Repost away (Day 4)

Thoughts:

It’s okay to say the same thing that’s already been said. I was walking today when I realized one of my mental blocks that kept me from creating a blog for a long time was, “I’m not sure if I have anything special to write about.”

That’s when I came to the above realization. Here are some reasons why:

First, it affirms others. I remember one day at work, a particularly vocal engineer was ranting about video tutorials on the first login to our website and how they’re annoying and intrusive. “Just give me an organized PDF and I’ll figure it out myself. I don’t want to have to sit through a video.”

This rant was met with nods and silence from the other engineers (including myself). That is, until a salesperson spoke up and said, “Oh, stop it, you know that’s not how most people think.” Almost instantly, the engineers around me and I murmured our agreement. It’s true! Video tutorials are a simple and easy way to get new users up and running on the website. We just needed someone to say what we were all thinking.

There are countless moments in my life where I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about something until someone said what I was thinking, and my mind reacted, “YEAH!” And that truth was solidified in my mind. I could rely on that truth from then on. So say what people are thinking, even if you think it’s probably already been said before.

Second, we all need reminders. I love reading motivational articles. 10 ways to optimize your workday, 5 things productive people do, and all that bullshit. You may be thinking, “You’ve read one, you’ve read them all”. Not really. Motivation wanes, you forget that feeling of inspiration, and reading the exact same words you’ve read days ago lacks that “umph” the second and third time. Sharing your rehashed ideas with the world acts as a nice reminder where you can shine a light on some idea that the readers once valued, but completely forgot about.

Third, you haven’t written it yet. If two people grew up in the same family, in the same neighborhood, hung out with the same friends, went to the same schools and worked in the same jobs and I asked them to tell me the story of their life, they STILL would tell me completely different stories. They are two different people with unique perspectives and drew different lessons from what they experienced. Write your version of an old idea, it’s unique.

Fourth, you want to write it! If you want to write it, you should write it. Every day you leave it unwritten is another day you aren’t expressing yourself freely. (If you don’t, that’s fine, do that other thing you want to do.)

I should rename this blog, “20 minutes a day and James’ motivational rants” because I really want to say this stuff, but I don’t really want to split it into it’s own themed blog. That’d be too much for me to manage and for you to navigate. Let me know if you like what I write.

Starting stopwatch…
Time: 46 minutes, 30 seconds (I was so tired and was planning on stopping at 20, but tutorial was so close to done.)
Git commit
Learned:
-Finished Tutorial #2
-How to bind keys and mouse buttons to input on your game
-How to organize your score map so you can quickly update numbers when needed
-Stronger intuition overall about bugs in code and how things are structured.

This tutorial goes pretty damn fast. Gonna have to go over it again after I’m done.

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