Consistency

I started programming about 11 years ago. I was 12 years old and in 7th grade. Recently moved into a big city, and first time ever in CBSE school! After taking admission and receiving all the books, I started going through them feeding my all curious and excited mind. I was coming from a native language only school. And now there was this plethora of books all written in english. One in particular caught my eye. It was a computers related book, and thankfully it had all the content related to HTML. I took that book, turned on the PC and started following the instructions. And just like that, I had my first ever Hello World program in HTML running in a real browser!

It has been 11 years since, and I have been learning and practicing programming ever since. I have been through a lot of ups and downs, and I have learned a lot of things. And now I am at the point where I can look at where I am, and confidently say that I am a good programmer. I am not the best, but I am good. And I am proud of that.

A few years back during the peak covid times, I was stuck at home, and gained a lot of weight. I was not happy with myself. I was not happy with the way I looked. I was not happy with the way I felt. So it was immediately time to do something about it. I started running. At first, I couldn't sprint for 100m without feeling of impending doom. But I kept at it. I kept running. And after 6 months of consistent running, I was able to run a half marathon. I was not the fastest, but I was able to finish it. And since I am not an athletic person, that was a huge achievement for me.

I had stopped runing for a while, and now I have started again, and it certainly doesn't feel like starting from square 1 at this point. I can run 2km without breaking a sweat. I am happy with myself about that, but by the end of this year, I want to run a marathon. And I am confident that I will be able to do it.

Google had a competition for teenage kids called Google Code-In. I was first introduced to it in 2013. That was the first year that I participated in it. Admittedly I did terrible. But there were still 4 more years that I could get into that competition, and I was determined to win it. And as fate would have it, I won it in 2017. After 4 years of trying it, and on the final attempt that I could have at that competition. I won. It wasn't that easy. But the getting that final fruit was worth the effort.

I am sure you can see a theme that I am writing with here. You need to have consistency while doing something. It is the only way to get better at something. It is the only way to achieve something. You should always be determined to be the best. Always be only 99% satisfied with whatever you have done, because believe me, in that final 1%, you will be able to reach the next levels. And all this achieved only and only with consistency. Consistency is the key.