I hold myself to insanely high standards. I’m starting to think that this is the root of many of what I feel to be my major character flaws.
I don’t know where it came from. My parents certainly weren’t strict about my performance in school or anything. As long as I did my best, that was all that mattered. They were certainly encouraging and supporting, and were proud of my accomplishments, but there were no negative consequences for failure. Maybe that’s where it came from. Maybe I thought, “well if no one else is going to hold me responsible for my success, I guess I’ll have to be the one to do it.” I don’t know. Whatever the source, it’s here, and it’s negatively affecting my life.
“But wait,” you say, “how can holding oneself to high standards be a bad thing? Isn’t that better than having low standards?” Of course. If you don’t hold yourself to any standards, that’s bad because everything is “good enough.” You never strive to be better. You never work hard. You push others away by repeatedly failing to live up to their demands, even reasonable ones. You can even get in serious trouble with the law. But as a moderate, I would say that extremes of any kind are almost always a bad idea, and holding oneself to extremely high standards can be just as destructive. It’s a weird kind of destructive, though, because nothing actually gets destroyed. Instead, nothing that could be destroyed even gets a chance to exist.
Let me try to explain what I mean by that. I have a hell of a time coming up with ideas, in general. Programming projects, games, music, drawing, term papers, vacation plans, what to eat for dinner – these are all things that I have trouble with. I don’t have trouble doing any of them once I get started. I just have trouble actually coming up with an idea for them. And I think I know why. I am paralyzed by a fear of failure.
I’m not trying to be a dick by saying this, but you’re probably surprised to hear that. I say that because, well.. when have I failed? I’ve always done extremely well in school. I’ve made a programming language. I’ve made games, helped program an operating system, learned to draw, spoken at a conference, graduated Summa Cum Laude.. and maybe it’s all this success that has made me so afraid to fail. See, I’ve set such a precedent for myself that I feel like if I try anything and it doesn’t work out, then I’ve failed. I’ve failed to live up to my own past. It’s like an author writing a bestseller and then never being able to match that success again.
So instead, I play it safe. I don’t try to program something because it’s unfamiliar. I don’t try to draw something because it’s beyond my skill level. I buy, and eat, the same food over and over again because I’m afraid I might try something new and not like it. I avoid getting a girlfriend because I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to satisfy her on a personal level. I delay anything that has a timeline until the last minute because I’m afraid I’ll commit to an idea too early, only to realize later that it wasn’t my very best.
And here’s the contradiction: I never try any of these things because I’m afraid I’ll fail to live up to my own expectations, but as a result I feel like I’ve failed myself for not accomplishing as much as I’d like! It’s a goddamn catch-22! And it’s getting worse as I get older, as the accomplishments stack up! If I hit doctoral status, where can I go from there?!
Hhh.
“There is no goal in life; the journey is all that matters.” I don’t know who said this, but I read it a year or two ago, and it keeps popping up in my head when I think about this philosophical crap. I’ve come up with a little corollary that follows from it: “if there is no goal, there are no wrong turns.” And it’s a piece of advice that I want to start following.
So from now on, when I’m about to do something and I get that tense feeling in my throat and I alt+tab to firefox and compulsively check my email and RSS feeds for like three hours, before I pull any of that avoidance shit I’m going to say “you know what, try it.” What’s the worst that could happen? There’s no reason to be afraid. The only wrong turn is to not take the turn at all.
#1 written by openid.steveklabnik.com/ August 26th, 2009 at 10:08
I can relate to this, but in a slightly different way. I come from the gaming min-max perspective. I’m crippled when faced with a decision where there’s no clear heuristic function.
I have a hard time choosing places to eat, but it’s not because of fear of new things. It’s that most places have food that’s roughly equal, and I’m not sure what place would actually be the absolute best right this second. So end up making a random decision, because I feel that I can’t ever make a proper one with the information at hand. And often, I don’t try new things because I don’t have a good way of estimating the actual value…
But I make lots of risky decisions. It only matters if the possibilities are big enough to be worth it. Like doing a start up rather than working 9-5.
#2 written by Jarrett August 26th, 2009 at 11:23
I probably do a bit of that too
There was a PA comic about this. Picking an ice cream flavor isn’t just choosing a flavor you like, it’s eliminating thirty other possibilities. I can definitely relate.
#3 written by blog.maryloukunkle.com/ August 26th, 2009 at 12:33
#4 written by Tomasz Stachowiak August 26th, 2009 at 12:40
It would seem that my approach is exactly the opposite of what you’re doing. Nothing is really interesting to me unless there’s a gloom of failure hanging over it. I rarely attempt regular activities, mostly stuff I think I might not be able to pull off. This way if I fail, there’s no shame in it – it was too hard, I shall retry when I have more skill or abandon it altogether because it’s not feasible. But if I succeed, I surpass my own expectations and do things most have not done and will never do. For instance, when all the kids were learning Pascal, I got into C++ and x86 asm. One of my first projects in C++ was a 3d first person shooter game, though when starting I had absolutely no idea how to make one, not even how to manage a project > 1k lines. Then I decided I should create an automatic portal generator based on BSP and zone merging heuristics – folks told me it would not be feasible, but I persisted. A year and 7 rewrites later I had something I was happy with. In the end it was a failure because portal techniques and quake-like levels passed away, but I learned a whole lot about BSP and other geometric techniques, as well as managing floating point stability issues. After that came a ‘C++ game engine’ with ~70kloc. Then learning D was the insane option and with it came compile-time ray tracing, IMGUIs, another first-person shooter game, networked physics and a ‘rule them all’ rendering system, along with some minor insanities. Most of these paths had a huge risk factor and also a vague chance of paying back should I be seeking regular employment. Still, they were fun. And they were fun exactly because a sane person would not attempt these. Failure doesn’t mean much when you try things considered hard or straight impossible.
I say, try doing something insane. A scripting language is a good one, but mine would be more exotic. And I dare say, you *don’t want* a girlfriend you’d be worrying about satisfying personally. Either she’ll be a geek like you and have her own interests and no need for you to constantly fill the void, or she’ll be an empty shell draining all vital powers and free time from you, only for the purpose of being worthless, satisfying primal urges and shopping for shoes (or is that a primal urge? I’m not sure).
Oh, and “There is no goal in life; the journey is all that matters.” sounds like a recipe for a tramp
#5 written by Jarrett August 26th, 2009 at 14:54
your code sounds like a recipe for paszteciki
#6 written by Dave Wilkinson August 26th, 2009 at 19:25
For me, I tend to do things that are extremely challenging without ever knowing that they are supposed to be extremely challenging. It is curiosity without regard to potential pain or failure. I figure, no matter what, I can learn _something_.
For most programmers, I’d say they take on the opposite track of success than yourself. Most will learn by failure, and then commit themselves with this knowledge to produce something (and finish something) worthwhile. Failure helps one acknowledge that one method is better than another and to train yourself to better methods. In that respect, lack of failure is a drawback. At least, this is the alternative methodology.
I think there is a point where you just cannot succeed without collaboration. And, well, that point was probably a couple of years ago. Most of my accomplishments were done by myself and haven’t seen much sunlight. The more promising ones have been collaborative, even if only slightly. If people want to work with you, it supports the notion that your idea is useful. I like that. I want to be much more collaborative. It also means giving up your ideas and your work to the public. I highly support that as well for similar reasons. You cannot fear criticism, of course. You really have to be the submissive to the sadist to be a successful open source maintainer.
Well, I’ve made a few disjoint points here… but I think there was some insight to something. Oh well. Whatev.