Are you like me? Then we are here to make a dent in the universe.
This is a very personal note.
Age 12-14
I sit by my wooden table and I write. I used to write little booklets about superheroes and fantasy and horror stories. I even decorated them with messy art. I thought I was good at art; so I kept drawing action figures as well. I had a weird imagination. I looked at toy action figures and I imagined them soaring through the sky and fending off flying zombies. What a dork haha.
Age 16
Oh the adrenaline surging years. I found myself feeling average. I was terrible at math. I was the worst at chemistry. I was always either the 25th or 26th in my class and we had roughly 30 students in a class. I was good at Art though and there was this one subject I always loved: IT. I was a huge tech geek. At the age of 14 I taught myself Visual basic and started coding simple applications to help my day to day stuff. I loved designing cool user interfaces. I spent most of my teenage years coding, designing and imagining cool techy stuff.
In my country, we had the Ordinary Levels coming up by the age of 16. Little did my teachers and my parents know that I was in my room teaching myself game development. I created my first ‘First person shooter’ that year. Nobody played it though, it was just for me (a cousin played it I think).
O/Levels came and I scored average grades. I was always an average Joe in school but I always knew I was supposed to do something else. Something greater; something more exciting. I was very outgoing and I’d say I was the ‘dorkiest’ and the craziest one in my gang of dorks back in school. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be average for the rest of my life. My parents were worried that I had no direction. I wanted to do more. But… I just didn’t know what I was supposed to do.
Age 18
When we reached 18 (Grade 13 in school), we had to sit for the Advanced Levels (same as the ordinary levels but more.. *cough* advanced). As you may have guessed, I was struggling. Hell, I was suffocating. It felt like I was forced to eat human flesh when clearly I wasn’t a cannibal. By this age, I knew that TECH was my calling. I started dreaming about being a software engineer, a developer, a hardcore coder, an innovator. All these new and exciting goals started piling up and yet I was staring at this huge barrier ahead of me.
Welcome to the stage: Destiny
Now, I don’t believe in luck. I believe in making my own luck. However I am a strong believer in destiny and how we eventually find ourselves doing what we are supposed to do. 5 months before the dreaded A/Level examinations, I decided to quit school and jump in to a Bachelors Degree in Software Engineering. Finally, I was in college. Finally everything was falling in to place. I escaped that dark dungeon and I was finally on my way to become who I wanted to be.
3 and a half years later, I was smiling back at my parents as I climbed down the stairs with a black square shaped hat and a very handy looking roll of validation. I was a graduate and I passed with honors. Great. The next day, I asked myself, ‘What’s next?’
Age 22
By the age of 22, I have worked on 4 of my own startups. All of them ended up as paper balls. If you came looking for me, you would see me working on my new startup. I would most definitely be planning on a better way to reach my goals. Never stop believing in yourself.
Here I am. I survived school, I survived college, I survived the teenage years where many.. make mistakes. I knew exactly who I wanted to be. I wanted to change the world. I wanted to create a dent in the universe and I wanted my own legacy. I gave up fantasies like dating, chasing girls and I always stood as far away from drugs and alcohol. I never gave in. I wanted to stay on track. I am on track. I am proud of what I have accomplished so far but the journey is just getting started.
If you are like me, you dream of bigger things that are way away from your reach but yet you desire them. If you are like me, you feel hopeless and lost at times. But if you are like me, you always find a way around a problem. People like us, we are not here to spend our youth partying away and hopelessly jumping from one job to another. People like us, we are here to create a slight dent in this universe we live in.
Believe in yourself. Believe that what should happen will happen and when it does, you’ll be ready to work your ass off.
This is my story so far. It’s still the first chapter,
