People need to think through things more thoroughly...

...before coming up with signs like this. I love poor design, there's so much potential hilarity in it.

The consequences of failure.

You know that saying,"Reach for the stars; that way, even if you fail, you would have at least reached the moon."? Something like that. That saying really isn't applicable to a great many situations. Many times, when you fail to reach said stars....you fall from a very great height. The results won't be pretty.

First up would probably be the initial damage to your self-esteem and confidence. You build yourself up quite a bit just so you develop enough balls to go through with this hare-brained endeavour. Upon failing, the house of emotional cards collapses faster than you can say, "Fuck." Then there's probably some kind of residual fallout that may affect others around you. Your failure may reflect on them, actually hurt them in some way, such as when you fail to pull your own weight in a work-related project, delaying the progress of others that depend on your success. Of course, one cannot ignore the reputation damage that may possibly occur, as well as the loss of any time and/or other resources that you pour into the effort. I'm sure there's more, but these are the more apparent consequences of failure.

So, why try to achieve something that is so difficult to attain, comes with great inherent risk, especially if the prize isn't even certain? What if the rewards of success is merely a stepping stone to an even greater challenge? You're not even guaranteed to taste the fruits of your initial labour.

I would try, I think, because a part of me is quite romantic. For all my cynicism, I can still harbour quite a lot of optimism, I can be extremely stoic when need be, I can eventually shrug off all sorts of emotional damage given time without too many scars. Someone told me it's because I was born under the auspices of Gemini. This duality in nature is apparently inherent in such persons.

So yeah. I have hope, and I think I can succeed. I am willing to take chances, after weighing the potential reward against the risks. If I succeed, this could potentially be life-changing. It could be the best decision I've made in my entire life. I have great faith in my abilities, and in what I can do. And even if I fail, heaven forbid, at least I tried. I hate asking myself,"...what if...?"

No regrets. Life is too short for that kind of crap. I'd rather fall a long, long way than not try.

Besides, I'm resilient. I've made it alive for 25 years, I think I can take a catastrophic failure from time to time.

Why my job is hard.

My job is hard because no sane person wants to handle the details of designing, building and maintaining complex informational and logistics management systems.

My job is hard because in humanity's rush to get better (while slowly killing ourselves), we keep coming up with new technology that makes existing ones obsolete too quickly. I find it near impossible to keep up.

My job is hard because customers and bosses would rather see results in a short amount of time than implement the necessary amount of proper design concepts, which in contrast takes a longer time BUT ensures system maintenance becomes more manageable as time passes.

My job is hard because developers before me (myself included) have abandoned most said best coding practices for short-term results, rather than design purity.

My job is hard because short-sighted customers are always changing their minds on how they want their systems to work.

My job is hard because sales support staff are always trying to appease said customers by giving in to their demands, no matter how ridiculous or dangerous.

My job is hard because of the high turnover rate in my industry. Apparently operator burnout doesn't faze anyone here anymore. Rather than seeing it as an overarching problem, employers simply assume it is a problem endemic to those in the IT industry, and don't bother doing anything about it.

My job is hard because people invariably make mistakes, and it's my job to fix them. People make a LOT of mistakes, it seems.

And my job is hard because while I am good at it, I don't really like it all that much anymore.

Malicious intent or no, it is wrong to bad-mouth.

I caught myself ranting about this dude that I get exasperated with sometimes to another friend. It was all about how this person was unreliable, opportunistic and selfish. After about a minute into the rant, I began to feel guilty and stopped. It was a pretty cowardly thing to do, bad-mouthing/complaining about someone behind their backs without giving them a chance to defend themselves. Now, to set the record straight, I have openly confronted him about his shortcomings and how much it annoyed me. However, this does not give me the license to continue attacking him like I did, behind his back. I got pissed with myself then. If I don't want other people to do this to me, why do I still persist in doing it to others? Is there some kind of instinctive flaw, or ingrained cowardice that makes me do this?

It is wrong, I know it is. Better to be blunt and upfront than malicious and cowardly. But better yet, to just keep your gripes to yourself.

A form of selfishness.

I used to have a problem with watching romantic movies while I was still attached. When bugged about it, I fell back on the standard male-chauvinist response,"It was made for women." The truth is, watching them back then made me feel conflicted. On one hand, I had the impression that the movies were unrealistic depictions of real life. On the other, I caught myself thinking,"I want my life to be like that. But I don't want to change a single thing about myself to get there." Not in so many words, but in retrospect, I'm sure that what I meant. So sorry for bursting your righteous bubble, me-in-the-past. I'm such a selfish bastard.