I don’t have brain weasels: I’m running legacy code.

This will probably be the most nerdy thing I’ve ever written in regards to mental health, but bear with me… I promise it kind of makes sense.

For context: in my daily work, I deal with a lot of legacy software. I’m very much used to working on code that’s old enough to drink in pretty much every country on this earth, but is still chugging along happily.

A lot of software developers hate working on legacy code, but I’ve found that I actually enjoy it. There is a whole story hidden there between the lines, and you can often almost feel what a team went through. My attitude towards old crufty code tends to be: “Sure, it’s not pretty, but as long as it gets the job done and doesn’t cause any problems, it’s fine”.

Yesterday, during my EMDR I was reflecting on old patterns, things I’d once believed but that no longer served me. Some of these beliefs were echoes of things I’d been told, things I’d just adopted wholesale from my dad or other people in my life.

And then it struck me: I’m also running legacy code, in my head.

I used to externalise a lot of the negative voices in my head. For a very long time, I liked the “brain weasel” analogy, where there is this nasty little creature in your head, whispering toxic things to you.

I’d named mine Lucy, and for a long time that helped.

But the insight I had yesterday, feels more accurate. I didn’t write all the code in my head. A large share of it was handed to me, and I just installed it. A lot of it is fine, some of it is in dire need of being replaced.

Sometimes, I’ll replace a routine, only to find it needs replacing again a few months down the line. And that’s fine.

Like those legacy systems, I’m a perpetual work in progress. There’s always room for improvement, more elegant ways to do things. But that doesn’t mean I’m not OK right now. Like the system chugging along, I’m OK… as long as I don’t harm others or myself, it’s all good.

I could be better, and I strive to be. I work on it every day, but that will literally never end. There is always room for improvement, always a better, more empathic, cleaner way to handle things. I will never reach the Platonic ideal, and that is OK.

In my work, I often say “Perfectionism is the enemy of good enough”. Let’s try applying that to myself as well.