I'm a creature of habit and, admittedly, a bit of a snob when it comes to my convictions. I have this annoying tendency to dress up my stubbornness as 'taste.' Being a designer makes it easy to pretend my opinions are actually facts, and once I decide I don't like something, I don't just dislike it; I build a case against it.
For years, that case was built against the Apple ecosystem.
As a die-hard Pixel fan, I wore my "Google's better" badge like a point of pride. I loved the raw, unpolished grit of Android. I loved (still do) the camera that showed the world exactly as it was. I'd tell anyone who would listen that I'd never "sell out."
And yet, here I am, typing this on a Mac with an iPhone sitting next to it, an iPad in my bag, and AirPods in my ears, lol.
It's quite a weird feeling, realizing your "hills to die on" are actually just sand dunes. We spend so much energy declaring what we'll never do, who we'll never date, what music we'll never listen to, and what we'll never eat that we forget we're allowed to evolve. We think consistency is the goal, but sometimes consistency is just another word for being stuck.
I've realized that most hard opinions are just untested environments. We mistake a lack of exposure for a point of view; we build these rigid identities around things we haven't actually experienced. You think you dislike the genre until you hear it performed right. You think you would never… until you do, and then you're quietly rewriting the script of your life to make sure you're still the protagonist.
It's like last year in December, when my friends and I were down at the coast, and they practically dragged me out for an Oontz concert.
Now, if you know me, I'm not an oontz person. Give me those double or triple entendre Drake bars I can over-analyze for hours, or that specific "down bad for your lover" energy that Njerae captures so well. If there's no story, no heartbreak, and no clever wordplay? Hard pass. To me, oontz was just a repetitive loop of beats- no lyrics, no bars, no nothing. I went in with my arms crossed, physically and mentally prepared to be bored.
About an hour in, I realized the music wasn't necessarily the point, kinda. It was the collective vibration of the people, the culture, the vibes. I ended up meeting amazing people that night. People I'd have never crossed paths with had I stayed in my comfort zone or stayed home. We talked until the sun started to peek over the ocean, and my "logical" critique of the genre started to feel pretty small. I stopped trying to find the story in the lyrics and started seeing it in the moment.
It's the same thing with the switch to Apple. I realized that my "loyalty" to a brand was actually just a cage I'd built for myself. I was so busy being a "Pixel guy" that I was missing out on the seamlessness I actually needed in my life as a design engineer. I stopped looking at the "specs" and started looking at the experience. I traded my "identity" for something that actually worked for the version of me I am today.
Identity is less like stone and more like wet concrete. It sets slowly and gets reshaped more often than our ego likes to admit. The smarter move is to hold your preferences with a loose grip and your curiosity with a tight one. Today's refusal is often tomorrow's routine.
Looking ahead, this is actually one of my biggest goals for the year: to actively shift my mindset. I want to spend less time building cases against things and more time giving stuff a genuine chance. I'm tired of the "never" list. Whether it's a new design tool, a different workflow, or a genre of music, a new type of food, a new concert, a new sport, I want to lead with "why not?" instead of "no."
Of course, a mindset shift doesn't happen overnight. I'm a work in progress, and I'm still hanging onto a few questionable convictions, like my soul-deep belief that Batman v Superman is the greatest superhero movie of all time. I know the critics hate it, I know the internet moved on, and I know I'm standing on this hill alone. Some hills are just worth dying on, even if you're standing there alone🫡.
For everything else, though? I'm finally letting the concrete stay wet. I'm ready to be wrong.
In my last piece, I talked about how the best art comes from the mess of real life. Well, part of that mess is being wrong. It's the constant iteration of who we think we are.
Nothing is cast in stone, not your tastes, not your "brand," we're all just works in progress, constantly being redesigned by the people we meet and the risks we finally decide to take.
So, if you see me with a blue bubble now, don't call it a betrayal. It's just proof that the concrete hasn't set yet. I'm trading the safety of being 'consistent' for the freedom of being curious. The narrative is shifting, and for the first time, I'm not afraid to let the ending surprise me.
