The text I quoted above got me thinking.
As many of my readers know, I’ve been working on an extremely difficult programming problem for the last seven years. Many really smart people have attempted to solve it before me, and so far, none have succeeded; many others, equally intelligent, believe that it simply can’t be done. Although I’ve made some progress on it, it has been an uphill struggle all the way, and it’s only in the last couple weeks that I’ve finally seen a hint of a solution.
(When I started it, I told my wife that it may well take ten years to complete, and it looks like that estimate was pretty accurate. She hasn’t been too happy, waiting so long with no visible progress and very little income, but she has backed me all the way. She’s awesome.)
In my younger years, I never would have considered tackling a project that big. But somewhere along the way, I stumbled over this quote:
Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.
— Earl Nightingale
You’re going to get older at the same rate whether you sleep, play games, or work on something useful. Anyone can sleep or play games, and millions do — but I’ve always wanted to accomplish something big. And when people tell me that something can’t be done, I’m driven to prove them wrong. 🙂
I believe that we, the human race, have had the technical ability to solve this problem for the last fifteen years or more. I believe that I have the resources — most importantly, the sheer bull-headed tenacity — to pull it off. The only question in my mind is how long it’s going to take.
There’s another quote I like:
A man’s greatness can be measured by his enemies.
— Don Piatt
So long as the time is going to pass anyway, why not tackle the hardest problem you can find? Identify that problem, make it your enemy, and devote as much time as it takes to defeating it, and you’ll be remembered for it.
What are you waiting for?