Because I Wanted To

There is this common scenario in a software developer’s life: You choose a particular technology stack or coding approach. Your natural instinct is to immediately launch into a detailed technical justification - performance metrics, scalability considerations, how hyped and plauded it is across the Internet or among your friends and colleagues. But what if the honest answer is simply, “I chose this because it resonates with my way of thinking”?

This compulsive need to justify extends far beyond our technical choices. It manifests in how we structure our work days, our creative pursuits, even our personal relationships. We’ve become so accustomed to writing extensive documentation for our existence that we forget sometimes the most powerful git commit message can be “because I wanted to.”

Throughout my entire life, I’ve justified most of my choices, fighting hard to provide plenty of proof that they are the right ones. And, you know what? This constant seeking of validation sucks sometimes. It really does.

You cannot fix this with another layer of abstraction or a more sophisticated decision-making framework. Instead, it requires something that feels almost counterintuitive to engineers: removing code rather than adding it. More specifically, removing the validation checks we’ve built around our authentic choices.

Maybe it’s time to allow our personal choices to stand on their own.