I hope it is not a midlife crisis, because I hope to live longer than 56 years, but lately I’ve been feeling a lot like I need to figure out what I want to be when I grow up, and I’ve been a bit all over the place about it.

Sometimes I feel like I want to do something completely different, sometimes I feel like I need to attempt to excel in the field I’m in. Lately it has been more the latter, which is good, because that is slightly less scary than starting all over. I’m good at what I do, but I’d like to be better.

So then the question arises of how exactly would I like to excel in the field of Software Engineering? Do I leave the company I’m at and try to invent some super software that I sell for a lot of money? Do I try to write some awesome open source software and sell books about it and get warm fuzzies that people all over the world are using my software to make their lives easier? Do I go back to school and get a PhD and do research and stuff like that?

I don’t know :)

I have, however, been reading a book that is very good that has been helping me figure out some short term things I can do to do a better job at honing my skills and staying relevant in the field. It is a poorly titled book, because it isn’t really about the issue of outsourcing jobs to 3rd world countries, but more about how to keep your skills sharp and market yourself so that you should be able to keep your job or at least get one that you want.

The book is called My Job Went To India and it is a very easy read and I highly recommend that anyone in a software industry job pick it up and give it a read.