Random

I realized that these past years, I have been in a constant look out for when bad things will happen so I can prepare for them or prepare to run away from them, mostly the latter. I try as much as I can to avoid any trouble. Because I thought that if I don’t get involved in anything that can potentially put me in uncomfortable situations, then I’ll be safe from feeling hurt, ashamed and guilty.

In hindsight, I realized that running away before anything bad could happen didn’t really make way for good things to happen. The years that passed without anything to show for it can prove it.

The fear, the anxiousness and worries were only adding up every time I miss a chance to take an action. Every decision I failed to make became another rock I have to carry on my back. And it’s getting heavier everyday.

One of my favorites songs sums up everything I’ve been feeling all this time:

I dreamt I stood on a hill that I wished was a mountain

To look back on all my accomplishments<br>Well they must have been small because I couldn’t seem to find them

So I took a leap off of the precipice

The Classic Crime

When I look back at my life, I see myself falling into the same pattern over and over again. When things become scary, I always choose my default option: Inaction.

And yet, somehow, I still hope for something to happen. It took me a while to finally realize that my expectations are often not aligned with the actions I take, if I took them at all.

It’s like I’m stuck in an infinite loop and I couldn’t find the key to get out of it.

After more than a year as a web developer, I realized how similar my job is in real life. People are just like complex applications. We are built to work in certain ways and no matter how much we try to be perfect, problems occur. Something unexpected happens that can break everything. We will need to upgrade at some point. We will need to fix what’s broken. The difference with humans and programs is no one is gonna come to resolve our issues but ourselves. We are our very own programmers.

In programming, there is this thing called <em>Debugging</em>, a process of fixing errors in a program for it to run as expected. These errors are called bugs. The first step in debugging is to know what the bug is. From there, you can start tracing where it’s coming from. If you are not able to replicate it, you wouldn’t be able understand why it’s happening and you can’t fix it.

There are many times where I sit for hours staring at my computer screen trying to replicate a bug. It can get very frustrating and discouraging sometimes that you just wanna quit it.

But regardless of all the I-wanna-pull-my-hair-out moments, I would still manage to find the solution in the end. Sometimes, I start from scratch if I need to. Many times, I try out different solutions. Sometimes, the solution that originally fixed the problem can still be improved later on.

The point is it got solved because something was done about it.

That is my goal with Debug My Life: To identify the bugs that get in the way with me living the life that I want to live and to develop a deeper understanding with myself so I can work better on finding the solutions to these bugs.

Just like in the debugging process, understanding is the first solution.

It’s really all about tracing the bad to live good.