I would learn lots of different languages, databases, concurrency models and paradigms. I felt like my life was stuck in a rut being very good at one language

I would learn lots of different languages, databases, concurrency models and paradigms. I felt like my life was stuck in a rut being very good at one language (Java), but then I tried Ruby and my mind was blown. That reinvigorated my interest in JavaScript/HTM/CSS. Then I felt road blocked by database performance and a good friend really pushed me to really know and understand how and why to use SQL well. This then was a slippery slope to realizing that something that seems hard or impossible in one language/database/paradigm is trivial in another. My personal goal is to learn a new language a year. I’m not always successful (I’m looking at you, Haskell!), and I don’t always use the new languages often, but every single time the process has always made my code better, tighter, more maintainable, etc. A good place to start is the Pragmatic Programmer’s “Seven Languages in Seven Weeks” book and subsequent series of books. As they quote in the first few pages: “A language that doesn’t change how you think about a problem isn’t worth learning.”