it’s a really cool thing to have worked on a project for more than a decade. you get really familiar with all the little aspects of the project. you know how so much of it works, and you know all the people involved. you can make decisions based on your experience, and your experience is valuable.

there’s definitely something to the old adage that “little things add up” over time, and nothing shows that to you more than working on something for a long time. all the little contributions you’ve been doing day in and day out for years have finally amounted to something – something you can point at and feel; something that is tangible.

but there’s also an aspect of getting stuck. it’s the same problem you’ve been hammering away at for years. it’s variations on the same old questions each day. the same old arguments against things you’re working on seem to drag on for years and years. the people who are obstacles to your success don’t magically disappear, they continue to be there. maybe they oppose you in different ways over time, but they’re still there, and you still need to deal with them. it all gets a little…. tedious? predictable? repetitive?

so i’m at a cross roads. do i change positions? something new will be interesting. it’ll be different. i can prove to myself that what i built once wasn’t a fluke, it was something i’m definitely capable of. but to do all of that, i have to stop doing the thing that i’ve built up, that i know all the little details of.

as of today, this feels like a tradeoff i can live with. i think i’m leaning in the direction of something new being better than what i know. i think i’m getting grouchy in the current role, and a change will help me reset. so it’s feeling like change is coming, and it’s going to be pretty big.