Accomplishments & never finishing anything

[RightInTwo]

In my self reflection, I have noticed that I have tons of incomplete endeavors, large and small, and almost nothing in the way of finished projects, products, etc.

For example: A long time ago, I thought I might want to be a project manager. So, I bought the study guides, joined the PMI, completed the application, and studied the guide thoroughly. I did the equivalent of getting one class away from a degree, and then, for no good reason whatsoever, just quit.

I have done this many times. Several different times with the PMI, a few times with various microsoft certifications, and countless others.

Programming is the most recent example.

There isn’t a certification for programming that I am trying to get. A good start would be to just make an app and publish it on a website. I’ve made a few of these, but none of them are very good.

I have lost count of how many domains I have bought over the years, just to let time pass and not renew the registration for whatever reason.

So I switched to using services that allow you to publish under a generic domain (like heroku or netlify), which removes the burden of having to deal with domain names while giving you a secure public url, but I still cannot bring myself to finish, publish, and most importantly, share an app with people, like, however that would happen, I’m not even sure how I would share it. I have several apps published this way, but none of them, imo, are worthy of sharing as a way to show my skills.

Also, I cannot do ~anything~ with any app I’ve created without seeing things that are broken, or not ideal, or just ugly design, at which point I will inevitably start re-writing the code until I break it and make it worse than it was to begin with.

I regularly go into an existing app, with the intention of improving it or fixing one simple little thing (lol), only to fall into one deep rabbit hole after another. For example, if I don’t like the design, I’ll start searching github for nice looking examples, and install whatever different framework or packages to mimic the example, but that never goes smoothly & works the first time I try it, so I’ll spend all day every day for WEEKS, just to give up and end up right back where I started.

Even if I do successfully change the thing I wanted, I will uncover along the way, more little things that MUST be changed.

I have paralyzed myself with a deeply distorted perfectionist ideal that I will seemingly never be able to reach.

Awareness is great, but I don’t know how to fix this.

I think it’s the same thing that keeps me from writing. I write stuff, but if I go back and read what I previously wrote, I’m disgusted by it.

My inner critic is running, and ruining, my life.

I have had one single job in my history where I did finish the project; in fact, I was the very last person on the whole team (besides the two managers) at the end. But I have no personal references from it. I had, I thought at the time, become close friends with one of the managers. However, that was when my ex-husband (still married at the time) got arrested and charged with felony identity theft… and I told her, because I wanted advice.

She immediately severed the friendship, and refused to answer any of my calls after that.

A few years later, I applied for another job at that same company. Some woman called me, claiming to be a recruiter, and started asking me about that project. I told her the time frame, the name of the project, etc., and she told me that basically, I had to be lying, because she said that ~she~ was on that same project, same name, same time frame, and of course, she didn’t know me. That was the most bizarre mind-fuckery from a total stranger, I still cannot explain.

These are just a few of the things that keep me frozen, and hopeless that I will never get another good job in this enormous metropolitan city. People know each other, but they don’t know me, aside from my most horrifying mistakes.

I’m not sure why I’m sharing this, specifically, and it might seem like unfinished projects have little to do with being gaslit by a stranger, but in my mind, they are somehow connected, and of course, it’s my fault.

[Beany Boo]

This may sound stupid. So it might be relevant

You might not be following through because, you might not want to.

You might be following these paths because you're ‘supposed’ to, or they’re all that’s available or they look like the most profitable. The chaos and damage that also seems to be occurring may feel coincidental.

The force that accompanies something you genuinely want, sort of Tetris-es the world into a rational order. The irony is, wanting can feel crazy, when you’ve learnt to ignore it. Learnt, or been forced. Or never had the opportunity to feel and follow your own want in the first place.

But it’s your birthright.

And it’s somewhat scary, because you have to trust that what you want will randomly materialize. That you’re that powerful

And maybe your want is stepping in and stopping you at crunch time; to say, “No! Not this.” Or, “I suddenly feel ambivalent.”

I don’t know exactly what I’m talking about. But I have enough evidence to offer this with confidence.

[oak]

RIT, thank you for sharing.

I identified with lots of what you wrote.

Two thoughts:

1. Few things contain as much promise as an initial repo to GitHub. Everything is possible.

Then, six months later I’d see one push

2. Anytime I want to feel shame, I look at all the Udemy courses I registered for, and never started. I never paid more than $15 for any one of them, but still.

You are not alone, let me tell you.

[RightInTwo]

…

wanting can feel crazy, when you’ve learnt to ignore it.

…

Wow you nailed it.

I have no idea what I want. The last time I knew that was when I was 5 years old, and my mom married my stepfather, and we moved “out west”, cowboy boots & hats, and HORSES!!!! Did you know that there were (probably still are) catalogs that you can get in the mail, for buying/selling horses? I would look through those catalogs with such delight and longing, and spent hours & hours (alone in the middle of nowhere) drawing pencil sketches of the horses in the catalog.

There were two horses that made the move with us, but they belonged to my stepfather’s older kids, who came to visit less than 5 times total. I was not allowed to ride them. I never got one of my own, either.

And, there was never anything else for me to do. Nothing to take the place where healthy interest and activity was desperately needed.

So that’s how I learned not to want anything.

This is always where my self analysis comes full circle - in a never ending spiral.

I have no identity.

I don’t know, and cannot remember ever knowing, what I want. (Wanting new clothes & shoes aside!!!) But big picture type of things, nope.

When most kids are at the age to start thinking about college, career plans, life plans… All I was concerned with was, my next drug and/or alcohol party.

I almost can’t stand watching “inspirational” types of programs or videos where you see typically, a very young person - or hell, anybody, really - talking about doing the thing they always dreamed of, and I can see clearly how their identity and values are working beautifully in their life. That shit just makes me want to die. I refuse to watch any of those “star search” types of shows for this reason.

How can I ever hope to figure out who I am, and what I want, when I really don’t think I ever knew.

Even the one thing that never fails to excite me - fashion and clothes - the things in my closet would make you think they belong to two or more completely different people. I have things that look “goth” or whatever, like black stuff with skulls (not sugar skulls, regular old spooky looking realistic skulls), then there’s some frilly feminine things, and then there’s business attire. And party dresses, like with sequins & shit.

So I show up for interviews & work with my professional outfits, looking like everyone else, and I feel like a fraud. If my outside matched my inside, I’d have tattoos everywhere & green hair. At least people would have fair warning that they might run into some issues with me. I wouldn’t be constantly pre-categorized into the 50+ cis white female along with all the assumptions that go along with it. To be fair, looking like I fit in does have its privileges, initially, but then they find out that you actually have ~nothing~ in common with them, and the room starts getting cold.

Our next door neighbors are a nice couple around my age. They are white, super into church, grown kids, grandkids, etc. She and I became acquainted, and we made a deal to go to breakfast every week.

After doing this for a while, I started noticing that I was ~not~ looking forward to our coffee/breakfast dates. The more we talked and shared, the more I discovered that we truly had nothing in common, and I became bored of trying to find anything. I also have trust issues that started to surface.

So, like a real immature and childish person, I just stopped responding and definitely did not reach out to her any more. I didn’t know what to say, but I know I didn’t want to continue spending time in a way that didn’t work for me.

So that’s sorta who I am in the world. Someone who isn’t what she seems, isn’t very friendly, and someone who finds it way too easy to ghost people. So many burnt bridges.

A big question mark.

[manuel_moe_g]

Not finishing projects and tasks

Burning bridges

So painful

I relate

Please take care, RightInTwo. You are good people and you don't deserve these challenges.

(the story about the horses broke my heart)

[RightInTwo]

This may sound stupid. So it might be relevant

You might not be following through because, you might not want to.

You might be following these paths because you're ‘supposed’ to, or they’re all that’s available or they look like the most profitable. The chaos and damage that also seems to be occurring may feel coincidental.

The force that accompanies something you genuinely want, sort of Tetris-es the world into a rational order. The irony is, wanting can feel crazy, when you’ve learnt to ignore it. Learnt, or been forced. Or never had the opportunity to feel and follow your own want in the first place.

But it’s your birthright.

And it’s somewhat scary, because you have to trust that what you want will randomly materialize. That you’re that powerful

And maybe your want is stepping in and stopping you at crunch time; to say, “No! Not this.” Or, “I suddenly feel ambivalent.”

I don’t know exactly what I’m talking about. But I have enough evidence to offer this with confidence.

Well, beanie, I don’t disagree with you.

Let me go with this for a moment…

I don’t ~want~ to finish these things.

I… don’t… wanna.

So, I don’t.

What now?

I feel like I could easily fritter away the rest of my days just like, doing chores, exercising, painting, and watching videos. I don’t have any goals, and trying to make one up seems contrived and futile.

I stopped programming because I somehow managed to make it an end in itself, and I came to realize that I would be content to work on my own little projects, all by myself, indefinitely. Improving my skill, sure, but for what?

Sometimes I longed for someone to talk to, a real human being, not online, about programming. But there is no one.

“wanting can feel crazy”

I want to contribute to something, and to be recognized for being an expert at something. Not recognition like, winning a prize or award, just ordinary, like when people come to ask you specifically about something because you are known as an expert. (I often overhear my boyfriend when he’s in a meeting for work, and I feel the deepest envy. He has exactly what I just described, and I think he takes it for granted.)

I want to make people laugh. Like, genuine laughter at the way I describe life’s absurdities. Or something like that.

I want my karaoke voice back.

I want to be here with my boyfriend, and simultaneously be with my mom who lives 1,400 miles away.

I want to experience joy.

Am I doing this right?

I guess, I want to know what it’s like to really want something. I’ve never allowed myself to. I never even wanted kids.