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Initial post on what I'm doing here.
34. What would you consider to be your biggest failure in life?
I'd have to go with spending several years of my career, and at least two or three more than I should have, as a member of a self-funded effort, which eventually imploded, to turn a promising idea into a successful software enterprise. In addition to the cost of the effort in both time and money, the stress of investing as much of my life as I did in the work did considerable damage to relationships I value, including with spouse, and took me better than a year to even approximately recover from the mental pummeling I had subjected myself to. And the reflection and introspection that was part of that recovery included re-evaluating my sexuality and gender identity, and discovering that it was not what I believed it was -- and adding the stress and distress of dealing with this to all the other damage is complicating and extending the recovery process.
Despite all this, some of the results seem favorable. Spouse and I are still working on repairing the damage to our relationship, understanding the interaction between the damage and our personal histories, separately and together, and dedicated enough to the process to hope there can be a successful conclusion. I got a chance to experience the changes in the software development work environment as an observer, instead of as a participant -- and recognize that my personal cost of working in that environment likely outweighed any benefit I would get from it. And I now understand that the cost of pretending my gender identity and sexuality are not what they actually are is unsustainable, and am searching for a path I am willing to follow to drop that pretense.
34. What would you consider to be your biggest failure in life?
I'd have to go with spending several years of my career, and at least two or three more than I should have, as a member of a self-funded effort, which eventually imploded, to turn a promising idea into a successful software enterprise. In addition to the cost of the effort in both time and money, the stress of investing as much of my life as I did in the work did considerable damage to relationships I value, including with spouse, and took me better than a year to even approximately recover from the mental pummeling I had subjected myself to. And the reflection and introspection that was part of that recovery included re-evaluating my sexuality and gender identity, and discovering that it was not what I believed it was -- and adding the stress and distress of dealing with this to all the other damage is complicating and extending the recovery process.
Despite all this, some of the results seem favorable. Spouse and I are still working on repairing the damage to our relationship, understanding the interaction between the damage and our personal histories, separately and together, and dedicated enough to the process to hope there can be a successful conclusion. I got a chance to experience the changes in the software development work environment as an observer, instead of as a participant -- and recognize that my personal cost of working in that environment likely outweighed any benefit I would get from it. And I now understand that the cost of pretending my gender identity and sexuality are not what they actually are is unsustainable, and am searching for a path I am willing to follow to drop that pretense.
