You already know.
You have known for weeks.
The project is not going to work,
or it is going to work
and you will hate maintaining it,
and every morning
you open it anyway
because stopping
feels like admitting something.
Admitting what, exactly.
That you learned something
that cost time.
That is not a confession.
That is just what learning costs.
The trap is simple
and it is very old.
The more you have put in,
the harder it is to walk away,
which means the worst investments
hold you the tightest.
You do not owe a project
the rest of your life
because you gave it
the last six months.
The months are gone
whether you continue or not.
The only real question
is where the next six go.
But be honest about
which kind of hard
you are in.
Some things feel bad
because they are almost done
and the last ten percent
is always tedious.
That is not a reason to quit.
That is the tax on finishing,
and paying it is the whole skill.
Other things feel bad
because you no longer believe
the thing at the centre.
The users are not there.
The idea was wrong.
You changed
and the plan did not.
That is a reason to quit,
and no amount of discipline
will make a wrong direction
into a right one.
Discipline applied to a dead idea
is just a slower way
of losing the same time.
So make it a decision,
not a drift.
Give it a date.
Name what would have to be true
by then.
If the date arrives
and none of it is true,
stop cleanly.
Write down what you learned
in plain sentences.
Keep the parts worth keeping.
Close the tab.
Then notice something.
The energy that comes back
is not new energy.
It was yours the whole time,
paying rent on a thing
you had already stopped believing in.
Finishing matters.
Finishing the wrong thing
is just tidy waste.
– Serguey Asael Shinder
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