On learning, comparison, and remembering that growth was never meant to be a race.
Lately, I've been learning new technologies, particularly AWS and blockchain development. It's exciting stepping into unfamiliar territory again, but I've noticed something interesting.
You start learning. You're making progress. Things are slowly beginning to make sense. Then you open LinkedIn. Someone just became 6x AWS Certified.
Someone else seems to have mastered an entire technology stack in a few months. Another person is sharing a roadmap explaining how to become an expert in something you've barely started learning.
And suddenly, what felt like progress five minutes ago starts to feel like you're falling behind. You're only just getting started, yet somehow you already feel late.
When Learning Starts Feeling Like a Race
We live in an incredible time to be curious. Almost anything we want to learn is available within a few clicks. We have courses, documentation, tutorials, roadmaps, communities, and now AI tools that can explain difficult concepts almost instantly. That's a good thing.
But I've been thinking about how having access to so much information can also create an unexpected pressure: the feeling that because the information is available, we should somehow become competent almost immediately. And social media amplifies that feeling.
We constantly see people's certifications, promotions, successful projects, businesses, transformations, and milestones.
What we don't always see are the months or years of confusion, mistakes, failed attempts, practice, and persistence that came before them.
We end up comparing our beginning with someone else's years of experience.
I Remember What It Took to Get Here
My journey into software development started from a graphic design background. I remember spending countless hours trying to understand concepts that feel much more natural to me today.
- Reading documentation.
- Following tutorials.
- Building things.
- Breaking things.
Debugging things I had no idea how I'd broken in the first place.
And there were those problems you would spend hours trying to solve.
Eventually, you'd get tired and think: I'll deal with this tomorrow.
Then you'd go to bed and suddenly... 💡.
The solution appears in your head when you're nowhere near the computer.
You come back, try it, and somehow it works.
Looking back, those moments weren't interruptions to learning.
They were the learning. The frustration, experimentation, mistakes, and small breakthroughs gradually shaped how I approached problems.
They taught me patience and persistence, but they also gave me something important: the confidence that just because I don't understand something today doesn't mean I won't understand it eventually.
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> It's Okay to Be a Beginner Again
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Years later, I'm now finding myself in that position again. I have experience in software development, but AWS and blockchain introduce concepts I'm still learning. And that's okay. Being experienced in one area doesn't mean you stop being a beginner in another. In fact, I think there's something valuable about deliberately putting yourself in that position again.
You get to ask questions. You get confused. You experiment. You get things wrong. And eventually, something that once seemed complicated begins to make sense. That's a pretty rewarding experience.
AI Makes Learning Faster, but the Journey Still Matters
I love what AI has made possible. We can get explanations faster, explore ideas more easily, and overcome problems that might previously have taken considerably longer to research.
I don't think we should struggle unnecessarily just to prove that we've learned something. But I also don't want speed to make us forget something important: Having access to an answer isn't always the same as understanding it. There's still value in wrestling with an idea, experimenting with it, applying it, making mistakes, and eventually reaching that moment where you genuinely understand why something works.
The tools may change. Learning will become faster. But that feeling of finally getting it is still worth something. Maybe We're Not Behind There's always going to be someone further along. Someone with more certifications. Someone with more experience. Someone who started earlier. Someone progressing faster. But their progress doesn't make yours insignificant. Sometimes progress is earning a major certification. Sometimes it's completing your first project.
And sometimes it's simply understanding something today that completely confused you yesterday. All of it counts. Maybe being a beginner isn't something we need to rush through. Maybe there's value in not knowing yet.
In being curious. In making mistakes. In allowing ourselves enough time to grow. Because the goal isn't only to become good at something. It's also to appreciate who we're becoming while learning it. Maybe we're not falling behind. Maybe we're simply learning.
Have you ever caught yourself feeling behind while learning something new, even though you were actually making progress?
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