Positively Thinking.

Like moving mountains. Only the beginning.

Optimism works wonders. The law of attraction has triumphed one too many times to be ignored completely. It's like that time so many of your friends told you not to watch a movie because it sucked so bad, like that Adrien Brody film The Jacket, and yet you, in all your optimistic rebellion, watched it in the middle of the night while all of them were asleep because you had faith in the bottomless pit that was Adrien Brody's talent.

But sometimes, no amount of quelling that self-limiting, self-defeating attitude can triumph over one film's yawn factor. No amount of pep talk, of optimism, of positive thinking can get you through to the end of one movie.

Like that Adrien Brody film The Jacket.

As with most things in life, there is an appropriate time to give up. 

I am giving up. I do not have the means or the strength to fight things that are beyond my control. I have done so much within my power (at least that I know of), and now, the appropriate time has come.

***

This is my mini city.

It's pretty pointless, as many of my friends have argued. What's the point of clicking a link once everyday to grow a city where I can't do much? It's not even a proper game. I just ask everyone I know to click the link once a day, and it grows. I have to click different links to maintain the city, its security, its work industry, it's environment, its transportation.

It's been growing since around October 2008 (or before that, I'm not sure), and the city has moved up in ranking from 300 something to now the 33rd most populated in the Saudi Arabia region.

To make it grow, I whored out the link. I pestered my co-workers, friends and family, and their friends, and I made sure they clicked that link and helped it grow. I made sure every person I know who has a computer and internet access clicked it daily. I emailed the link to everyone on my address book. I used it as my signature wherever I went online, so anyone remotely curious about it would click on it. I spent money on it (very little money, really), using my mobile phone to maintain the city. Some of my friends have begun resenting me, and one of them finally blew up, and asked me to please stop asking to have the link clicked as it annoyed her.

I chose to do this because I found it rewarding. My reward was seeing the city climb up the ranks. It gave me such a feeling of accomplishment; that I could do anything really, and that I am capable of changing something, even when it was as pointless as a little non-functioning city.

The energy, time, effort and money I spent on this could've been used on some other cause that was worthy of all that. 

Now, I question all that work I've put in it. It's true: it's pointless. I could be doing something else. I'm alienating people. What the hell am I doing?

I have given up somewhat some weeks ago. I have stopped asking people to click my city's link. I have somewhat neglected to maintain the city. I've stopped spending so much on it.

Funny enough, that's when the city started getting so many hits in one day. 

Did I give up at the right time?

I still do what I can do for it, mainly because I feel a responsibility towards it, something I started. I have to finish it. If not for myself, for my other friends who have so willingly pledged their own 2-seconds-daily to keep my city growing. 

But I am no longer putting in that much effort. 

I don't see the point anymore. I could be doing something else worthwhile.

But thank you for everything. It's been good. And it will continue to be, I'm sure.