If I'm honest, recently I’ve been getting a bit lazy when it comes to keep my skills as sharp as they could be. I’ve got to the stage where I feel I’ve got a pretty good handle on this web design lark. I’m not saying I’m a master by any means, but I’ve surpassed the journeyman stage, and have reach a modest level of ability.

But I realised it's been a while now since I actually learned anything new. Now obviously that’s not entirely true, we all learn new things everyday. Why only yesterday I learned that Slugs actually have 4 noses, but I mean really getting stuck into a new subject, pastime or hobby.

It's so easy to get confident in what you do know, at the expense of not thinking about what you don’t know, and in this industry especially that’s stupid.

The problem is that you start to feel comfortable with what you’re good at, and feel reluctant to go back to that place where you learning, making mistakes and generally just being a bit crap at something. It’s all about ego, and that’s what the Zen Story above tells us.

With web design however, one cannot afford to have such an ego. New technologies are coming along all the time, and old ones are being used in new ways. It’s evolution. Keep up or die. It’s Darwin. My difficulty arises when I want to know what direction to go in.

I was talking with another designer today, and they expressed their exasperation at the sheer scope of web technologies these days, and the phenomenal rate at which they’re developing. You can’t learn everything. You just can’t. So I guess you’ve just got to just got to try something you enjoy, or feel will be useful, and bite the bullet.

Ok I’m procrastinating enough writing this post, so I’ll be off now to start learning Fortran. I hear it’s the latest thing.

I’ll just have a quick cup of tea first.