Solving complex, hard problems is one of the most underrated joys of life.
Before I could appreciate or discover the joy of this process, I had to believe - I am capable to do it.
I have questioned, and doubted myself constantly, every passing second, I have wasted my cognitive energy.
In hindsight, it would have been sensible to use the same energy working towards my goals, patiently.
Most of my suffering have come from unnecessary, unreasonable comparative thoughts.
Occasionally, when I am able to make the effort to confront such thoughts with reason and I am hit in the head with obvious realizations, so obvious that it instantly makes me feel ashamed of not realizing it sooner, and yet again I am caught up in an act of judging and comparing my present self against the past selves.
ummmmm, Did i just reveal a toxic behavior ?
You get the point, so much of negativity trapped inside anyone's head can slow them down significantly.
Axioms, I am learning to live by after many cycles of reflections and failures.
Capability takes time and consistency to build unless you were born a prodigy.
No one is going to believe in my capability until I decide to believe first.
In the beginning, I started slow, building confidence by solving small problems.
Challenged myself with a harder problem once in a while.
When I would fail, which we all do at some point, I would delude myself in thinking of it as a character flaw.
Or I would get mad at myself, or the process, or just question all the decisions taken from birth till this moment which might have contributed in anyway to this failure.
After hitting my head against concrete wall a few times, and finally left exhausted with zero ability to judge self, sensibility returns with grace.
Perhaps, life is trying to teach me something, if I look closely enough.
Learn to be patient with the slow, incremental improvements, to discover joy in my efforts, and release resentment.
Be kind, and respectful towards self.
Notes, I need to return to after every failure...
I will not expect to get good at DSA until I hit 250+ Qns.
It will take time. Don't feel defeated.
Play it smart. Use shortcuts like doing company-wise Qns.
DSA, HLD, LLD, etc, they all test one thing, the ability to solve problems.
Build that muscle, to solve complex and ambiguous problems, and the the art of optimization.
I might still hate DSA, because it's DSA for god's sake.
DSA is an aggressively niche type of problem solving.
It might not be my natural strength.
It doesn't mean I should ignore it.
Get decent at it, at the very least.
Pick one thing which is coming fairly naturally to me, or I feel drawn towards. Work on it in parallel to reduce the stress of DSA sessions.
We all need wins to keep going.
Find what can help me gain those wins simultaneously.
Options are endless : Open source, LLD, HLD, ML, etc.
Believe in myself, stay rooted in reality, facts.
Neither extreme positive-ness, nor extreme negative-ness is real.
Both are illusions.
Maintain the balance of doing hard things, and collecting consistent easier wins.
Things get too difficult, draining - I give up.
Things become too easy - I get comfortable and stop growing.
Chasing Balance
