Accepting one defeat isn't giving up. Fail forward.

I'm not trying to make this into some sort of inspirational blog. I'm just throwing stuff out because I need to organize my thoughts. And reassure myself, too. 

I did not ask for sufficient clarity on when a particular deadline was, for the film this semester. As a result, it was unceremoniously dumped on me at 4:45 PM on a Friday, that I would need to have everything completed by the end of the day on Saturday. I had to cancel my plans to go to Lagoon on opening day, and to go to the reptile expo in SLC with my friends. On a beautiful day, too. 

The heating in the animation lab was on full-blast, despite it being 78 degrees outside. I had just gotten word from DreamWorks that they can't work around my Adobe internship, so I'm going to have to decline their offer. I have been issues trying to post to one of my favorite subreddits, despite not being banned or restricted in any way. And then I had this deadline dropped on me. I had a mini anxiety breakdown on the drive home that evening -- was not fun. 

I forced myself into the blazing hot lab the next day (today), bringing my portable fan. I found that one shot was checked out by someone who wasn't in the lab (the same person who told me about the deadline last-minute), so I couldn't work on it at all. I messaged this person multiple times, asking them to return the shot, and they never replied. In fact, hardly anyone was in the lab. 

So I worked on my other shot, but I hit a roadblock when trying to get the motionblur working, and I couldn't figure it out. There was no one from my team to ask, and I wasn't even 100% sure if it was my responsibility or the rendering team's. And I had to run errands, to get a haircut, to work on my computational creativity homework...So I threw up a final render with the best settings I could figure out, and decided to just hope for the best. I'll put it together tonight, and if it sucks, it sucks. I guess it's just not going in the film then. 

I want my work in the film. But I can't destroy myself over it. My other classes and other aspects of my life are equally important. I did my best, and I do think that if my questions had been answered and others had been in the lab -- I would have figured it out. 

Technically, I could've been a hero and kept fighting in the blazing hot lab until midnight. I could skip dinner, my other haircut, my other classes, my hobbies, going out to eat, enjoying the nice weather...Then, I technically would've put in all my efforts. But I think that working from 11:45 AM to 4 PM, doing everything I could and waiting for a message and googling and researching and trying to figure it out, then leaving because I have other homework and maintenance to do...I think that is my best effort. I accepted defeat, or a temporary failure, knowing that I will succeed in the long term. If I pushed myself ragged until midnight, I'd just as well be exhausted, burnt out, unable to focus, and with no better work to show. It's about efficiency. It's about using the resources that you have. I miscalculated how much feedback I would get on how to improve this, and I was not well-informed of deadlines, so this is simply what happened. I waited the whole afternoon and did not get the responses that I needed. Next time, I'll start WAY WAY earlier. 

People who triage to the point of self-destruction always get bad GPAs. This is why you should not listen to them when they keep telling you to throw everything else away for it. Look, you could spend the entire night slaving away and still not figure it out. In fact this is usually what happens. It's actually better for you to set a hard cut-off time, obey it, and then simply restart, recharge, fail again, fail better. 

My restart begins now. Obsessive iteration. Not slogging. Fail forward. 

I destroyed myself in undergrad. I gained a bunch of weight. I was perpetually exhausted. I loved what I studied, but I pushed myself too hard and was very inefficient. This is how you burn out. This is how what you love becomes a chore. Stick with what you love, but take care of yourself too. 

Again, TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF IS NOT ACCEPTING DEFEAT. DO NOT BECOME A ZOMBIE. DO NOT LIVE IN THE COMPUTER LAB, CONSTANTLY CODING/ANIMATING AND THROWING YOUR LIFE AWAY. Do a lot of it, sure. Work hard and efficiently, and push yourself. But don't break your own spirit. 

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