Posted on: 05/30/2022 @ 01:30 PM
After many years of living the small-town Indiana life, I was becoming more and more unfulfilled. I didn't really like anything about my life. Everything felt hollow. Continuously looking to fill this emptiness, I reached out to an old friend. We talked about life choices and paths to take. After a few months of these talks, I decided I wanted to get into web development. My friend pointed to some resources and I was off. I was buying the "best" books and taking online courses.
Once I felt I was ready, I said goodbye to my hometown and prepared to fail in Indianapolis. While it may not be the mecca of technology or the largest city, it has way more to offer than where I am from. The unknown of how my life would unfold was scary. I've never made a leap in 20+ years on Earth. But the known wasn't cutting it so I had to try.
"Try." That's something I avoided for years... The fear of failure became so crippling (it was drilled into my head by family and school) that to avoid it was to never even try. But let it be known that failure is good. Failure is progress. Never trying or never getting back up are the real problems. Wish I had understood that in my early years. But I digress...
A head full of dreams and wishes and I was off. I networked and contracted. After a year, with help from friends and family, I felt like it may be working. My skills were getting better and I could afford to feed myself. Just keeping the daily grind going for years. Learning and learning and learning some more. Each new skill adds a weapon to my arsenal. Before I knew it, I was living comfortably and getting married! Then a kid came!! THEN A HOUSE!!
My blue-collar background helps with the grinding. It shaped me. While I got bored with those jobs rather quickly, they instilled a lot in me. Guess this is some more rambling but that's ok... again. I'm just here to type out my thoughts about my life and eventually code. :)