I've seen what makes you cheer

At a certain point in your career, you’re expected to be good at something. Modesty becomes a hindrance. There’s a practical aspect to it - everyone around you benefits from knowing your strengths. You can think about it that way, whenever you feel like it’s not appropriate to brag. Being honest about your skill and bragging is obviously not the same, but when one becomes the other isn’t an exact science.

There’s a different aspect to this. Whenever you state you’re good at something, you’re revealing what you define as “good”.

Imagine you’re interviewing for a job. You’re open about your strengths - you’re really good at painting square eggs. The interviewer is ecstatic. That’s exactly what they’re looking for. They ask you to show some of your work. You take out your thick collection of your square eggs paintings, but it’s met with nothing but silence. “Is this your best work?”. Well, yes, it is. Not only that. You believe it’s objectively good. “I’m sorry but this isn’t exactly what we’re looking for”.

this becomes more complicated because there’s no objective “good”

whenever you say you’re good at something, the biggest hit isn’t you being arrogant. at a certain point it’s normal - it’s natural to become good at something overtime. the biggest hit is that you are showing to others what you consider to be good

whenever you post a PR and someone reviews it, two ideas of what good is clash.