I used to have a habit of walking away from things whenever they became difficult. It did not matter how much time I had already spent on them or how excited I had been when I started. The moment things stopped working, I would begin questioning everything. Sometimes I would even convince myself that the whole idea was a waste of time.
Photo by Saeed khan Sohag from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/back-view-of-a-man-standing-on-a-lakeshore-in-the-mountains-26599809/
I remember sitting in front of my laptop for hours, opening one page after another, trying to figure out where I had gone wrong. I would try something, wait for it to work, then try something else. Before I knew it, the whole afternoon was gone and I had very little to show for it.
Those were the moments I hated most.
I would close everything and leave it for another day. Sometimes I never returned to it. I told myself I had better things to do, that perhaps I was not meant for it, or that I should find something easier. But deep down, I knew I was disappointed. I had expected things to turn out differently, and I did not know how to deal with that feeling.
What made it worse was seeing other people making progress with things I was still struggling to understand. You start wondering whether you are doing something wrong. You question your decisions, your abilities and sometimes even the reason you started.
I think I spent a lot of time trying to escape that feeling instead of understanding it.
There were times I rushed into decisions simply because I wanted to see something happen. I would take shortcuts, trust people too quickly and expect things to fall into place without giving them enough attention. When things eventually went wrong, I would find myself looking for someone or something to blame.
It took me a while to admit that I was also part of the problem.
Not every idea I have tried was a good one, and I have wasted time on things that did not deserve as much attention as I gave them. But I have also walked away from things that probably needed a little more patience. Sometimes I was not tired of the work itself. I was tired of not seeing the results I wanted.
That is something I understand better now.
I still get frustrated. There are days when I sit down to work and nothing seems to make sense. I can spend hours trying to fix one small thing, only to discover that the problem was somewhere I had not even thought of looking. It can be annoying, especially when you have other things to worry about.
But I no longer want every disappointing day to become a reason to abandon what I am doing.
These days, when something goes wrong, I try to leave it alone for a while and come back with a clearer head. Sometimes I find the answer. Other times I realise I was approaching the whole thing from the wrong direction. And there are moments when I have to accept that something is simply not working and move on.
I am learning that there is no shame in changing direction. What I do not want is to keep changing direction every time I encounter something I do not understand.
I also try not to put too much of my expectations on other people. Everyone has their own struggles and responsibilities. Someone may promise to help you today and disappear tomorrow. It happens. I would rather learn to carry my part of the work than sit around waiting for someone else to make things happen.
I cannot say I have figured everything out. I still have plenty of things I want to try, and I know some of them will probably not work. But I am beginning to approach them differently. I want to give things a fair chance before judging them, and I want to make decisions when my mind is clear, not when I am angry or disappointed.
Sometimes I look back at the things I abandoned and wonder what would have happened if I had stayed a little longer. I will probably never know.
But I do not want to spend the rest of my time wondering about things I could have given a proper chance.
There is still so much I want to do. I would rather take my time, make mistakes, learn something and keep going than keep starting over simply because the road became harder than I expected.