More Rantage

I have a habit. It's a bad one, I think. Yet, it is a very seductive one.





Whenever I see something gone wrong, my first instinct is to think... "Man, if I could start all over, I'd be able to avoid this problem. I'd know it going in and I wouldn't do this."

I have this on trivial things. Like my Chaos Warriors army. I had a bunch of Chaos Warrior models. Old ones. However, I was kind of starting warhammer fresh. New edition, etc. So I wanted a brand new army from scratch.

Another is my apartment. Whenever I'm like "Man, this environment isn't really conducive to my goals. I'll start fresh and clean everything up and get moving." Even though, by cleaning up, I'm not exactly acting on my goals.

The "Start From Scratch and this time it'll be different" mentality is deeply ingrained in my psyche. I think it's part of the reason I'm actually a good programmer though. "This code kinda bites. Let's start at the very beginning and see what we can do to solve the problem." Often enough this ends up being a rewrite of the system, which some times is the best thing to do. The difference is I have a lot of outside pressures to make sure I do what is absolutely best for a specified goal: Making the company money.

The seductive quality is that it lets you forget about the many times before where that plan didn't work! I've tried this so many different times with different things. It's only here recently that I've had any success at all.

If you've ever played Alpha Centauri, there's a quote I think is kind of appropriate: "There are two kinds of scientific progress: the methodical experimentation and categorization which gradually extend the boundaries of knowledge, and the revolutionary leap of genius which redefines and transcends those boundaries. Acknowledging our debt to the former, we yearn nonetheless for the latter. " 


So too, is there two types of personal improvement. The methodical improvement of existing facilities and habits and the revolutionary leap of transformation that brings you to be a significantly better person. The latter is simply sexier. "I'll move to a new town, cut my hair, get new friends and I'll be dedicated to my goals this time!"

The simple fact of the matter, when it comes to me, I have never gotten this to work. I've had plenty of times where I've done the move and "This time it'll be different!" dance. However, it never really was. All I would end up doing is destroying the resources I already had and end up falling back to old methods.

Simple fact of the matter is this isn't working. I've had this realization several times before. There has to be some method to change this pattern. I will find it.