Three lessons I learned while learning to code by myself

I have used computers since my twelve, that’s like seventeen years (Damn I’m getting old). By the year 2000 there was no youtube, facebook or twitter, and I was really happy editing videos in windows movie maker of my favorite anime series with my favorite songs.

My first approach to coding was in the Msn Groups, I was determined to create the most awesome Rurouni Kenshin community in the universe (yes I was a little fat boy with a lot free time), and in order to do that I needed to learn html code.

By those years learn something on internet wasn’t like now, today you only need to type learn python in google and a thousands of tutorials are waiting for you, from a simple hello world until artificial neural networks.

As a Mexican wasn’t easy to find information in Spanish so I have to figure out how to translate all the information, but finally I was able to create my awesome custom layout. I was fascinated, I really didn’t understand what I have really done, but for me was more than enough.

Since then I learned the greatest lesson of my whole life and was very simple,

If you want do something you only need to do it.

Simple huh?

Well not that simple, for that time not only knew how to write code in html but also already knew something about php and c#, because I wanted to build a music web store, this not sound to difficult but I wasn’t that smart and my English wasn’t really good to, so my dream of music store on internet little by little just died.

For many reasons I wasn’t able to study a computer science degree but that didn’t stop me, I knew that anyway with a college or without a college I would learn to program whatever I wanted.

I tried with programming books but that was, at least for me was a waste of time, I didn’t learn really much, then the second most important lesson came to me.

The best way to learn to do anything is doing it.

Well what can tell you? Things are really simple to figure out but is not easy to do.

Since then I have done many projects, from websites until video games, every project that came to my mind I just tried to do it and as you should be guessing all were epic fails.

That was frustrating, I mean who in the world wants to fail in every project he tried. Sure, nobody.

It took a couple of years to realize the third lesson.

Always… Always, no matter if you get the greatest success in the world or the worst fail, always you will learn something, and there’s no exception unless you’re stupid, but that’s an extraordinary case.

Maybe it sounds pretty obvious but the key to reach any goal, any dream is not knowing the obvious, is to do those obvious things that most people just do not do despite their obviousness, and that’s the hardest part.

So, Is there something you would like to undertake?

I want to tell you that you can do anything, no matter how hard this seems to be at the beginning if you keep going at the end you will find yourself doing what you love and you will realize that all those obvious things in fact works, and you will be the prove.