Why I’ll Never Be Happy With Myself

Exploring the duality of subjectivity, and finding my true goal.

Perception Means Nothing

I’ve embarked on a lot of creative work in my life so far. I’m not going to count anything before 2017, which was the beginning of an explosion of learning for me. But even then, I’ve done quite a bit.

In the past 6 years, as of the time of writing, I’ve worked on non-fiction and fiction writing, music composition and mixing, and even a bit of vector art and drafting assets. These are all works where quality can be somewhat subjective.

Obviously, there are some objective standards that can be applied. One could gauge whether the structure of the writing is clear, or if instrument volumes are leveled well.

However, it can be difficult to do so as an emotional being.

One thing that I have been learning throughout the process of making stuff, is that how I feel about my own creations isn’t necessarily an indicator of their quality.

Having come to know that fact has been quite a… disappointing revelation. Knowing that I haven’t actually reached the goal. And never being able to be satisfied.

The Duality Of Work

I’m getting close to the two-month mark of writing here on Medium. In that time, I’ve written around 40 articles of varying lengths. The ones toward the beginning focused on the most significant events of my life so far.

But of course, I only had a limited amount of those.

So at some point, I had to transition to reflect on lessons and events that held less emotional significance to me. As a result, it became harder to gauge whether my writing was “good enough”.

For many recent articles, I’ve been feeling like they’re all over the place. I’d keep thinking that they were unstructured messes, and I couldn’t fix it no matter what I tried. Even with this article, I’m having doubts.

Most of the time, I could come back to it a few days later, and it wouldn’t look as bad anymore. But the feeling lingers for some of them. And it never goes away.

Despite that, I’ve gotten some great feedback on some of those articles. While that’s reassuring to hear, because it conflicts with my own emotions, I sometimes have trouble believing it.

“Is it *really* a great article though…?”

On the other hand, there have been works that I thought were absolutely amazing in the past. But the feedback I got was quite the opposite. And soon, all of the glaring flaws were made obvious to me.

I couldn’t believe some of the ideas I thought were good when I was younger. Even from a couple of years ago, that stuff makes my face implode just looking at it.

So even if I think it’s bad, others might think it’s good.
But I’d still feel like it’s not good enough.

But if I think it’s good, others might think it’s bad.
And that would also make me think it’s not good enough.

There’s no winning this battle.

A Neverending Cycle

This concept isn’t necessarily restricted to my creative work. Admittedly, I thought like this as a teenager, regarding myself as a person. After unlocking this new thought, my pompous self would finally think he’d made it.

I was now a “mature” person.
I wasn’t *immature* like the other kids.

Yeah, keep dreaming, me. In reality, I was still a little dork that should’ve been punted across the room. But eventually, I’d find something else that had been detrimental to my behavior, and I’d think the same thing.

“Haha, *now* I’ve done it. *Now* I’m mature.”

No, you trogalodytic dolt. You’re not.

I’d continue to repeat this process over and over. But what exactly does being mature mean? What is used to gauge that? Are there levels to it? And who decides that their definition is correct anyway?

Perhaps the most important question is, would I stop working on myself once I had achieved that status?

Of course I shouldn’t. And of course I wouldn’t.

There are still ideas I have to this day that may be detrimental to aspects of my life. Even if I had declared myself “mature” years ago, I definitely shouldn’t just leave these ideas to their own devices.

I’ve had similar happenings in other areas of my life. Music production, for example. I’d make some changes that enhanced the sound and I’d be like…

“I’ve finally found the key to perfect mixes…”

Then a couple of days later, I’d listen to the song again and think it was literally going to kill someone if they listened to it. And I thought I was just terrible. At least until I tried something else that “fixed” it.

“Okay, *now* I’ve finally done it. It’s perfect…”

And then I’d develop a migraine the next day, hearing what the hell I had created. It was not good at all, let alone perfect.

I have been obsessed with reaching this arbitrary goal of “making it”. As a result, it caused stagnation when I believed I had reached it, and hopelessness when I felt it was far off.

I’ve decided to stop thinking about my progression in this sense.

Direction, Not Destination

I’ve tried to stop thinking in terms of these discrete points of accomplishment. Instead, I think it’s better to view it as a continuous process.

By doing so, I will always have reason to continue to try and do better. But I also won’t be as demotivated when I fall short of those arbitrary points.

My fixation on destinations, rather than directions, was a significant hindrance to my development. When I transitioned to this new view, I stopped constraining myself.

If I position myself to be on the right trajectory, I will eventually achieve my goals at some point. It may take time, but it is nearly certain that I will get there.

However, the converse isn’t necessarily true.

While scoring a goal is indicative of having done something right, it won’t guarantee me continued momentum. And one does have to ask, in the grand scale of things, where in the journey is that goal anyway?

What I thought was an amazing accomplishment 10 years ago, only turned out to be a lower point in the overall chart of my life. It’s likely that many endeavors today will dwarf in comparison to later progress.

So how can I ever know if I’m ever good enough?

I think the answer is… I won’t. At least not until I’ve done everything I could in this life. But at that point, I likely won’t care anymore. Because I would’ve already done all I could.

Minimum Standards

I’ve always had this hesitance to call myself anything. I thought it sounded so pretentious for me to do so.

“I am a *game developer*.”
“I am a *writer*.”
“I am a *software engineer*.”

In hindsight, it was likely a product of insecurity. I didn’t believe that the work I did was worthy of proclaiming myself any of that. I thought I’d be lying if I did.

However, I’ve become more comfortable using them now. I guess I’m a game developer. Maybe I’m a writer. And I could call myself a software engineer, I suppose.

But that doesn’t change anything.

I believe I’ve become acclimated to using these terms because I’ve finally hit the minimum standards I’ve subconsciously imposed on myself. But nothing has changed in my work as a result of that comfort.

I didn’t do so well with my first game, in my opinion. But I think my second game is looking much better. I’ve learned from my mistakes and gotten more experience. As a result, I don’t feel as uneasy about out it’ll turn out.

In writing, I’ve learned to be more concise and how to use words more effectively. I’ve also learned when to ignore that nagging feeling that the syntax is off, because oftentimes, it’s not as bad as I’m making it out.

For years, I felt that something was wrong with everything I was doing.

And most of the time, there was something wrong. It took years to figure out what they were. And I was my own worst critic. But in recent times, I’ve begun to notice something else.

I actually kinda like some of the stuff I’ve made.

Saying that may make it sound like I’m regressing to the previous mindset.

“I’ve finally done it! It’s perfect!”

But I don’t think it’s the same. I don’t feel like my work is the best in the world. But I feel confident enough that I’ve done alright. I know that I’ve moved forward since my beginnings.

Because of my short-term memory, I can come back to scenes in my games or older articles that I've written, and experience them as if someone else wrote them.

And when I do look at them again…
…I don’t think they’re that bad.

Of course, there is some bias. But I think it’s a really good sign of the progress I’ve made. I can finally even convince myself that it’s decently immersive. At least, based on my own preferences.

But that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the road. Not even close.

I Don’t Want To Be Anything

So it seems like I’ve gotten past some of my insecurities. I guess I’m a developer and a writer. Not a perfect one, and not the best one I’ll ever be. But I’m some version of those things.

Despite being okay with using those titles now, I feel nothing different. I don’t feel any more powerful. Nor do I feel my level of skill has changed through doing so. They don’t mean anything on their own.

These descriptors aren’t what I actually wanted. I thought they were, but they weren’t. What I really wanted was the experiences that one typically attributes to those names.

I didn’t want to “be a game dev.” I wanted to make good games.
I didn’t want to “be a writer.” I wanted to write meaningful pieces.
I didn’t want to “be a programmer.” I wanted to build useful applications.

I would hope to have done some of these things. But either way, I’ll continue to discover bugs. I’ll keep working on better using narrative techniques. And I’ll always be learning new technologies.

The perfect work I so desired may never come to fruition. But I’ll keep trying to do better than before. And eventually, I should make something that’s alright.

I think I’ll be happy with that.