On not finishing

2024-09-15 10:27

I start a lot of things, and don't finish many. And when I do finish things, I'm never quite ready to let go. Anti-climax. Maybe because I'm overly invested in it at this point, and I see more opportunities, which is why scope boundaries are so important. I enjoy the doing - the journey - It's not about the destination, it's about the journey springs to mind.

A couple of my interests don't have a finish line, and they coincidently (or not) are my personal hobbies that I enjoy the most right now. They are building this website, and running.

In doing each of these there are many tasks, projects, events, experiences, that I finish, or don't finish, but there is no sense of failure because they all just funnel me into another leaf of the book. I'm starting to question when things become too hard, is it really because they are hard, or am I just not interested because they don't align with my values? Weighing that up against a longer term vision helps decide that point.

A couple of examples of very different experiences:

I really want to self-host my website at some point. I know next to nothing about this, but started tinkering yesterday. I hit multiple problems with all the utilities I was using, and almost gave up because I couldn't break through an issue with one. This was the point where I was either going to give it all up, or push through. I nearly accepted it was too hard, but rememberd I really wanted to get this working, and I was so far in, so I took a breath and a different tact (an alternative utility), which worked and I ended up getting a web server running off my Android. Why did I really want it? Because the vision, a self-hosting website, taps into my values of sustainable, self-reliance.
When climbing Mt Crichton from the western side for the first time as part of a "run" I tackled it on a windy day. As I approached the peak on a flat, near verticle, piece of slate with minimal hand and foot holds, and strong winds gusting, my gut told me to turn around. My vision of bagging the peak from that approach, was outweighed by my value for life! Although I didn't get it that day, I saw it as a positive experience where I tested my boundaries, and came out understanding myself better.

There are greater visions for building this website and running aligned to my values, which keep me returning, however other things in life are not so clear or aligned, and maybe that determines my motivation towards those things.

I'm probably just stating the obvious here, maybe these are fleeting subconcious decisions we make in everything we do. I wanted to put pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard) anyway and see where it went. I wasn't thinking about visions and values when I started, so I guess it went somewhere.

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