Ask HN: Are you embarrassed by your failed projects?

Looking back. I'm not so much embarrassed about the failed projects, so much as knowing the things I might have done differently to change the outcome for the better.

Thats neither here nor there seeing as how you just take it all with a grain of salt, add and apply that knowledge to current projects and keep chugging along trying not to second guess yourself.

However, the code written for some of those past projects; I hope it never sees the light of day. Thats the only thing I'm embarrassed about. So if thats the worst of my issues, I think im doing okay.

Never embarrassed. I use failed projects as a way to learn and improve on the process and next project.

Take what's worth saving and leave the rest: mistakes not to repeat, lessons worth learning, and view failures as learning experiences not as dead luggage following you.

I'm not embarrassed that I'm no longer a salaryman or a technical translator or a teacher or an order entry operator or a lab attendant or a toothbrush-wielding oil pipe cleaner or a paperboy. If I'm not embarrassed about switching entire careers, why would I worry about not continuing with all side projects?

I am usually too busy regretting the lost time to be embarrassed.

I always choose projects that, if they succeed, will become a launching point for something(s) larger. They represent the beginning of an exponential growth curve, where the x axis is the seconds I have to spend (before I cease to be) and the y axis is the derivative of accomplishment. A failed project represents a wasted fraction of those seconds, which pushes the exponential growth curve to the right (and some portion of it is pushed beyond my allotted lifespan, which is the right-hand limit of my integral). My integral is irreparably reduced.

You can expand your accomplishment-integral bound beyond your lifespan. Still, that axis is probably finite, and the integral will never catch up with where it could have reached had I/you not failed in the first place.

I'm embarrassed by the ones I've been working on for a long time but never released. Not by the ones that I did release but failed to gain any traction.