Irony and Idealization
En Español  

The greatest irony of my life, that which these words in your web browser are meant to correct, has always been the fact that even though I have been working in the field of web development of almost 12 years now, I didn't have a web site that I could call my own.

Why? It certainly wasn't a lack of technical knowledge, as I am very confident about my skills. Neither was the lack of time, there has been enough time to work on it during different periods of my life. It has been because I idealized the end result.

Back when I started in this field about 12 years ago, I started with a small website, a simple HTML tutorial. When I started it, it didn't even have a background, it was just text and some tables. And it grew after that; by the time I stopped working on it due to homework overload at school, as I was nearing the end of school, what started as a simple website was not simple anymore, it had a nice layout, and it was full of content. And a few people e-mailed me about how it help them.

But once I was out of school, I was already planing a new website, or an improved version of what I had. What would it be about?, I didn't know, I only wanted it to be great, I wanted it to be a display of my skills at the time, to be the best website ever made, to be perfect. Over the years, designs came and went, I wrote introductions and content, and every year one of my goals was to have a website up. In the end, however, it never materialized. The analogy of waiting until all the lights are green before start driving comes to mind.

I know better know, and I know that I must continue aiming to perfection, and work on it, but I need to be reasonable, I know when to stop and actually publish something. I am proud of the systems that I made so far, and I believe their quality is far superior to that of others, and I know that they are well polished, but I know that they can not be perfect, no system ever is, and that is ok.

I'd like to add that this idealization also applies to persons. The reason that we get so disappointed of others; that what seemed to be a perfect relationship ends up badly, is that we idealize our partner and our life together, instead of getting to really know the other person and accept, or at the very least tolerate, their imperfections.