You Cannot Stop What Arrives
What I notice I cannot stop my thoughts. Try it yourself. Set a timer for thirty seconds and think of nothing. A thought will arrive before you pick it. This is my own observation. I have not checked the research on it. Some thoughts arrive with weight. One kind is a standard I did not choose. It asks me to be someone before I have done anything. I cannot meet that kind by working, because it…
Thoughts are unavoidable. Attempt to think of nothing for thirty seconds and a thought will still arrive. Some thoughts carry significant weight, such as unchosen standards that demand you be someone before you have accomplished anything. The author observed this in the Marvel series VisionQuest, which explores holding someone's memories without their feelings.
Using this as inspiration, the author presents three ways to address a thought that feels too heavy. The first option is to act immediately, treating the thought as an order. The second option, which the author wishes to focus on, is to retreat and leave the thought unaddressed. This decision removes the possibility of falling short.
The third option is to record the truth, determine what is achievable, and leave the rest as unknown. The author then applies this thinking to their settlement engine, which cannot control what arrives, such as payment gateway timeouts or PostgreSQL deadlocks. The engine can only decide the state it writes next. When faced with a timeout, the engine writes "UNKNOWN" to indicate it does not know if the payment was processed.
This prevents the engine from entering an endless loop of retries, which could cause the settlement to remain in a "PENDING" state for an indefinite period. The author draws a comparison between the settlement engine and a person. While both have limitations, the engine's UNKNOWN decision is smaller and more honest than CONFIRMED, and it allows for a later reconciliation.
The author concludes that the best course of action is to acknowledge what has been accomplished and leave the rest unclaimed. By doing so, one can maintain a sense of progress and avoid the trap of feeling overwhelmed by unmet expectations.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
