Obsession and stubbornness go hand in hand. After about 36 gnarly hours of obsessing about a problem at work, I’m finally about to sleep with some peace of mind.

I seem to have two forms in which my obsessive behavior crops up:

  1. Trying out new things: I’ll read, hear, or watch videos about something new. If that topic sparks some intrigue, then I’ll consume more content about the topic for several days or up to a week or two.
  2. Solving a problem: This happens more often when I’m coding, but there’s a certain standard of “solved” before I’m satisfied with a solution. Until I reach that, I can’t stop thinking about the problem.

The solving the problem form of this has been more deleterious to my health.

When I’m trying to solve an issue at work and the answer feels close, that’s the doom scenario. I will neglect food, my mood slowly starts to sour, my sleep schedule is at risk, and typically forget to workout.

This rarely happens when I’m learning something new. I know that I’m that case there’s very likely no end in sight (the pursuit of knowledge has no end), and since in aware of that, I can stop myself and pickup the next day.

For problem solving, I always just want to try one more thing. And if that doesn’t work, just one more thing. I know I’m really close to solving it, so maybe just one more. And so the cycle goes on as minutes turn into hours and days. You may wonder what I do when I don’t have another thing to try. Then I’ll just think about what I should try next. What have I missed? What variation haven’t I tried?

I don’t know if this is stubbornness though, yet it feels that way. Am I stubborn for not letting the problem go unsolved? Or is it only stubbornness if I want it solved a certain way?