Why Humans Rewrite What Already Works
There is a peculiar human habit that shows up everywhere—from software and systems to relationships and organizations.
Something is working.
Not perfectly. Not beautifully. But reliably. Predictably. Well enough that people depend on it.
And then someone decides it needs to be redone.
Not because it failed. Not because it couldn’t scale. Not because it caused harm.
But because it wasn’t theirs.
Control Disguised as Improvement
Rewriting is often framed as progress, but underneath it is usually a transfer of control.
When a person rebuilds a system, they don’t just change its structure—they change who owns it psychologically. If they wrote it, they understand it. If they understand it, they trust it. And if they trust it, they feel safer.
Working systems built by others can feel like black boxes. Even when documented, even when stable, they carry an uncomfortable truth: someone else made the decisions.
Rewriting removes that discomfort.
Ego and the Need to Be Seen
Maintenance is invisible work. Creation is not.
Many people don’t want to be known as caretakers of something functional. They want to be known as builders. Rewriting becomes a way to signal intelligence, competence, and relevance.
“I can do this cleaner.” “I would have done it differently.” “I can improve this.”
Sometimes that’s true. Often it’s not. But the rewrite still serves its purpose: it puts the spotlight back on the person doing the changing.
Anxiety Avoidance
Understanding an existing system requires patience and humility. It means admitting that someone else already solved problems you haven’t fully grasped yet.
Starting over feels easier.
A blank slate reduces anxiety. It feels organized, intentional, and calm—until reality arrives. Edge cases reappear. Old bugs resurface. The same lessons are relearned the hard way.
Rewriting can be less about improvement and more about emotional relief.
Incentives Reward Change, Not Stability
Most environments reward visible action.
Fixing what isn’t broken creates momentum, presentations, and progress reports. Quietly maintaining something that works creates none of those things.
So people change systems to justify roles, budgets, promotions, or relevance. Stability looks like stagnation. Change looks like leadership.
Even when the cost of that change is higher than anyone admits.
The Invisible Wisdom of Working Systems
Functional systems carry history.
What looks inefficient often exists for a reason. What looks messy may be protecting against failure modes no longer remembered. Every workaround is a scar from a past problem that already happened.
Rewriting wipes that history clean.
And history has a habit of repeating itself.
A Better Question
Instead of asking:
“Can I do this better?”
A more honest question is:
“What problem is this solving that I don’t see yet?”
That question doesn’t eliminate change—but it slows reckless change. It separates improvement from impulse. Craft from ego.
Final Thought
Progress isn’t always about rebuilding.
Sometimes it’s about respecting what survived long enough to work.
Because very often, nothing was broken.
And we fixed it anyway.
INCLUSIVES 
Leave a comment