Let’s build on yesterday’s quip about cooking in a messy kitchen (and thanks to my wife who pointed out a typo in the subject line 🤦. Best place for a typo.). If you’re buried under the aftermath of me cooking chicken tikka masala, the thought of cleaning all of that might sound terrible.
“We’ll never finish this! We’ll never be able to do anything else!”
Let’s set aside whether or not we accept that as a valid reason to not clean up the kitchen, but it certainly has elements of the classic cognitive distortions recognized by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy practitioners. I know this, of course, because I have expertise in computer programming, which means I’m basically qualified to opine on any subject.
I see elements of “overgeneralization” and “fortune telling” in that way of seeing things.
And yet, when you’re in the moment, it probably feels true.
But the truth is, things change. Your kitchen is different after it’s cleaned than it is before. You can freely create again. You don’t have to dread company coming over unexpectedly.
Similarly, once you’ve addressed the neglect in your codebase, your fields are green again. You stop experiencing the pain of neglect once you’ve fixed the problems neglect has caused.
But if you don’t fix it, you get to keep paying it over and over again.
