tl;dr: Take risks, try new stuff often, change directions if you want to
I wanted to study business, but a software dev booth at my college convinced me otherwise. I loved computers and already paid rent by making websites.
A few years later, I'm studying software engineering in university. Some senior convinces me to go abroad while it's easy. I find an internship in Germany.
A few months later, it's time to go back to Canada, and I don't want to. I love Berlin, Germany, Europe and a girl. I have a job offer. I love the team, have a good salary and get more time off than my parents combined. I drop out, sell my stuff and settle here.
Meanwhile, I get frustrated with German bureaucracy, so I start writing simple guides on a simple website about it. Traffic picks up, then revenue. Meanwhile, my second job at a big corp kills my passion for coding or waking up. I'm single again. I quit the job and ride a motorcycle from Berlin into the side of a car in Tajikistan. While waiting for repairs in Kazakhstan, the website's income meets my cost of living.
My passion for motorcycles died before I did, but the website is still going strong. It gave me purpose, a relaxed life and a grateful audience. I am still excited about it; the code, the content, the marketing challenges. AI is upsetting that balance, but even if it ended tomorrow, I'd be forever grateful for the last few years.
I'm not clever or hard-working. I just rolled the dice more often than many. I tried stuff and fully committed to my silly ideas. I have my fingers in many pies and leave a lot of half-finished projects in my wake, but at least I'm not afraid of trying things out. It could have worked any other way, but after experiencing a few months in a cubicle farm, I'd rather off myself than go back to that.
Love the story. I feel like I also rolled the dice more than others. Somehow, I haven’t ever hit. Well, that’s not true, my career has been good to me. Maybe that’s why, but my crazy ideas never seem to work or I give up too early.
I wrote about a bunch of my hits and failures a few years back.
Original career aside, I only struck gold once, and I didn't realise what I was sitting on for a while. I'm almost a decade in, and I'm still learning.
I wanted to study business, but a software dev booth at my college convinced me otherwise. I loved computers and already paid rent by making websites.
A few years later, I'm studying software engineering in university. Some senior convinces me to go abroad while it's easy. I find an internship in Germany.
A few months later, it's time to go back to Canada, and I don't want to. I love Berlin, Germany, Europe and a girl. I have a job offer. I love the team, have a good salary and get more time off than my parents combined. I drop out, sell my stuff and settle here.
Meanwhile, I get frustrated with German bureaucracy, so I start writing simple guides on a simple website about it. Traffic picks up, then revenue. Meanwhile, my second job at a big corp kills my passion for coding or waking up. I'm single again. I quit the job and ride a motorcycle from Berlin into the side of a car in Tajikistan. While waiting for repairs in Kazakhstan, the website's income meets my cost of living.
My passion for motorcycles died before I did, but the website is still going strong. It gave me purpose, a relaxed life and a grateful audience. I am still excited about it; the code, the content, the marketing challenges. AI is upsetting that balance, but even if it ended tomorrow, I'd be forever grateful for the last few years.
I'm not clever or hard-working. I just rolled the dice more often than many. I tried stuff and fully committed to my silly ideas. I have my fingers in many pies and leave a lot of half-finished projects in my wake, but at least I'm not afraid of trying things out. It could have worked any other way, but after experiencing a few months in a cubicle farm, I'd rather off myself than go back to that.