Daniel Terrero

Investing time and energy in activities without a predetermined outcome

I am part of a particle research physics group and since my freshman year I have been developing programs to analyze the data of collisions in a detector in Virginia. Lately, I have been in conversations with a construction company to develop an app for them, we have a verbal confirmation of payment for at least the MVP and the time that my roommate and I are inputting.

But all the future outputs of those ventures are unknown. Imagine a machine in which you place your time and energy consistently for an extended period of time ( lets say 19 months ) and you do not see anything come of it. The only changes that occur are in your understanding of the machine’s functionality, knowledge of those responsible for its maintenance, and awareness of others investing their time and energy in it. You earn that insight.

Your mental model of the machine changes with the information that you earned by giving your energy to the machine, but you still hope that something bigger comes out of it.

My brain is at that point, I know I am not going to stop giving my energy and time to the machine. The understanding that even if there is no energy on the machine, my energy has to go somewhere else, my time too.

This weekend I am going to place, invest, more energy in particle physics, because the doubt that I am filled with, the doubt regarding the output, is based on always asking for more, knowing that I have gained. I will keep asking for more, I will keep gaining more.