90 percent positivity 10 percent realism
But that 10 percent can be rough
Positivity is a mindset that does so much for you mentally, physically, spiritually, and socially. In so many ways it makes you feel and perform better. Regardless the situation — defaulting to positivity usually helps.
“Usually” being the operative word.
I am currently pursuing an entrepreneurial dream. I want to build an application that uses data already collected by various devices and applications to help navigate our own wellness.
In the stage I am in I face technological challenges daily. Often times, I meet those challenges with optimism and excitement that I’m solving problems even if my solutions are a bit “hacky”.
hacky (adj.)
(of a piece of computer code) providing a clumsy or inelegant solution to a particular problem.
-Oxford Languages
While typically not flattering, I have personally appropriated the term to be endearing and even humorous in a positive way.
I once found a wonderfully hacky solution to a problem where the author started his blog post to the community with: “It’s a little hacky, but it works…” Ever since then, when I put together some code that seems particularly inelegant I’ll say to myself:
“It’s a little hacky ….”
Followed by a laugh at the ridiculousness of finding joy in the hack-iness.
The Conflict
Recently, however, I ran into an issue that really stumped me. I was struggling with some basic website programming.
I thought I was making progress, only to find that I created something that didn’t work as I intended. Furthermore, my hacky code was so convoluted that I didn’t know where to fix it or how to move forward.
After two days of fruitless attempts to fix this, I was feeling distraught. On the third day with the feeling of defeat, I went for a walk and a cup of coffee. I go for walks often, but this walk was different. It had the intention of releasing frustration and accepting defeat. Not defeat of the larger goal. But rather, of this particular stage. I was going to need to lick my wounds and find another path forward.
I’m going to really need to take a few steps back and do some beginner level tutorials, perhaps for a few days until I really understand what I’m doing.
As things go it’s not that bad. But in that moment where I’ve expecting progress and find the opposite, it’s just a tough pill to swallow.
And during that walk while I was settling into a relief that this particular struggle was going to be redirected, I inadvertently opened the door to a little more “reality” than I anticipated. What I mean by that is while I was reassessing this small part of my journey, I soon found thoughts that were overly critical about the bigger picture.
I didn’t intend to let pessimistic thoughts cloud my mind, but I couldn’t help it. I soon found myself doing all sorts of recalculating time tables and probabilities of my success. While the website is an import part of the journey, it’s a part that can be managed in many ways. There is no need to overhaul my whole plan. But that wasn’t how my brain interpreted suspending optimism in favor of realism for a few minutes.
That moment was like opening a spigot of water to take a small sip and severely miscalculating the pressure of the water that was about to come out. I got far more than I wanted. In seconds I was drenched in pessimism. It was nearly debilitating. I just wanted to curl up in a corner, quit and start looking for a day job.
My point here is that while I want to be positive as often as I can I need to have that realistic mindset as well. But, when I enter this realistic mindset, tread lightly. Because it’s a delicate balance.
It’s not like when I was confronting setbacks when I had a steady income and deadlines that were shared amongst a whole team. Sure, they could be stressful, but the stakes weren’t as high.
In general, higher stakes seem to make me sharper, faster, and thick-skinned. But something about this moment was different. I really took it to heart, and for a moment, it made me fragile.
How do you evaluate problems and stay optimistic?
The key is remembering that success is possible. Not certain. Don’t lie to yourself. But it’s possible.
Once during an interview where Barrack Obama was asked to reflect on the state of the country after the 2016 election, he said that despite the challenges facing the country he believed America would overcome certain obstacles. The interviewer asked him how he could stay so positive.
His response: you must otherwise why try.
In that moment I knew he was saying something profound. But it didn’t resonate like it does today.
You really don’t know how things will pan out. When you’re in the thick of building something and you get hit with that reality of certain things not working out is disheartening.
But more importantly, now, I see that phrase as a coping mechanism for pessimistic thoughts that could creep in while I’m being objective.
When reassessing a certain part of the journey be careful to avoid extrapolating from a single defeat. You may need to reassess further but don’t underestimate how your thoughts can exaggerate and conflate a single problem with the larger goal.
To anyone reading this, don’t lie to yourself, use a realistic point of view when necessary. However, keep in mind that a small does of attempting to be objective could cascade into an unnecessary pessimistic perception of the larger goal. Tread lightly.
