We change

We change ourselves by every path we take and every choice we left behind.

I was six years old once. I still can remember that feeling. Everything around was new and scary, the sort of scary that is good and noble for it takes you from the unknown to the experience.

There was a computer at home and one day I decided to follow my dad at his studio and watch him type, keystroke by keystroke. That day I felt in love with technology.

I was fourteen at one time, as well. There was this girl I liked, who didn’t like me back. I took another hour at my computer class to try to lose myself into another world, and forget a bit of that pain. It worked. I built a website with a friend, and we sold it to a school for 300usd. Real money that someone was willing to give us in exchange of something we had built. That day I felt in love with being on my own, and earning my own money.

I was sixteen another time. The details are less fuzzy, and I’m deciding whether to go to college or not. This girl I like is going there, and so the choice is made. There’s not a lot of love of studying but if I can build something that’s alright. It’s an uncertain path. This becomes common.

I was twenty two a couple of years later, I gather. Feels like yesterday. I’ve been working for six years now, and the girl I’m dating at the time convinces me to bite the bullet and stop talking about the business I’d be running and to actually run it. My first business is born. That moment feels like forever.

We break up at some point and I find out I have no idea how to charge clients or how to cash a check. I learn. I adapt. A promise is made, to always give my best and to learn everything about my business so it never happens again.

From that point on, things are different. I’m different. I’m twenty four now. I leave a big project I’ve been building for the Peruvian Navy to focus completely at my business. I’ve managed to create a paycheck for my own. And then another. I learned about debts and I learned how to handle them. That moment I know I will be doing this for the rest of my life.

I grow, and I change. I meet people. They push me to greater things. They ask me for more. I do talks. I write a book. I grow complacient. I’ve started to break my promise. There are now things I know nothing of. I don’t like it.

I’m thirty now. Present day. I’m not in my country and for the first time in my life, I’m not certain whether I’m going back or moving on. I’m living (with lots of help) another adventure. I push myself. Sometimes I feel I’m not up to the task. In others, it seems perfectly clear every choice I’ve made in my life has brought me here. And I know is nothing but the start.

I’m sleeping less and less. I’m learning in two months more that I’ve learned in the last couple of years. I’m evolving. That promise I made to myself is burned into my mind again. Learn. Change. Adapt.

I’m fighting with myself to be better. Greater. To break chains I’ve built ages ago that tie me down with behaviours and ideas that matter not now.

I’m thirty now and will be for sometime. A year, I recon. I’ll continue to grow, and to fall. To transform.

I know at this moment that everything has been so painfully obvious, that there was actually no other path that I could have have taken, from that first keystroke trying to render a game, to every job offer I didn’t even look at. This is real.

I’m having the best time of my life. Even if it’s also the scariest one.