Just watched a talk by Kent Beck on Google Video on programmers breaking out of the pendulum of considering oneself a genius one moment and an idiot the next. One isn't a genius every day (or an idiot), and yet despite various problems in a software project, the software one writes may change the world--it may be a team effort, rather than the effort of a sole "genius", and that is OK.

A poignant moment was near the end of the talk when he got choked up a bit: "saying "I'm OK doing what I do, and I'd like to be able to say that".