Do The Difficult Things

These recent months have been the most enlightening to me — months that made me reflect on my journey and make hard choices. Before the popularity of artificial intelligence, I felt really comfortable. I was good at building frontend applications and was never afraid to take on any project. But before I took frontend as my core skill, I actually began my journey with Java. Not many people know that I was originally a backend engineer.

What changed? While attempting to build a global business solving customer acquisition in the poultry industry, I did basically everything — managed the cash book, built the backend with Node.js, built the web with EJS and later React, built mobile with React Native, created video content, did illustrations, marketing, customer research, and customer support. I did it all because I didn't have the money to pay people. But what did this do to me? I got burned out when COVID hit.

Because of the burnout and trying to recover slowly, I tilted towards what came easily. I realized most people ran away from CSS, but to me it was easy. I noticed my brain had to do more work when coding backend, so I chose to focus only on frontend even when I knew it was too easy for me. Fast forward to this year, I had become an expert — no UI was impossible for me. But then AI came and jolted me from my sleep.

Because I was good at my job, I didn't pay much attention to learning things that really mattered — machine learning, complex algorithms, distributed computing system design, complex architectures. I learned what I needed to and felt comfortable, but I didn't know deep enough. That's what AI came to remind me, and by extension, you. Trust me, I have learned my lesson.

So learn from my experience. Don't sit back and think because you mastered a skill means you would always enjoy comfort. Sometimes our worst enemy is the very comfort we enjoy. Go out of your comfort zone. Be a better you. Challenge yourself to do the difficult things. Watch those long video lessons. It might seem difficult at the beginning, but that's how everything in life seems when you begin. Remember when you first started learning to type? Well, look at you now.