Today, the results for the Programming Languages assignment (a course about programming language implementation) came out. Lower than expected. I can accept getting a lower score than expected, but I was really angry that they just stayed quiet without any feedback and then just dropped the assignment results. They implemented a feedback feature but don’t even use it. I felt like I was robbed of a proper learning opportunity, and I got really heated.

But looking back at myself being angry, the motivation behind most things I pushed hard or had strong motivation for—most of the things that gave me good memories—was anger. Thoughts like “I could do better than this” or “What are they trying to do by doing it like this?” That anger includes anger toward others but also anger toward myself. When I think I shouldn’t live like this, when I feel pathetic about myself, when I look at myself wasting time.

And I realized that I haven’t felt this kind of anger well for the past few years. This is almost the first time since 2021 that I’ve felt such a strong motivation to solve a problem. The causes are probably various. Maybe I’ve been keeping my head down while doing military service alternative duty, or I don’t have enough energy to express such external motivation. Maybe I made excuses about being busy.

Actually, I could swallow and move past such problems, and I’ve lived like that for several years. But when I look back at whether my life became fulfilling from doing that, it’s not at all. To express it exactly as I said to my friend:

But does lounging around comfortably without making a fuss give me satisfaction? It’s only temporary satisfaction. I should accept that I have this condition where I can’t tolerate such things, and that’s just my life..

An interesting fact is that when anger arises about one thing, I can focus well and pour energy into other unrelated things too. I was furious after seeing that, but I’m also writing this article, and I’m gaining momentum on what I originally wanted to do. Maybe because I have overflowing energy, I sense these things well and get angry about them.

P.S. However, when this happens, the problem of “pouring everything in and experiencing burnout” that I couldn’t solve for years repeats itself in the process of continuously solving problems and thinking about them. I need to think about how to solve this and maintain my motivation sustainably.