This post is secret; you can only find it via my RSS feeds (and places which syndicate them). It's okay to talk about it or link to it, though. Thanks for being part of RSS Club!
Sometimes I feel like I’m resting on my laurels.
The most-important thing that I’ve given to the world is almost-certainly Three Rings. Three Rings facilitates several volunteer-years of volunteer work every day. Over the last 23 years it’s become so essential a service that several major charities – and innumerable smaller grassroots groups – can’t conceive of how they functioned without it.
A distant second is probably FreeDeedPoll.org.uk, through which I’ve helped tens of thousands of people to change their name for free. Plus, through this I’ve learned enough about the law that I’ve been able to support people fighting discriminatory behaviour by high street banks, and trans kids whose parents don’t support their identity, and dual-citizens standing up against illiberal laws in their ‘other’ countries, and divorcees whose estranged exes won’t let them share their name with their children.
Everything else is a far-distant third. All the voluntary work, all the open-source, all the… everything… will probably never leave a mark so significant as, y’know, those two. (If any of this sounds like a humblebrag, I’m sorry: that’s truly not my intention.)
What if I waste the second half of my adult life producing… nothing? At least: nothing of even remotely-comparable value? Have I “peaked”? Have I already done the most-good for the world that I ever will? Where will that leave me in five, ten, or twenty years?
Ultimately, the problem is that I might never be “enough” for my own standards. Possibly what I need isn’t to “make more things”, it’s to “have more therapy”!
But for now: this is what weighs on me from time to time.
I’ve tussled with this one too – as the time available to do something truly world-altering that justifies the resources I’ve consumed goes down, my sense that maybe I’m a literal waste of space (on the days I feel that way) just gets stronger. Ultimately, I suppose, most people aren’t going to change the world; personally, I’ve concluded it’s enough to try and put more good out there than bad.
You did two important things that improved a lot of lives. The doesn’t mean you’re failing if you don’t do more of them.