A Journey of Small Wins

Today was a really strange day. It felt like I had to put in ten times the energy for everything I wanted to do. Everything was moving slower than it should, and my mind was filled with negative thoughts, making it hard to concentrate. In the three hours I spent in front of the computer, I only managed to write three lines of code. Honestly, on days when I have a lot to do, I get overwhelmed and find it very difficult to get things done.

Today, I watched a course on backtracking that explained the concept really well. I wanted to solve the Hamiltonian problem and code it, but it felt like my body, hands, and brain were all heavy. I think it’s because of PMS. I usually get negative thoughts during this period, which makes me feel bad. However, I remembered a quote by Donald Knuth that goes something like, “The amount of work you do on your best days does not determine your success; it’s the amount of work you do on your worst days that determines your success.” I tried not to give in to PMS and, although slower, I kept working.

For a while now, I’ve been reading this paper Donald Knuth Dancing Links and I want to use it to build a Sudoku solver. At first, everything was moving very slowly, but despite the slow progress, I kept going. Now I see that slow progress doesn’t necessarily mean bad progress. In fact, sometimes it’s good and gives me hope because it makes me see that everything is achievable and that any task is possible, even when it seems incomprehensible and daunting at first. There is a famous saying among hackers: “The biggest projects that work are a collection of small projects that work.” Honestly, when I broke down this paper into smaller, more understandable parts, it became much easier for me. I’m still working on these smaller parts, but I am satisfied and happy.

It’s like my French class, which had its second session tonight. As someone who is somewhat introverted, attending the class and speaking French was very difficult for me. But my teacher is a very cheerful and sociable person whose only goal in teaching is to socialize and make new friends. Initially, even attending this class was very challenging for me because I had to be active and talk a lot. However, tonight it became easier, and once again I concluded that although starting something might be hard, continuing it shows you that nothing in the world is truly difficult, and you can enjoy starting anything.