Man, looking back at 2023, it was a real journey, you know? It’s funny how life throws you these little nudges, making you question everything you thought you knew about where you were going. For ages, I just kinda drifted, went with the flow, let circumstances push me along. I never really sat down and plotted out this grand “career path” everyone talks about. It felt more like I was just walking in the dark, hoping to stumble onto something good.
I remember feeling pretty stuck in my old gig. It wasn’t bad, don’t get me wrong. The pay was decent, it was stable, and the folks were alright. But inside, it was just… dull. Every single day felt like a repeat of the last. I’d drag myself out of bed, get to the office, push papers, answer emails, sit through meetings that could have been emails, and then just head home, feeling absolutely drained but not in a good, productive way. I’d look around at my colleagues, some of them genuinely loving what they did, and I’d just think, “Is this it? Is this what ‘success’ means? Is this my path?”
The turning point, or at least one of them, really snuck up on me. It was a Monday morning, naturally. I was on my usual commute, squashed in the train, listening to someone else’s music through their headphones. I looked out the window, watching people walk by, all heading to their own things, and this huge wave of emptiness just hit me. Like, a real physical punch to the gut. I was missing something big. All my buddies, they always had some exciting side project, some passion they were chasing after work. Me? My biggest passion was probably perfecting my couch-to-fridge route. My old manager, a really sharp guy, actually pulled me aside once. He said, “You seem a bit lost, mate. You gotta find your fire.” That simple sentence just stuck to me, chewing on my insides for weeks.
So, I knew I had to do something, anything, but I had no clue where to even begin. I started real small.
- First, I just started reading. Anything. Books about different careers, stories of people who changed their lives, books on learning new skills, even just random stuff online. I just wanted to soak it all in.
- Then, I decided to actually try things. I signed up for an online course to learn coding. Spent a whole month on it. Hated every minute. Realized real fast that staring at lines of code wasn’t my jam.
- After that, I tried some graphic design tutorials. Thought maybe I had a hidden artistic flair. Nope. My designs looked like a toddler had a fight with a rainbow.
- I remember seeing some travel vloggers, and for some reason, that sparked an idea about writing. I used to enjoy writing silly stories back in school, so I thought, “Why not?”
I didn’t tell anyone, not a soul. I just started a super simple blog. Literally just typed out my thoughts, my day, whatever popped into my head. It was clunky, messy, and probably boring as hell for anyone else to read, but it felt good. It felt like I was actually doing something just for me. I kept at it for a few months, just writing when I had the urge.
One evening, I stumbled across some folks online sharing their practical projects, you know, like “Here’s how I built this thing” or “This is what I learned trying to fix that.” That really resonated with me. I always enjoyed figuring out how things worked, breaking them down. So, I decided to shift my blog. I started sharing my own little “experiments.” Stuff like:
- “Here’s how I tried to grow a tiny herb garden on my balcony and mostly failed.”
- “This is what happened when I tried to fix my leaky faucet by just watching YouTube videos.”
- “My first attempt at baking sourdough bread (it turned into a brick).”
My writing was still rough, my photos were blurry, but I just kept going. I also pushed myself to talk to more people. Not in a formal “networking” way, just striking up conversations, asking people about what they did, what made them tick, what they loved and hated about their jobs. I was just trying to collect as many different perspectives as I could.
One conversation really hit home. It was with an old acquaintance I hadn’t seen in years. He’d completely ditched his corporate job and jumped into something totally different, completely self-taught. He just shared his whole journey, all the screw-ups and the small wins, and how he literally just leapt into it. He was so much happier, so much more vibrant.
That conversation, combined with the pure, simple joy I got from sharing my little projects, it all just clicked. My “path” wasn’t about finding some fancy job title or a predictable ladder to climb. It was about finding a way to do what I loved: figuring things out, learning, and then breaking those practical lessons down and sharing them with others. It wasn’t about the grand career, but about the small, consistent acts of creation and sharing. That’s when I really started putting more effort into the blog, making it a bit more structured, but still keeping it honest and casual.
Eventually, I actually left that old job. It was terrifying, for sure. Seriously, my hands were shaking when I handed in my notice. But I just kept building my little corner online, sharing more of my actual processes, my daily struggles, and my small victories. And what started as just a way to finally do something different with my time, slowly, slowly, began to turn into something bigger. It’s still a massive work in progress, believe me. I’m always learning, always trying new things, always making mistakes. But now, it feels like my path. It feels like I’m actually walking it, not just getting dragged along.
So yeah, “finding your path” isn’t some mystical prediction you read in a horoscope. For me, it was just about trying stuff, failing often, and listening to that little voice inside that wanted to share and connect. It’s about getting up and doing it, messy as it might be.
