For the past week or so I’ve been completing daily programming puzzles as a part of the yearly Advent of Code leading up to Christmas.
It’s going well so far—better than it ever has compared to my previous track records, at least.
But there’s a curious thing happening.
You see, most days, I finish the puzzle in under an hour, sometimes two. But once every few days, like yesterday, it easily takes me up to five or six (6!) hours to finish this one puzzle.
That’s six hours of non-stop staring at my screen, trying to think of potential solutions, translating it into code, checking for errors, endless debugging, discovering new edge cases, and going over the processes once again.
And yet, it feels like a breeze.
The hours fly by. I stay focused, hyperfocused, in fact, and would easily be able to keep this up for another six hours (and probably ever following day as well).
You might think this sounds miserable, and maybe for you, it would be.
But man, I can’t tell you how almost “natural” this comes to me. How ‘motivated’ and excited I am to finally get it to work, and ultimately how ‘happy’ and ‘at peace’ I am during the entire process.
Sure I might bang my head on the keyboard once in a while, but that’s part of the process. And even that is enjoyable in its own way.
This reminded me of some lessons I learned while reading Psycho-Cybernetics.
Just take the following excerpt taken straight out of the preface:
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“Creative striving for a goal that is important to you as a result of your own deep-felt needs, aspirations, and talents (and not the symbols which the “Joneses” expect you to display) brings happiness as well as success because you will be functioning as you were meant to function.
Man is by nature a goal-striving being. And because man is “built that way,” he is not happy unless he is functioning as he was made to function—as a goal striver. Thus true success and true happiness not only go together but each enhances the other.”
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This excerpt gives a new and helpful explanation as to why I experience these coding puzzles the way I do.
I picked up a new goal—one I’m genuinely interested in and determined to achieve.
The process of doing what man is “built to do”—striving towards a goal—is where you’ll find true happiness and success is to be found.
That’s why it’s so important to have goals, projects, dreams and aspirations.
What kind of goals?
The type where you’re creating something new.
This doesn’t have to be something completely new, that’s nowhere to be found in the whole wide world. But it has to be new to you. To bring to life a book you write, a song you composed, a painting you created, even a promotion you worked for, a deal you closed, a certificate or degree you studied for, a fish you caught, or something as simple as a sweater you knitted.
Creation is what we, as human beings, were meant to do.
And creation is what will keep you healthy, sane, and even thriving if done correctly, for decades to come.
Speaking of which…
If you’d like to learn my entire process for ideating, creating, and launching profitable digital products in 21 days or less, then I’d highly suggest you check out my course Product Creation Made Easy.
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