Man, October 2022, that time hit me like a ton of bricks. I was just slogging through my usual nine-to-five, you know? Waking up, staring at the same screens, doing the same damn tasks. It wasn’t bad, not really. The pay was decent, the people were okay. But something inside me just felt… empty. Like a well that was slowly drying up. I kept thinking, “Is this it? Is this my ‘job future’?”
I remember one Tuesday morning, spilling coffee all over my shirt before a big meeting. Usually, I’d just brush it off, grab another shirt. But that day, it just hit differently. I stood there, looking at the stain, and it felt like my whole life was just a big, irreversible stain. That’s when I really started to dig in my heels and think, “No, this can’t be it.”
So, I started small. First, I just started looking at stuff online, totally aimless. What are people even doing out there? Scrolling through LinkedIn, seeing all these fancy titles, people talking about “synergistic paradigms” and all that crap. It just made me feel worse, honestly. Like I was even further behind. So, I scrapped that. That wasn’t helping anyone.
Then I decided to go a different route. I just started thinking about what I actually liked to do. Not for work, just for fun. I always tinkered with old electronics. Loved taking apart radios, fixing up old game consoles, sometimes just making blinking lights for no reason. It was just a hobby. Never thought it could be anything more. But that feeling of figuring something out, making something work that was broken, that was a real kick. A genuine high, you know?
I started talking to some folks I knew, casually at first. Just, “Hey, what are you working on these days?” and then steering it to, “Have you ever thought about turning a hobby into something more?” Most people just laughed, or gave me that polite, dismissive smile. “Oh, that’s cute.” But a couple of old buddies, guys from back in high school, they actually listened. One of them, Mark, he’d actually built his own little online shop selling custom-painted sneakers. Said it was tough as hell, but he loved it. That really got the gears turning.
So, I thought, “Okay, custom electronics. What does that even mean?” I didn’t have a clue. I mean, I could fix a Game Boy, but building something from scratch? That was a whole different animal. I started watching YouTube videos, late into the night. Tutorials on circuit board design, microcontrollers, soldering techniques I’d never even heard of. My eyes were burning, my brain felt like mush, but for the first time in a long time, I actually felt like I was learning something new, not just rote memorizing corporate jargon.
I bought a cheap soldering iron, some wires, a few tiny components. My desk became a total disaster zone, covered in bits of plastic, snips of wire, and smudged schematics. My wife was like, “What in God’s name is happening here?” And I just mumbled something about “experimentation.” God bless her, she put up with it. There were so many moments I just wanted to throw everything out the window. My first attempts at soldering looked like a bird threw up on a circuit board. Nothing worked. Nothing. It was frustrating as hell, truly soul-crushing sometimes.
I spent probably a good month and a half just failing. Parts burned out, connections were wrong, programs wouldn’t compile. I felt like an idiot. All those doubts that people had about turning a hobby into something real, they all started creeping in. “See? This is why you stick to what you know. You’re not good enough for this.” But then, I’d remember that feeling of fixing the old radio, and that little spark of determination would kick in again.
One Saturday afternoon, after probably a hundred tries, I finally got this tiny little LED matrix display to light up and scroll some text. “Hello World.” It was the simplest thing imaginable. Like, a kid could probably do it in an hour. But for me, in that moment, it was like discovering fire. I actually built something. From parts. It wasn’t perfect, the wiring was still a bit messy, but it worked. I remember yelling so loud, my wife came running in, thinking I’d hurt myself.
That little “Hello World” was my turning point. It wasn’t about quitting my old job right away, or suddenly becoming some tech guru. It was about realizing that I could learn. I could make something. My “job future” didn’t have to be this predetermined, stagnant path. It could be built, piece by tiny piece, by me. That was the moment I stopped just thinking about a change and actually started building it. No grand plan, no big announcement. Just a tiny, glowing LED screen telling me, and the world, “Hello.”
