Simple Things is actually not that Simple

Let’s say I want to eat an apple, how difficult could it be? I just go to the supermarket and by myself an apple. Of course, I would need to drive myself there and find a parking first. Then I have to look for the fruit section, which shouldn’t be too difficult. I have to see whether the apple is nice and fresh, which might require some skills. Is the price right? Hmm. Never mind, I’ll grab a few of them based on my fruit buying instinct.

I will go to the car park to find my car and drive myself home. It’s time to enjoy my precious apple, so I have to wash it to clear of the wax and poison on the surface. I use the knife to cut the apples into pieces, and then I found one of them to have a worm in it. So I try another, where this apple has a few black spots and doesn’t look good. Then I try with the 3rd one, and luckily it turn out alright.

I put the sliced apples on a plate and bring it to the living room, so that I can enjoy it while watching TV, perfect! Upon the first bite, I found that the apple is actually not sweet, another disappointment. And at the end, I still have to disposed of the remains of the apple and wash the plate, after an unsatisfactory experience of eating an apple. I am lucky if the pesticide is not too thick and poison me, or caused cancer in the long run.

Of course, I can always buy a nicely sliced apple from the roadside vendor to save all the hassle (but they usually don’t sell apple). There is no guarantee that it is nice and sweet either, and definitely it will be more expensive.

Is eating an apple simple? Sure it is, most of the time. There more you do it, there better you are. You will know the shortcut to the supermarket, and where to find a good parking. You’ll know the price and how to pick a good apple. You will be skillful in slicing the apple, and you might know to make apple juice or apple pie as well. The moral of the story is: it is always painful the first time you do it. But once you know how to get around it, everything should go your way (as usual, no guarantee as well).

Why I think of such a long crappy buying apple story? I want to be programmer, and just be a good programmer. This is a simple dream, but not that simple as well. The company I work for might not be a good software house with proper software development practices. If others can provide what I need, I might as well run my own software house. Then I shifted my small sets of problem to entire bigger sets of issues to be handled. I need to find an office, do renovation, employ people, and do a whole other load of work to run a company. I need to worry about sales, marketing, human resource, accounting, development and a whole ton of issues. The small dream of being a good programmer and running my humble software house could turn out to be quite a big thing as well. And since this is the first time, AUCHHH! Hopefully the experience is worth it :)