digital sarah art joy

finding lost courage: working with old tech

~ 3 minutes to read

seeking courage

When one is not following through with one's tasks, it is not because one is without ability. Adlerian psychology tells us that the issue here is not one of ability but simply that "one has lost the courage to face one's tasks." And if that is the case, the thing to do before anything else is to recover that lost courage.

— The Courage to Be Disliked, Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi (185)

I'm adding another tag to my writing: #encouraging. It's for the times I need to write through feeling afraid/avoidant of doing something. A part of me wishes this wasn't a category of my writing on this site, but also, it's my site, so I can write and share what I want to. And at this point in my life, writing to work through feeling a lack of courage to do a task is what I want to write. I feel like that was the goal of this post, and I feel compelled to do it again, so might as well make it a tag. Do I really want to share it? I'd rather share things that make me look cool (whatever that means), but for my own curiosity, I'm posting these so I can look back and see how writing helps me find my courage.

the task at hand

I have some client work to do on a project that was built a number (>5) years ago. Which means that the versions of the libraries and tools used to build it are OLD. I've already spent one work session trying to get things up and running and failed, but it was only about 30ish minutes or so. My console just keeps yelling at me that something can't run because it's incompatible, but it's incompatible with something new and I don't know why that's even trying to get used? The actual work I have to do on the project is simple, but it's this starting up and running it locally that's throwing me.

the fear

The big one: I'm not gonna be able to figure it out. Smaller ones: I'ma have to communicate that I can't figure it out, but of course I wouldn't want to just say that without offering solutions, so then I also have to figure out those alternate solutions. Deeper fears: not being able to figure this out means I'm stupid and incapable; I will be judged negatively, spoken about negatively; I will feel embarrassed and mortified and get consumed by those feelings to the point where I lose all confidence in myself...

the courage

You know what's funny? Those thoughts don't voice themselves in my head anymore. They aren't being said verbatim in my head, it's more like their essence permeates my brain and body. And spelling them out like that really really really diminishes their power. Because I don't believe those things will happen, not really. I know this client appreciates and values me; I know I'm not stupid and while I don't know 100% that I'll figure it out, my track record shows I'm pretty good at doing that. This feels kind of anticlimactic, but I guess courage isn't always bravado; sometimes it is understanding that your fears are exaggerating because they want to keep you safe. My fears want to keep me safe from the potential harm of critical and harsh feedback, but I already am.

the update (3 days later)

Okay, writing this did help, I got a good focused-ish hour in and made some progress. I didn't get it fully up and running, but I think I got about 50% of the way that day. I got it kinda-sorta-not-really-but-good-enough running today. It was running enough to do the work, so that's done. It wasn't 100% functioning, but all well. There is another equally as old project to do this again for, so it's not over quite yet.

Another thing that helped me get through the work was making a little worksheet for me to make notes of what I'd tried and what the result was. It was super helpful to externalize what I was working on, rather than try to keep track of everything in my head. The lesson there: externalizing the steps makes the task feel less intimidating and more neutral? easier to digest? Something like that.

#encouraging