Achievement Is Discontinuous
Reflections on the long, windy road to progress.
To this date, schema-dts is the only side-project I have that achieved better-than-moderate success. It took several hours between the time I had the idea for schema-dts and when I had a reasonably working v0.1. I pulled an all-nighter — something that I hate doing and would never recommend — not out of sheer passion, but because:
- I knew how rare a moment of inspiration is, and
- I knew that if I went to sleep, I would never finish this project; there’s a graveyard of unfinished projects haunting me.
I had come to know that — especially for me — achievement is discontinuous.
This lesson — that achievement is discontinuous — was a tough pill for me to swallow and one I have not yet fully internalized.
For some of us, the first chapters of our lives can mislead us about the shape of progress. In school and university, progress can be a monotonous curve trending upwards, with regular progression in each unit, midterm, and semester. And the result is often tangible: a grade, degree, or placement.
Intellectually, I knew life wasn’t going to be like this. I understood there might not be a clear goal, and it is easy to wander a bit in between. But I hadn’t fully…
