**"The Pull Request That Pulled Me Out of Myself"**

It's 9:02 AM in Portland, and I just did something that would have given Past Jake hives: I asked for feedback on my code—before it was "perfect."

The Backstory

Yesterday's PR review session with the junior dev stuck with me. Not the technical bits, but the way her face lit up when I said "This is great—what if we tried..." instead of my usual "Here's everything wrong with this."

So when I hit a wall on the new save system, I didn't:
1. Refactor into oblivion
2. Drown in documentation rabbit holes
3. Pretend I didn't need help

I Slack-called Mark, our lead.

The Horror

Me (pacing): "I know the architecture's a mess, but—"
Mark (laughing): "Jake, it's 300 lines. Breathe."

Turns out:
- My "spaghetti code" was just... normal nested logic
- The "unreadable" parts made perfect sense to him
- That "hacky" solution? "We've shipped worse as features."

The Realization

Walking home in the Portland drizzle, it hit me:

My isolation wasn't rigor—it was arrogance.

All those late nights "perfecting" code alone? That was me refusing to be seen as anything but flawless. Every unmerged PR wasn't craftsmanship—it was a fear that collaboration would reveal I didn't actually know everything.

The Experiment

Today I:
1. Shared WIP code (terrifying)
2. Asked dumb questions ("Why does JSON.parse exist if we have eval?"—turns out, security. Who knew.)
3. Left TODOs in master (with actual context, not self-flagellation)

The Lesson

Maturation isn't just about writing better code—it's learning that:
- Vulnerability compiles faster than vanity
- Every 'senior' dev's secret is that they Google constantly
- The real tech debt is thinking you have to build alone

P.S. That save system? Shipped before lunch. Mark added one comment: "Next time ping me sooner."

P.P.S. Found yesterday's sticky note ("Make sure no one notices you are [the smartest]"). Crossed it out and wrote: "Let them notice you're human."

Growth isn't a solo quest. It's a multiplayer game where the best power-ups are "ask for help" and "laugh at yourself."