Welcome to my rendition of T-SQL Tuesday. This month’s edition is hosted by Mike Walsh, who asks authors to write two short notes to yourself – one in the past, and one from the future.
Dear 2015 Mike,
Your first child is 2, your second is 6 months old, and your time with them is going to go faster than you know. Yes, everyone is telling you that, but maybe you will listen to future you—someone who is looking at your kids who are now 12 and 10. Your time with them is short, and instead of worrying about your next career move or whether your last tweet was taken the wrong way, you should focus on making memories with them. Before you know it, they will have their own lives with friends, and time with Dad will get lower on the priority list.
All the time you spend worrying about being smart enough or what other people think of you online doesn’t matter; most of them have similar worries and aren’t thinking about you nearly as much as you suspect. In 10 years, you’ll still be employed, doing the same thing you’re doing now—only working on 10 times the servers and working with some of the smartest people in the data space.
The cloud isn’t going to take your job; if anything, it will enhance your job by giving you more options to solve real-world business problems. Instead of worrying about those things, go make memories with your family, focus on your health, and pay attention to where you’re spending your time. Your health is your wealth, and the earlier you take care of it, the easier it is to maintain later in life. Waiting to lose those extra 50 lbs you’ve put on will take twice as long later and add more stress to your system during the process.
As a final note, start scheduling your day so you can get in the exercise you need and help you overcome the “there isn’t enough time” feeling. It sounds counterintuitive to take time out of your day to plan your day, but it’s one of the most freeing things you can do because it eliminates the decision process of what to do next and reduces the urge to jump into someone else’s circus. Turns out the airline industry had it right all along, put your mask on first.
Dear 2035 Mike,
I’m glad you listened to your previous advice and stayed on your health journey. Your 2035 body is doing well, and you have many years of good health to look forward to because you took the time to put your mask on first.
My future advice is to pay attention to what Microsoft is paying attention to. At the 2025 PASS conference, Microsoft mentioned they are one of the largest contributors to the Postgres project. If Microsoft is investing that much effort into an open-source project that competes with one of their products, that should raise an eyebrow or two.
I’m not implying that SQL Server will be irrelevant in ten years, but as more developers start with Postgres for their projects, they will eventually need support from someone experienced in supporting databases. You might as well get started now so you understand where Postgres shines and where it still needs work.
