Hard leather boots

study thoughts

4 minutes to read

Recently I acquired a pair of boots after years of wearing only sneakers and it has been a quite interesting experience that made me think about my relationship with things that are quite painful at the beginning. But first, let me talk about the actual boots.

I ended up meeting joaodebarrobotinas at a launch event for their physical store, after years of just selling online, during the event I became interested in a pair of boots that I found very beautiful.

hard-leather-boots

Apart from looking nice other benefits of this type of boots they give 13 points in physical defense are super resistant can last a lifetime, are easy to maintain meaning you can replace the entire sole and even customize it.

Given the facts above the idea of buying one is almost unquestionable right? Right?

So I bought one and couldn't wait for the day I had to leave my house to use it, but when I used I really, really, really hated it was too stiff, uncomfortable, and I got blisters and bruises all over my foot. Well at least the selling person was honest, and told me about that could happen, she said that those types of boots can get loose with the usage and even recommended removing an insole that the boots already had in and putting it back after some use.

I decided that I would use it only in situations where I didn't have to walk a lot or stand a little and day after day switching between my sneakers and my boots they were getting more comfortable.

Now I'm here after almost seven months of usage and I can confirm they are great, they got the exact shape of my foot, are more comfortable than my daily driver sneakers and as a bonus, I have all the benefits I pointed out at the beginning of this post.

So what is your point in writing this history in this post, you may ask my, dear hypothetical reader. I was thinking about this experience and I realized that I pass through it a lot.

I can summarize it in some phases:

  1. The Interest, in which you find something new or that could make your current life a little bit better and decide to investigate a little more.
  2. The study, where you check if this new thing can actually be useful and will completely replace your current one and if you should get out of your comfort zone.
  3. The Jump, you buy/install the thing and start playing around with it.
  4. The Pain and Hate, you regret your move, you have everyone that said to you do the jump, more and more you use the new thing you see you are way worst than before it and you don't see things getting better in a short run.
  5. The Intermittent, you keep switching between old and new, or you keep questioning if you didn't change you would be in a better position, but you keep trying and starts to get the taste of how the new thing can be good in a long run, it feels plausible to use it more and more. You use it in some situations you know you can handle with the extra pain/burden and switch to the old thing when you are in a rush or in hard situations.
  6. The New Normal, you are now comfortable with your new thing as you were before having it. If you are replacing something, you now are good with it as you were with the old thing but aren't comfortable enough to new fancy new features.
  7. The Transcendence, the things are better than before. You are having a better experience than before, you can have all the benefits expected in the Interest and Study phases and incorporate the new thing into your comfort zone.

Whenever I decide to get out of my comfort zone I pass through those phases as an example I remember when I decided to use Vim.

  1. This tool is cool and lightweight and you don't need a mouse to use it will improve your speed.
  2. It can replace my current setup with Sublime with plugins and some configurations.
  3. Copied a friend's configs and started to play with it, can't be that hard right?
  4. Oh God, I hate this thing I can remember all those commands, I just want to type in the god damn file.
  5. I will use it only in personal projects and when typing notes in my work.
  6. I'm comfortable with vim as I was with sublime, It takes the same amount of effort and time to do things in both tools.
  7. I can use all the benefits of vim, macros, super custom setup, plugins, and all the move keys I can do things faster in it than before.

This is strange because I just realized this flow/phases now with these boots, but looking back I can remember a few things I did in my life that fits inside this, here is a little list of things that I can remember in no particular order:

  • Windows -> Ubuntu
  • Ubuntu -> Arch Linux
  • Gnome -> i3
  • Sublime -> Vim/Nvim
  • vimrc -> aniseed+fennel config
  • Object-oriented programming -> Functional programming
  • Node -> Clojure
  • Normal keyboard -> 65% Mech Keyboard
  • 65% Mech Keyboard -> 48 keys Ortholinear Mech Keyboard
  • 48 keys Ortholinear Mech Keyboard -> 42 keys Column Staggered Split keyboard
  • No dog -> Having a dog (life is way better with a dog now)
  • Single -> Moving in with my girl
  • No health issues -> Surviving a cancer

My take from this is that you need to insist and be aware that isn't only the happy path when you decide to get out and change things in your life. In my case all the times I decided to pass through these phases, my life changed for the better.