When I woke up this morning, I almost immediately saw the sun shining through between the curtains. I got out of bed, washed up, and was greeted by my rambunctious pups. Suddenly, I had a grand idea. It was the perfect day to take them out on a hike!
I was pumped.
I threw on my shoes and coat, grabbed my phone, reached into my pocket to grab my… wait a minute. Where are my keys?
This is where we push the pause button. Let’s rewind this scenario and pretend that I am instead getting ready to start some coding.
I have some ideas going through my head, get motivated by reading some Medium posts, and then say, “Now is the perfect time to start on my coding project!” I ramp up my Sublime, crank up a prototype or tutorial.
I am pumped.
I’m excited about each step I get through, things are going smoothly, and… wait a minute. Why is this not working?
Okay, let’s consider myself in the same place now for both scenarios. In either case, I could make some choices. In both cases, I start out excited and motivated. I was walking down my success path with no bumps or patches. But somewhere along the path, I run into the dreaded monster of doom… let’s call him WTF.
An original portrait of WTF at his finest, doing what he knows how to do best…
WTF rears his ugly head when we least expect it. Things will be going smoothly and wonderfully, and out of nowhere, he just pops up and scares the living daylights out of us. And this is what many of us, myself included, tend to do. We let our emotions take over.
We might scream. Cuss. Throw a fit. Say unnecessary things to ourselves like, “You can’t do this right, so just give up!” I’m sure WTF would like that. That would make it a lot easier for him.
Leaving WTF Behind
In the past, I may have been prone to saying things like, “How could you be stupid enough to lose something again?” while frantically searching the place in an angry or exasperated mood. God bless anyone who happened to be in my presence during that time. I’d have allowed WTF to permeate my entire being and would have given him the control to take away from my ability to do anything else productive with my day.
As an alternative, I asked myself this question: “How will negative thoughts and emotions help you in this case?” The simple answer is, they won’t. Being flustered and having an overly emotional reaction will not make solving my problem any easier. In fact, those reactions make it harder to solve the problem at hand. So what on Earth would be the point in that? Instead, I took my dogs out for their routine walk and fed them breakfast. I calmly looked around closets, in purses, on the floors, and in the car (although it was locked, which was a clue). I took care of household chores, carefully looking around the space.
And once I still couldn’t find them, I took some time to get some other tasks done, not allowing WTF to ruin my day. Turns out, WTF is a huge fake. He’ll just keep dancing around acting all awful, trying to make you crazy. But if you ignore him, you’ll recognize him for the mirage he really is. By blocking out his drama, I was able to think clearly and more big-picture about my problem. I sat down and thought carefully and rationally. I knew for a fact that the door was locked from the outside, so that tells me the keys were brought into the vicinity after we returned from our hike yesterday. Could our friend have picked them up by accident? Could someone have accidentally cleaned the table off and combined them with another group of items? Can I get copies of this key made if I never find them? What will I need to do in the meantime? These are all sound questions that are much more productive than being an overly emotional wreck.
Leaving WTF behind is the best decision you’ll ever make. He’ll be just fine without you.
How did the story end? Well, as of now, they keys have yet to be found. Although I hope to find them, I am sticking to my plan about how to solve the problem instead of reacting with strong emotion. And it’s been quite a productive morning despite WTF’s visit.
WTF and Coding
In the same way that ignoring WTF helped me with my lost key problem, ignoring WTF helps when we encounter any problems while coding. Instead of overreacting with negative emotions, just as WTF would absolutely love, shut that system down! If you are stumped, remain calm. Search, look for clues, ask questions. These are all productive ways to approach the problem. If you find that you still cannot figure out what is going on, move on to other tasks while simultaneously formulating alternative solutions. Just as I may have to take on a completely different route to solve my key problem (e.g., getting a new set of keys), one may need to take on a completely different way of thinking in order to solve a coding problem. In either case, patience and thoughtfulness are required. And WTF has no place in such an approach. Buh-bye, WTF!
Featured Image from PxHere
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