Professionally and personally, I feel like I’m in a really good place.

When I was younger, the person I was was not the person I wanted to be. I remember stating that to my friend in high school.
It took me a long time, longer than most (I think)…but I think I’ve really been able to find myself. But I don’t mind that it took me so long to realize who I am because the journey is more important than the goal. I think it’s important to realize that I likely won’t ever be the kind of person I would expect of myself to be but that I at least work hard to strive for it.

There are some things I’m not great with and definitely need improvement on (being nicer to my parents and family, staying close with my friends, controlling my temper and/or emotions) but overall, I’m very happy with who I am now and proud of the decisions I’ve made to get me here.

But I also know that…who I am tomorrow should not be a copy of who I am today. That I need to continue to grow as a person, grow my skills, accomplish tasks, etc. And that as good as I am now, in the future I want to look back at myself and think ‘that guy knew nothing’.

I feel that way now, looking back at myself as a teenager, thinking I knew it all. But in reality, how little I knew about everything.
I feel that way looking back at my professional career, which started 6 years ago. I knew so little back then. And as I mentor co-workers 5 years younger, I can’t believe some of the things they don’t know. But then I have to remind myself that when I was their age, I knew just as much, maybe less. And some of them are probably thinking ‘i got it all figured out, there’s not a thing you oldies can teach me’. That’s probably how I felt at that age.

But that’s the funny thing about anything and everything: you only think you know it all because you only know as much of what you know about something (I know that’s confusing to read). You don’t know what you don’t know. That is, you don’t know what else exists because you simply don’t know. I think the more you think you know something, the less you really know about something.

As an example, I’m finding that I know so much about HTML. And that I’m near the end of my learning for it. But I also thought that a year ago. Two years ago. And every year, I get better showing how little I knew before. And with every new thing I learn, it opens up an infinite door of knowledge to everything else.

I’m finding now that I have certain hobbies and things I want to improve on. Photography is a new passion of mine and I want to get better. And I’m glad I have something like this that I want to improve on. I’m so freaking glad I’m driving a manual car now; it was a small accomplishment but it really encourages me to learn something new to fill me with a satisfaction of accomplishment. I think that’s one of the most gratifying rewards and my accomplishments post are a testament to reminding myself about that feeling. Honestly, I post them twice a month and they almost feel trivial at times BUT I know that when I look back at a years worth of accomplishments, it’s a feat. A years worth of accomplishments is like a really big coding project. Daunting at first but hundreds of tiny steps at a time will complete it. It’s not all so scary if you take little steps, at a steady pace.

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I want things to change.

Not dramatically, but I want things to be different.

I like the fact that I loved mushrooms as a kid and still love them.
I love the fact that I hated onions as a kid but love them now. It shows that I’m not stubbornly set in my ways, that I’ll give anything a second or third chance and judge something according to who I am now, not who I was. Because current me would feel so deprived eating a burger without onions now and that would suck if younger me’s mentality got in the way.
(The onions is just an analogy to other stuff. Also, I could go for a burger.)

Anyways, off to bed for me.
I still really really have to post my post I’ve been thinking about for ages. It’s somewhat related to this topic. I really need to work on that…maybe tomorrow :)