#5 — The Magic Feeling of Creating Something
Let me take you back to a memory of mine from a few years back. We have loads of Christmas lights in the house, but also live with people that constantly break things (including myself!). So, naturally, the lights broke. Our hallway, once shining bright like the Efteling, went back to a conservative corridor with one simple ceiling light. We sat down to assess the issue and soldered some wires back together. Plugging in the lights and BAM! It worked. We had successfully repaired some electronics.
The Magic
Fixing those Christmas lights caused an out-of-proportion adrenaline rush in me, which sounds absolutely ridiculous. The only thing we did was taking down the lights, finding the damage, figuring out the correct configuration, and soldering it back together. The whole operation took like half on hour. However, that was not the point. We created something. There was no light and now there was. I felt omnipotent. Writing this down right now, makes it sound even more silly than in the moment itself, but I really was quite euphoric. This might also have to do with the fact that electronics is not really my virtue. I wish I knew more about it, but that’s something for another blog post I think.
The point I am trying to make is that fixing something, however small, can feel like a hurdle at first, but the magic-hype-feeling you will get afterwards is 100.000% worth it. Let’s walk ourselves through the phases in this process”: (I) The Hurdle, (II) The Hype, and (III) The Afterglow.
Phase I: The Hurdle
If you are an overthinker like me, you will often find yourself coming up with loads of ideas and then being disappointed in yourself for not actually completing them. Taking that first step can be scary. There might be a little voice in the back of your head saying that you probably won’t be able to fix it. Why go out of your way for something, that you will probably mess up anyways and then you end up being disappointed in yourself. Never listen to that voice! Not starting your project, that is exactly what will cause you to be disappointed in yourself.
It’s strange that even when all the tools are within reach, there is something holding you (read: me) back. I have a 3D printer in my bedroom for fuck’s sake. The possibilities are endless. The world is my oyster. Still, there is this hurdle between thoughts/ideas and putting it to action. It’s irrational, so be aware of the irrational hurdle and then flat-out ignore it.
Phase II: The Hype
When you have overstepped that hurdle, soldered your Christmas lights, built that bird house, you get that feeling of achievement. You fixed it. You created something that was not there before. Weirdly, for me at least, it does not even matter whether it is only a 30-minute soldering job or a robotics project you have been working on for weeks.
This adrenaline rush you get by creating something is also one of the reasons that I am so excited about robotics. Writing something in software is cool, but seeing it come to live in the real world is incomparable to that. Suddenly things become real. You do something and it has a direct and REAL effect in the world.
In the alternative universe where you did not take the productive step, you will be walking past these broken Christmas lights for weeks to come. They stare at you and you stare back at them. The trade-off sounds easy now right? Long-stretched mild frustration vs big hype.
Phase III: The Afterglow
The best thing about this is that there is more. The immediate hype afterwards in great, but there are also more long-term effects. Fixing something is great for your confidence and it helps you grow as a person.
- Boost that confidence. — Before you you fixed/created something, the fact whether you could actually do it was still something unproven in this world. Now you know. You can do it and next time it will go even better. You are awesome.
- Practice makes perfect. — Only after dong something for the first time, you will see how you can improve it for the next iteration. When I take the example of these blog posts, only by actually finishing and publishing them I can see clearly what I did and what I want to do differently in the future.
- Get to know yourself better. — Every time you create something you will get to know yourself a little bit better. In every creation there is a little bit of you. Looking back at what you made, allows you to see those sparks and reflect.
TLDR; Never let those Christmas lights win.
