How documenting your journey will make you a HERO.

How documenting your journey will make you a HERO.

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4 min read

I want you to imagine that you are randomly scrolling through Instagram or Twitter and you see a post of a guy or girl posting a picture of their nice toned body with abs, muscles, curves and all. I think some of us might cringe a bit and judge that they are a show-off.

Now, imagine a similar scenario where that random person posted 2 picture: a Before and After picture. A picture where you could see their transformation of losing weight(or gaining) to them looking healthier and better than ever before. What if it was a friend or person you were following and saw that they accomplished their New Year's Resolution? Your reaction might be different from the first scenario; this time you might think that this story is inspiring.

I am sure you read multiple articles that says you should start to blog because it helps you learn faster when you can teach others. However, I am writing this blog (my first ever blog) to tell you that you don't need to be a technical writer to start blogging. Your story is enough.

Joseph Campbell, a famous mythologist and storyteller inspired by philosophy and psychology, wrote a book about The Hero's Journey which many stories in the world are based on.

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Many stories we know and love from movies, video games, anime, and books follow this pattern and maybe you notice a pattern in your life now too. I am sure you can find yourself in one of those 12 phases right now. If you are just starting your coding journey, isn't it nice to tell your story from Act 1 so that we the audience can follow and root for you along the way? Even if you are in a different phase now, you can(should) tell your story from Phase 1 for better context.

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man

-- Campbell from the book "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"

I am confident that you can replace some of those words to relate to your current situation and if you are new to your coding journey like myself; then we are just in the first sentence of that quote.

We all love a good rags-to-riches story, a story of the challenger vs. the champion, where the underdog finally reached his goal. Oh just imagine if people like Lucius Seneca, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk or whoever you like, started a daily vlog or blog before they become who they are; wouldn't you like and subscribe? I bet you would follow them in Twitter and say "Really like your work, thanks for the advice, and I think you will be successful someday."

Whether we like it or not, we all have our own biases. Your favorite food, favorite sports athlete or favorite musician or people are not objectively the best, but they are in the top of your mind due to growing up with them or the sense of familiarity which is very powerful aka Nostalgia.

Best & Worst Case Scenario

Worst case scenario: you wasted some time, no one will read your blogs, you will cringe when you read back, write some blogs where your opinions and perceptions will change because you didn't know better since you were a newbie.

Best case scenario: your blog will help someone else, get you a job and open many doors of opportunity. You might look like a hero to someone else who just started their journey.

You don't need to write a blog like this. Start small with the least friction like using Twitter as a mini-blog or doing the #100DaysOfCode challenge. Don't be scared to build in public. Create a GitHub and LinkedIn account from now. It's ok to have the word "Aspiring" in your title. We all love progress, whether it's ours or others. This is the modern day biography. The modern documentary. I wish Youtubers who made videos like "How I became x in x months" had a backlog of videos before that. Playlist of videos is more powerful than 1 video(even if 1 video gets more views). I'm sure you've seen videos titled "Trying to turn $0.01 to $100K(part 1)." I love docu-series like these. Trying is cooler than you think.

It's ok if you have no coding experience for now. Documenting your journey from now has more potential to be a good thing than bad thing. One day, when you become successful(whatever that means to you); this time if anyone think it's all luck, you will have some proof of your Roads of Trial, your bad code, lame projects, proof of patience and consistency, the humble beginning that made you reach your inevitable transformation from Zero to Hero.


Thank you for reading my first ever blog. I just started my coding journey. Feel free to leave a comment or follow me in Twitter and say Hi.