Building for hope
jasonleow • 3 Nov 2024 •
I build more when I’m sad. Anyone else does this?
I remember how I built 11 social good products during COVID. A huge part of that comes from wanting to do something to help, to make things better. Underneath all that, is just sadness. About being locked down. About people suffering, dying from the virus. About the state of the world. About not being able to do anything much about it.
So I built like a madman. The sadder I got the more I built.
I don’t think I’ve shared this explicitly back then. It was too raw, but now there’s some distance.
But how does building help with sadness?
I got a theory: To build, to create something requires some degree of hope and optimism. If one is super depressed, one can’t see into the future. Building helps us get out of that I feel. When you build, you put something out into the world to try to change it. When you ship, you hope for a good outcome. It pulls you out of the painful present into a brighter future. It’s like, in a marriage or any real life situation, you wouldn’t bother to fix the relationship or anything at all if you’ve given up already. Making the effort to fix things signals hope.
I build, therefore I hope.
I usually don’t associate with sadness as an emotion. I used to think I’m an optimistic person. I get anxious, I get angry, I get frustrated, I get overwhelmed, but I don’t get sad. It’s only in a recent call with Andrew that I felt there was an underlying sadness I didn’t acknowledge. I didn’t even know (and still don’t know!) what the sadness was about!
But it’s good you were able to both identify how you were feeling and figured out a way out of the sadness. 🙌🏻