I confess, it's somewhat of an exaggeration, I don't fiddle and learn new stuff every day. Every now and then I take a calm day during a weekend or week. But other days I find my self caught up in a topic. Getting eccentric. Wanting to learn more. And sometimes I find my self, looking out the window. Watching the sunrise, thinking: "I really need to get to bed"; then I push it a little bit more. Cause it's so freaking fun!
It's not seldom I hear people discuss how many years you have to study to get an exam of X. And the more years they talk about. The bigger the "wow factor" gets. Like studying to become a doctor. My thought: "Poor them". Why? Let me elaborate.
One case is that they are naive. Thinking after an exam, life is simple and easy and you can just start to harvest from what you have learnt in school. These people are probably not speaking out of life experience.
Another option is that they fall into the 8-5 people category. The ones that does their work. No more no less. The ones with the mentality that most likely will not make them achieve any great deal of "success" or advancement. Of course people can still be happy and I'm not saying that this is something you should measure achievement by. We are all looking at satisfying different needs.
Working as a software developer, when hearing the kind of discussions described above (with how long someone has studied) I also find my self thinking:
OK. You studied for some years. I study every day.
In our line of business, I argue that you will not "survive" (somewhat exaggerating again), if you are an 8-5 person. There will be so many more people that understand, that our area moves so fast and offers so many challenges and problems and a multitude of different ways to solve them and therefore you continuously need to educate your self. And not only at work, but of work hours as well.
People that get to work, do their hours and go home, is not the first people I would hire. I want more. I want to work with peers that doesn't care about the clock. People that some days just get sucked into the problem space they are attacking. While other days, perhaps goes home early just to be with their family or relaxing or training/exercising so that they can think more clearly. People that want to deliver and takes that extra step. People taking responsibility without anyone having to ask them to do so. And here it comes:
People that "studies every day". People that are driven by getting better. By learning. By teaching. By sharing. And all this without being "pricks".
These people are the ones that will excel. These are the ones I would love working with and get inspired by.
//Daniel