A friend of mine is always calling me out for never finishing anything, and never writing anything, and never responding to him after 5 PM or on weekends. I'm a bad friend, and I have accepted that, but he's always asking me about whatever my latest hyperfixation project is. Did I finish it; did I write a post about it; did I release it to the app store. The question is triggering because the answer is almost always "no".
Why is it almost always no, though?
I'm a BIG proponent of therapy, and not just because I paid untold thousands for my wife to get her masters in psychology. It has also helped me identify patterns in my behavior and where I developed them. Over my many years of therapy, I'm still searching for why I hate finishing things. And it's not just software projects, it is everything.
I hate finishing book series, games, shows, movies, chores, etc. I hate it so much, I don't even start them a lot of the time. After nearly a decade in therapy, with this being a central recurring theme, I've decided to finally finish it.
Why do I hate the end?
I have a few theories, but I'm not sure at the time I'm writing this sentence if any of them are true.
Hypothesis #1: I have finished everything, Now I have nothing to do. Why do I exist?
Fuck... right out of the gate, existential dread. This is a real-time writing, I don't know the next word I'm going to type until I'm typing it. Does this feel true, though?
If I 100% Skyrim (main and all side quests), would the game be re-playable? I honestly don't know. I would lose one of my favorite games if I learned everything (why I hate spoilers as well). I could see replaying some aspects, but unless I decide to go questless and just openworld it, the game would lose novelty and no longer be fun. I know the outcome.
BUT - I have reread Harry Potter four or five times. So, that was re-readable, so Skyrim should be re-playable? I've replayed Skyrim dozens of time from the start, as well, but I usually get bored so I will add something to my requirements (no range or alteration only or something dumb like no foraging, everything has to be given or bought), and that aids in it until I forget, then one break of my rules makes that save unplayable again.
This seems plausible.
Hypothesis #2: Nothing is ever done, so how can you finish, and if you can't finish something, why keep going?
Ooof, this one hits even closer to home. One of the many projects I'm working on is to learn all this newfangled AI stuff, but using LLMs and SLMs to build things beyond a chatbot... but also a chatbot. I haven't written about it because "it's not done and it keeps changing" but it is called DreamEngine - a "game engine" in C# that uses the OpenAI API (with structured output and tool calling) to let you build a simple game that uses a compatible LLM for your "game logic." It is a really fun project. I enjoy playing with it a lot actually, one of the most fun I've had on a side project in a long time, but every time I think I'm done, I realize how much more I have left, and it kills my momentum.
I call this the False Summit (I'm sure I didn't invent this). Any hikers or climbers out there know this problem well. I think I will even use this as the title for this post.
When you think you are mere moments from summiting your Everest (or Pikes Peak, or Enchanted Rock, or DreamEngine), then another peak pops into view over the ridge you just crested. Your legs quiver, your body feels a new level of soreness.
That is how I feel each time I play with DreamEngine. I write a small game in it "A Trolley Through Time" (a game where each turn is a new decade from the 1850s until 2020s, and you have to chose which historic figure gets crushed on the tracks, altering history) - Really fun to play, the reason I built Dream Engine. Everything is great.
Then I think to myself, well what about a more open ended RPG game. As I create the game, I realize I needed to add Tool calling, so that was my first false summit. And sense the engine code was pretty coupled to the game, I had to extract it, and make it more generic - another summit. Then I realized the RPG needed more complex structured output than a simple single-layer JSON object - another summit.
Each summit swipes 1 energy from your max, after so many of them, you can't even regain enough energy to continue, and you are now camping.
Hypothesis #3: ADHD?
Almost everyone I know has been diagnosed with ADHD. I have watched their lives get turned around by the proper dosing of meth. They do more and are more productive, but all the ADHD symptoms are still there. Also, I don't have problem finishing work if it is REAL work, and I'm getting paid for it.
I've always dismissed having ADHD because I'm an incredibly productive software developer... at work. I close more tickets, produce less bugs, finish things in a week that another developer will take months on. I am not a 10x or anything like that, I just work in corporate America where the expectations are way lower, and I hate doing nothing. So while on the clock, I work and finish things.
That has always told me I don't have ADHD, but I'm now wondering, as I get older, I do find myself being more easily distracted. I used to be able to sit at my desk for up to 72 hours (only leaving for bathroom breaks or the vending machine) until I was DONE with something, but now I find myself getting up just to pace every hour or so. Also I used to use YouTube as background noise, and now I catch myself watching YouTube not just listening.
I am kind of wondering if maybe I do have ADHD, I was just able to utilize it in my youth where as now, I'm actively having to fight against it.
So WTF is it?
At the risk of sounding cliché, all of them? They each make sense to describe a portion of whatever prevents me from finishing things. I still cry at the end of Harry Potter, not because anyone dies, or because anything particularly emotional happens (it does, of course), but because it is over, and rereading it will take me multiple months with the amount of time I have allocated to read, so that is sad. I hate watching Michael Scott move to Colorado, not because it is sad (though it is), but because the Office is over (and we all know it).
I hate thinking I'm almost done with something, then realize I'm no where close. And at work a defined scope makes that easier to deal with, but on a personal project without a PM and a BA managing scope, there is no scope, and when there is no scope, there is never an end. In hiking, I actually like false summits though, because I also hate ending my hike (ties back to #1).
And, I'm starting to think I have ADHD... and that is what allowed me to hyperfocus on a work task until it was done in my youth, because everything back then was novel, and now that I've done everything (a corporate developer would ever do), the lack of novelty makes it hard to sit for more than a couple of hours without needing a mental break (or having one).
Is there a solution?
Maybe? I don't know.
One could say finishing something might be exposure therapy, do it enough and reframe it as a success and not a loss.
Possibly creating some coping mechanisms like actually scoping a personal project, and releasing in smaller chunks, so I'm constantly finishing something... that would feed into the exposure therapy.
For ADHD, there are a lot of coping mechanisms for unmedicated success. ADHD workbooks exist, but everyone is different, and we all have different motivations, so finding the thing that motivates you is what would lead to the most success.
What about you, reader?
Does this resonate with you? Do you have similar struggles?
