These are the kind of formulas I carefully construct, hoping I don't miss a comma or choose a wrong column and then cross my fingers as I hit enter to see if it works. Then when I see a result that makes sense, I repeat the formula down the entire spreadsheet and spot check a few to make sure it is bringing back the data I want. If/when it all works, I celebrate. It brings me so much satisfaction. Making sense of a large volume of data is my happy place. It's where I excel and the problem solving aspect of it feeds my mind and soul.
Well yesterday, after doing all that and thinking I was getting good results, I looked a little closer. I always double and triple check my results to make sure they are accurate and that there isn't some nuance I'm missing that would make it all irrelevant. I fully recognize that you can make data say whatever you want it to say (both intentionally and inadvertently) but that doesn't mean the analysis is accurate or relevant or helpful.
What I discovered was that my initial data pull hadn't been big enough. My data and thus my analysis was incomplete.
So I got up from my desk and took a walk around the office. That's what I do when I need to think or get stuck. It's amazing how a little movement can bring clarity and answers. The only solution I could come up with was to start the analysis over from almost the beginning. It was a major setback.
But when I was ready to come back to the analysis again, I realized that I wasn't truly starting from scratch because I had learned a process for this project, practiced the formulas I needed, and figured out the organization I wanted for my summary. Yes, it would have been faster and more efficient to do it right from the start but all the time I spent on the initial analysis wasn't truly wasted. And without this mistake, I may not have learned the nuance of some of the specific data sources. I was initially working off of assumptions that were based on other types of data and not specific to this type of data. Now I would have more knowledge the next time I worked with this type of data.
Sometimes I wish I had never met my ex-husband. My mind runs through the paths in life I might have taken without him. I wonder if I would have made it to law school. And maybe more devastatingly it all feels like such a waste of my time and energy.
But like this data project where I had to start over this week, I'm now starting over life with a whole lot more knowledge and having learned much along the way. So simultaneously as I struggle with unfamiliar feelings of regret with regard to this marriage, I also am in awe at how I am applying all that I have learned because of this marriage.
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