Finish Line Mirage
Sep 4When I was at UCSD for my undergraduate program in Computer Science, I had a professor who told a story about working on a project. For the project, he was creating a new software system (the purpose of which I have since forgotten). He told how he was fairly quick in the design and starting of the program. There was steady progress until he was about 80% done.
He continued to work on it (because as you well know 80% is getting pretty close to 100%). However, with new changes, he kept discovering that more work needed to be done. He would have to go back over his code to change things that he thought that he had previously addressed. The thing was, the further along he got, the more he discovered that he wasn’t nearly as close as he thought. So while he got further along, the end remained elusively close and yet not quite close enough.
While he was talking about the difficulties of the complete software development process, I also feel like the same troubles can affect me. (Haha and sometimes it happens to me in the software development process.) I make strides when there is much to be done. But then things start getting down near the end. I can see the end. Or at least I think that I can. But things keep popping up that keep me from getting there. Things will get done, but for some reason it feels like I’m going nowhere fast.
From experience I’ve realized that I have to keep churning away at it until I’ve gotten there. When you’re climbing the hill, the end has to be the toughest (I mean, you’ve already spent all of that energy getting to where you’re at). But that triumphant moment when you get there, that’s worth it. Or, at least it usually is.
(Notice: Don’t climb mountains that you’re physically incapable of completing. I am just making my small commentary on life. I am in no way, shape, or form responsible if you actually fall off the side of a mountain.)