--- title: The only thing I have failed at kind: entry date: 2026-09-18 summary: tags: [method] entry: 0x07 of 0x07 source: "https://www.sixhourlog.com/entries/the-only-thing-i-have-failed-at/" volume: 1 issue: 38 --- # Blank I went to a place called DevMountain years ago for coding, where I learned JavaScript, HTML, and CSS in the first half as a general introduction to code. Then I got to pick an avenue to specialize in. I picked Python, and from there I got pretty decent with it. But life happened and I stopped coding entirely, so I was a bit rusty. Well, I had a beginner Python class. Instead of using it as a refresher, I told myself I already knew all the concepts, so I would wait until the last second, have the code be AI assisted, and turn it in. That went on for a bit. Close to the end of the year I told myself I would just write up some of the code, I had extra time. I opened my IDE. It had AI suggestions on, so I turned it off. I made the file. I started to write. Blank. My mind could not even think of how to start the problem. I knew for loops, I knew while loops, I knew the concepts of all of these things, but I didn't remember the syntax in the slightest, because I wasn't doing the work myself. That was right before I switched from cybersecurity to computer engineering. I vowed to myself I would stop acting this way, giving fragmented attention to schooling I was paying for and receiving nothing from. Well, I must have forgotten, because when I'm in the crunch and an assignment is due, I ride the line as close as I can to make it not cheating but still get AI help, instead of living with the consequences of procrastination. This leads me to not build the skills over time. And if there is one thing I believe, it is that slow incremental progress over a long period of time is the way to progress. Gradually learning, sleeping and encoding, not cramming one day. That leads to poor retention. ## I was the person I was scared of To have some humility I will say this. I used to tell myself I didn't want to be liked, I wanted to be myself. Closed off, changing my outfit five times before I leave the house, hiding my hair with a hat, hiding my age. I could go on. Why I say this is because I fooled myself, and only by being open can I take the step to failing my way to success. I did all of these things based on what I thought others would think, not what I thought was my most authentic self. I cannot say I have lived my life without judgement, but I judge myself as much as I judge others. Thinking I couldn't go on a run because someone I knew would see me and make fun, when in reality when I see someone running I'm like, wow, they are awesome, they are getting after it. Call it envy, call it hate, but whatever it may be, I used to see someone who dressed differently and judge them. I couldn't explore my curiosities because of my fear of society's view, but in doing so I was the part of society that judged. I was the person I was scared of. ## Try hard People call others, as an insult, a try hard. In life and in video games. People think it's uncool to try at things. You see great minds but none of what it took to get there. Only on occasion do they talk about failure, because the world's norm for a time has put a negative connotation on trying. It somehow led you to believe failing is a lack of progression, and that there are a lot of people who have never failed. I have fallen victim to this in my life, whether it was because I was scared to fail, scared to have people see me fail, or if it was simply the attitude I adopted. Somewhere down the line, and I don't know when it happened, a nonchalant attitude arrived. I am now 29 and hate telling people my age. It's not a new thing for people at my age to have regret about how they lived in the past, and that is just how it is. But luckily I still have time to try. I never approached people, for lack of rejection. I didn't talk to my professor because I thought I wasn't smart enough to have a conversation with them. The saying goes that the man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, and the man who never asks stays one forever. The only thing I have failed at in my life is actually trying. I know how that sounds coming from someone with an A nobody else in the class got, and two IT courses I finished over 100 percent, and a stretch where I worked 50 to 65 hours a week with a full load of classes. That is the point. I can do the work. I have proof I can do the work. I just haven't been choosing to, and knowing you could have is worse than not knowing. ## Fragmented Many of us live our life with a fragmented attack on any moment. You are at work just thinking of the second you can go home. You are at home watching TV while consuming social media. I have spoken on it before and I myself forget it in most moments of my life, but you have a finite amount of time and yet you can't wait for it to pass. There are levels to trying, there are levels to attention, there are levels to any moment you live in. Two kids play the same video game for the same amount of time. One has music on, internet guides open, and his friend's gameplay up on the other monitor. The other reads what the items do and watches his own screen. If your fun is winning and you can't figure out why you aren't, that is the cost. It is easy to get mad at things and put blame elsewhere when you have an ego, living with a belief that you are better than what happened. You are not. You are what you do, not what you think you are capable of. I can't give a fragment and expect more back. And when you fail, you are not confused. You were paying attention, you know what you did wrong. Failing is learning. The moment I realised the gap was one night scrolling Canvas, looking at future assignments. Multiple exams the next week. There was nothing to be done then, I was tired, but I knew I needed to kick it into gear. So the next day I sat down to study. No to-do list, no concept of time, just a will to let myself play one more Sudoku game to try and get a faster time. That turned into hours of Sudoku and nothing to show for it. I thought it was simply my character flaw. I could never be one of these people who mindlessly do the work without friction. You tell yourself something enough times and it becomes your reality. ## The proudest school moment I have The proudest school moment I have. In English 2010, the whole year was a gradual process of building a research paper. You got to choose your topic, and I chose mine, did the research, and wrote the paper. I got my paper back with an A written on it. The next thing I know, the teacher is in front of the class saying the class did poorly, so poorly that only one person got an A, and he felt the need to let us edit our papers and turn them in again. I have never felt more proud of a homework assignment. At the time I was going to the coffee shop every Sunday morning to write it, and with eyes watching I had no option but to do the actual work. It wasn't fragmented. I felt that and soon forgot how it felt, because I stopped giving things my attention, because I thought video games needed to be played, or TV shows needed to be binged. ## What trying looks like So what does trying actually look like. The ultimate goal is to stop procrastinating, to stop treating the deadline like the start date. But say I do let an assignment slide until Friday that is due Monday. I will pay the price of turning it in late, or I will spend the whole day working on it. The rule is simple. I can use AI to help me understand a topic. I can't screenshot my homework over to AI and copy the answers down. If I hit something I don't understand in the reading, I find someone to talk it out with, or I do the research myself. Earlier this week I was walking through campus and saw two of my professors standing together. One of them is the professor I now grade for. The other is my favorite, the one who remembers my name and has offered to write me a recommendation. I turned around and walked the other way. They didn't see me see them, but they probably saw me walking away. For the next ten minutes I tried to decide whether they saw me, whether they noticed who I was, and if they did, what they thought of me for avoiding them. I feel like I'm smart when I'm in class learning about circuit theory. Then I get the chance to talk to my professor in the hall and I turn the other way, from the overwhelming impostor syndrome that I'll be found out as a fraud who can't hold a conversation. So if you ask what I do the next time I see him, honestly, I don't know. I have emotions like anyone else. I could get scared and walk away again. That is why I'm doing the trying part, to actually learn something. CTFs are the thing I have avoided. I'm worried I won't even be able to start, from lack of knowing a single thing about how they work. ## The commitment I am committing to posting a video on YouTube and Instagram, and a blog every week, all due Friday night. The video is whatever I actually found that week. If I have nothing to talk on, then the honest post is that I have nothing, and that tells me more than filler would. But if I live the way I plan to, with trying, I will not lack topics to speak on. In a perfect world I study throughout the week, lock in, randomly find a technical rabbit hole I find interesting, and then I just talk about it and show what I found. This commitment to posting has no meaning except learning to try. And try I will. To live like I want to, to embody the person my brain imagined it was, I must try, I must go too far, and I plan to. The posting is the habit. Being ahead is the measure. Missing a post isn't the end of the world, the two aren't the same test. The measure is how far ahead I am on the topics of the classes I am in. If I am already working on my final project in my engineering class by the end of October, that is great. If I'm ahead on calc concepts and I go in knowing the overview of the topic, so when I arrive I can give input and solidify my learning, then I know it worked. What I am giving up is the cheap dopamine. One more game of Sudoku and then I'll study. What does that invite? And realistically, if it goes my way, contact with others. I will not be as easily reachable. I will not let people use my time as freely either. What I get back, if this works, is the thing I have wanted and not done. I want to read boring papers and retain the information. I want to open a CTF and not close it. I want to walk into a class already knowing the topic instead of hearing it for the first time. What I do is work. But at work I will not let myself play phone games. I will attack the concepts I am scared of. If I fail at posting, the outcome is me lying to my readers, and lying to myself. ## They might be right Over many years, from an assortment of different sources, I have been told not to try to drastically change all at once, that you will fall back into your old ways. And they have a point. It is overwhelming to drastically change yourself. There are far too many variables, especially without a catalyst to cause it. The belief is that doing it anyway just puts you back where you started. From the outside, what I am doing probably looks drastic. But the way I see it, I have lived the last eight years of my life making changes slowly and erratically. This is not a lot of things at once. It is the gathering of my scattered brain from eight years of lacking. Those eight years were the build up. The paradox is this. They say don't change everything at once because it is too complex to stick. But as complex as I want to make it sound, or as many things as I want to add, there is really only one thing, and that is to try. They still might be right. I already had a weekly blog and I just stacked a video on top of it. If it collapses, I will report that here too. That is what the page is for. The opposite is not living. I long for reading bland words just so I can solve a niche issue. But at the end of the day that is novelty, because there has been no attempt to try, only a mind feeding itself with who it wants to be. I may be the age I am now, but I can assure you I have not lived all the years I have been alive.