Okay, let me tell you what happened the other day. Just one of those things where you look back and shake your head.
That Time I Thought I Was Smart
So, I had this little project, right? Something for myself, automating a tedious task I do on my computer. Nothing world-changing, just supposed to save me a few minutes here and there. I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted it to do.
I started looking at ways to build it. Found this shiny new tool everyone was talking about online. Looked slick. Looked easy. People were saying, “Oh, it’s so simple, you can get started in minutes!” And my brain just went, “Yep, that’s the one.” Didn’t really dig much deeper. Big mistake.
I jumped right in. Started coding, pulling things together. Right away, I hit weird snags. Things that weren’t mentioned in the glowing reviews. Stuff that just didn’t work like the examples showed. Instead of stopping and thinking, maybe asking if this was the right tool for my specific task, I just pushed harder. You know that feeling? Like, “I’ve already started, I can’t back down now.”
Spent a whole afternoon just wrestling with this one stupid function. It wasn’t cooperating. Found some ugly workarounds online. Glued them together. It felt messy, like patching holes in a sinking boat with chewing gum. But hey, it sort of worked, sometimes. If I ran it three times, the third time it might do the right thing.
My buddy, who actually knows this stuff better than me, took a quick look over my shoulder. He was like, “Dude, why are you using that? That thing’s known for being tricky for what you’re trying to do. You should just use the old reliable library X.”
And what did I do? I waved him off. “Nah, nah, I got this. This new way is faster… eventually.” Even stupider. My ego was involved now. I couldn’t admit I’d picked the wrong horse.
So, I kept going. Wasted pretty much the entire weekend. Chasing bugs. Reading obscure forum posts from five years ago. Getting more and Tt-link-hidden=aHR0cHM6Ly9sZWFybi5taWNyb3NvZnQuY29tL2VuLXVzL3dpbmRvd3MvaGFyZHdhcmUvcGxheS1zZWluc3RlaW4tbm8tbW9yZS1pbi1iZXJsaW4v. More frustrated. The simple tool was becoming this monster that barely worked and was impossible to understand.
Hitting the Wall
Finally, Monday morning rolls around. I looked at the mess I’d made. It was slow, unreliable, and I dreaded touching it again. That’s when it hit me. Forrest Gump was right.
Stupid is as stupid does.
I acted stupidly. I picked a tool without proper research because it looked cool. I ignored good advice because of ego. I kept pushing a bad approach long after it was clear it wasn’t working. And what was the result? A stupid, useless program and a wasted weekend.
So, what did I do? I deleted the whole damn folder. Took a deep breath. Went back to my buddy’s suggestion – the boring, reliable library X. Took me maybe two hours to build the whole thing properly. It worked perfectly the first time. Smooth, clean, did exactly what I wanted.
Lesson learned, I guess. Sometimes the shiny new thing isn’t the best thing. Sometimes, just stubbornly pushing forward when things feel wrong is just… well, stupid. And you get exactly the results your actions deserve.
