Table of contents

• Steps
• Notes

Self debugging consists in the process of sitting down, forgetting about everything else, and debugging yourself as if you were a buggy program. Trying to find out what’s going on at a deeper level, without ending up throwing away, repressing, or wrongly addressing the core of some personal issue.

Steps

1. Switch off everything, distraction included
2. Loosen the self for a few minutes, getting ready to stay focused for a long time
3. Pinpoint a problem, the source of stress or pain, define its extension and its area of influence
4. Start the very debugging process:
   1. identify the source of the problem
   2. identify its effects
   3. imagine how would it be to live without it
   4. think about a possible resolution
      1. Try to come up with a solution
      2. think if there may be other solutions
      3. reflect on the applicability of those solutions
5. Take a few other minutes tinkering about the conclusion you got to and appreciate what’s been achieved. Not much has been achieved? Start a new debug

Notes

A great habit would be to perform self debugging even if there’s nothing relevant bothering or pressuring us. Addressing the cause of some suffering while not suffering for it could open a new, brighter and helpful new perspective on a possible solution — or, to stay in the Computer Sciences vocabulary, a possible fix.