Joy of problem solving and building something

Sequential Happiness

I once wrote an article about why programming can feel fun—or sometimes annoying. I guess it’s a matter of time. Anyway, over the past few days (or probably the last two weeks), I’ve been spending my time working on final exam projects. Yesterday, my favorite course finally became available to download and start working on. By the way, my finals aren’t something you finish in one day per course—they’re projects with about a week of time range.

That course is Web Programming. Honestly, other courses like Object-Oriented Design and Framework Layer Architecture (which talks about design patterns) are fun too, but I don’t know why—there’s just something different about Web Programming. Long story short, I started working on it right away. When it comes to a favorite course, I’m definitely not part of the “let’s procrastinate” club.

Somehow, in the middle of building the website for this final project, I felt genuinely happy—while listening to vocal music. That’s rare for me. Usually, if I want to stay focused and do deep work, I play Lo-Fi study/work or a classic study/work playlist. But this time, I truly enjoyed every part of it. I wasn’t getting paid, I wasn’t forced (even though it had to be done). I could’ve built it “good enough” by copying the UI/layout from the exam prompt, but instead I chose to design my own look—more minimalist, effective, and pleasant to look at.

That’s when I realized: this is the joy of problem solving and building something. I literally caught myself smiling because I enjoyed every minute—debugging, building the UI, searching around for solutions. This is what people call “passion.” If I had to choose one activity to do for the rest of my life, I don’t think the answer is simply “coding” or “programming,” but more like: “problem solving and building something.” It’s been a while since I had a project that made me this excited every single minute. Even though I do have some side projects, those sometimes feel empty—maybe because I mix them with online courses, so I focus more on absorbing knowledge than actually building.

How about you? Have you ever gotten so deeply focused that you lost track of time—and even forgot to eat—because you were having so much fun building or working on something? Feel free to leave a comment below and share. Thanks for reading—see you next time.