I was working on one of my programs just now and it’s one that looks like I could finish up to day and actually release but I have not released any of them yet and something reminded me of why. I have often said in my writings that I don’t like finishing things because as long as I can declare them as a working progress they are immune from judgment. People tend not to judge things while you’re working on them. In almost every aspect of life I have used this and abused this by not finishing things and releasing them or sharing them. I didn’t actually realize it until today that I am doing that with my programming tools and the count is up to almost 20 of them now and I haven’t technically finished any of them. I keep leaving little bits out to come back to and I claim that it’s for variety of programming so that I don’t get frustrated with one particular task but just now I realized it’s the same old thing. I’m not finishing it so that I don’t have to share it so that it doesn’t have to be judged. My mind is split between pride and fear. I truly and sincerely believe that these are kind of cool tools and that some of them are extremely useful and not overly saturated in the market The one I’m working on today is simply a bookmark manager and although I know there are a lot of bookmark managers to control the bookmarks of chrome and other browsers, and I know I haven’t looked at all of them, or any of them really, I think mine is good and share worthy. #Prideworthy.
Still, I know that if I don’t share it it will retain this perfection in my mind and if I do and no one cares I will feel that. I will feel it more the first time and sadly, get used to it as the others are released and ignored or reviewed poorly. This is the way I have lived my life shielding things that I think might be good on the off chance that they might not be good. I have coined this mental issue as the William Hung syndrome which can be referenced in other blogs here. The idea that my view of perfection stays stable until the first share and if no one gets to tell me otherwise I believe it so the first share can potentially be devastating if it’s public or as in the case with William Hung live on TV in front of millions. Humiliating doesn’t cover it.
Most of my motivation to do these programs was for me, to solve problems that I needed, but also primarily to give me something to do during the otherwise idle moments around the farm By idle moments I mean every single moment of every single day with the exception of the short span of chores I do each morning. It was a make work project and I ended up enjoying it so much that I made extra hours in the day to work on these projects. So on one hand I could live without sharing them and they are still serving their purpose as perfect programs. But I do love praise and that can’t come until I take the risk and share at least one. With praise comes confidence and could lead me to a whole new world of programming happiness… or not.
