communicate the challenges within your team and your success as well. That way you focus on positive aspects of your work and drive the positive spiral instead of a negative one.

Another dangerous psychological mistake many programmers do is that they do a projection of their difficulties in the code and their frustration about the code to other team members. They often try to find somebody responsible for their own frustration and unload their massive frustration either directly to the team member or to the project leader. If you feel frustrated you should never do a projection of these frustrations to other team members. Often the other team members who got targeted that way take that personal and team conflicts as well as negative team relationships are the result. A good project leader will recognize you as the root cause for these conflicts and build an assessments about you accordingly. Instead simply wait and take a break, search for your own proposals how to do something better and offer such options to improve the code to the project leader when you calmed down and found your balance again. It is often wise to take personal notes of the difficulties that cause frustration, keep those personal notes hidden until the next day and look at them in a new fresh mood the next day to find solutions. Then you can offer solutions to your project leader and you avoid a negative spiral from your bad karma of all your negative thoughts.

From buddhism teachings you can learn that your expectations are always paired with disappointments and achievements. Don't put your expectations too high or too low. Therefore always keep a realistic view of yourself. This helps to improve step by step without too much frustration but with enough motivation from your success stories. I wish you good luck with your projects and a path to prosperity!

Bernhard