| I wish more people like the author of the OP would feel free to admit things like they were compelled to finish the project because they couldn't see anything else they felt like doing with their time, so that's simply where all the time went. That would make perfect sense in my mind, and restore a notion of calm. One problem is making assumptions that the author is trying to prove something by a clear display of superiority. The code itself is of a high quality, from what other people are saying. But it's probably only because so much effort was put in for three years on it. Also, I have to wonder how many other doors the author left closed because he spent so much time on this project. Was there anything else of a similar impact that he contributed to for all those years? And what of the other things he may have passed up? Some projects will consume you. They will be the tantalizing activity pulling you away from Friday night dinner parties with people you don't understand and other miscellaneous outings that are comparatively less interesting. You constantly think you're leaving something unsaid or undone away from a keyboard. In some cases you feel obligated to continue for no reason other than having already come so close to accomplishing the thing, sunk costs and all. With some projects, hypothetically, if someone is to see me in a cafe with nothing better to do, I'm almost certainly going to wrap up my current conversation after a point and take out my laptop to continue working. That is how my life is structured with those projects. That is how they affect my actions day after day. It isn't necessarily a life of glory. Working on projects and having the finished product in my hands is not what brings me happiness; it merely staves off misery. It fills a void in my life that was agonizing up to that point. My theory is that if your goal is to avoid misery and despair at any cost, and have the means to do so, you can be driven out of desperation to accomplish substantial things. Other people could see what I did and make their own guesses as to what it took. But really I was only trying to prevent myself from becoming undone. It was simply too irritating of a problem for me to leave alone. I'll probably never be able to fully explain why. It certainly wasn't because I was trying to prove something to other people. But I'm only speaking from my personal experience. It's not like I actually understand why the author did what he did. People just don't seem to know at the moment, and maybe that's where the air of sadness over suddenly seeing this accomplishment come out of nowhere originates. There's nothing to counterbalance the impact of learning of its existence within a split second with what actually went on behind the scenes for many orders of magnitude longer. |
Your post has a sad undertone, one that it feels like you are trying to apply to OP in order to justify not achieving the heights others have. Some people are insanely good at things. Most people are barely good at anything. Don't think of OP as a bastion of despair, reframe the project as an achievement and I believe you will feel better.