Learn to let it go ...

I've found myself watching the item numbers here on Hacker News having realised some time ago (before the item that mentioned it) that it was getting close to submission/comment number 10^6. I found myself thinking: OK, in the past M minutes there have been S submissions. I can linearly project that to predict when numver 10^6-10 is submitted. Then I can write a script that checks the projections, and when 10^6-10 has been submitted, submit 20 in a furry. I can delete the 19 that got it wrong, and I'll have the millionth submission.

So I'm sitting here not getting anything done, waiting, planning, getting ready, and this voice in my head says ...

Let it go.

Sometimes things aren't worth the effort. Sometimes the reward doesn't match the work invested. Sometimes you simply have to let it go.

It's a bit like the "Greybeard Stories" stuff I've been doing. They've disappeared without a trace here, in the very forum where I thought they would get their most appreciative audience. I guess no one really cares, so I've got to learn to let it go.

Maybe I'll come back and write more later, and maybe I'll follow the suggestion made by DanielBMarkham and gather them into a book. Or maybe someone else will do it.

Right now, I've got other stuff to do, stuff that's probably got a better reward-for-effort ration. So I'll go do that. I won't try to get the millionth entry, I won't polish my next Greybeard story. I'll go back to writing code for my project/startup.

I'll take another step towards learning to let it go.

When it's the right thing to do.