Give It a Go

How Hard Can It Be?

When I was a kid, almost all the kids around me already knew how to ride a bike. I didn't.

I was scared to try. I thought I would fall, hurt myself, get humiliated by other kids and honestly, I didn't really know how hard it would be.

Then my father told me to just give it a try. How hard could it be?

So I tried.

And I crashed:))

I got scratches all over me and was pretty upset about it. But after a few days, I tried again.

Then I crashed again.

And again.

And again.

But I didn't give up. I kept telling myself that if the other kids could do it, I could do it too.

Eventually, I learned how to ride a bike.

Looking back, I think the hardest part wasn't actually learning how to ride. It was getting myself to try in the first place.

Growing Up a Bit

As I grew up, the things I was scared to try became a little different.

There was a time when I had a crush on a girl at school. I liked her, but I was scared to tell her how I felt.

I kept thinking about what would happen if she said no. I was nervous, but at some point I decided that I would rather know than keep wondering.

So I gathered all my courage and told her how I felt.

She rejected me, very publicly.

Of course, I was a little disappointed. But somehow, I also felt lighter.

I had finally said what I wanted to say. I didn't have to keep wondering what would have happened if I had told her.

I didn't get the answer I wanted, but I got an answer.

And after a while, the disappointment went away, eventually I move on and find someone else, another pretty girl I think HaHa.

Then I Tried to Build Something

A few years later, I started applying the same idea to something completely different.

I wanted to build a QR code generator, so I decided to make one myself.

At that time, I only knew the basics of Next.js and React. I didn't know how to buy a domain or set it up. I didn't know where I should host the website. I didn't even really understand how QR codes worked or how I was going to build one the way I wanted it to work.

When I was learning how to ride a bike, at least I could see the other kids around me doing it. I knew it was possible because I could see it with my own eyes.

Building QRCodeChicken was different. There wasn't really anyone around me who had done something like that before. The one person I knew who had experience was very far away, in another country, and they wouldn't answer my questions.

So I just had to figure things out myself.

I tried something, it didn't work, and I tried again.

I failed again, and then I tried again.

There were so many things I didn't know, but I kept learning them one by one as I needed them.

I just remember thinking, how hard can it be?

So I kept going.

Eventually, QRCodeChicken became the QR code generator that I wanted to build.

If I had waited until I knew everything before starting, I probably would have never started it at all.

You Don't Have to Be Ready

Looking back at these things, I notice that I usually didn't know what I was doing before I started.

I didn't know how to ride a bike. I didn't know if my crush would say yes. I didn't know how to build a QR code generator.

But I tried anyway.

I think sometimes we wait until we feel ready before doing something. We want to know that we can do it, or that it will work, or that everything will go the way we want.

But sometimes you can't know any of that until you actually try.

You learn how to ride a bike by riding it. You find out what happens when you tell someone how you feel by telling them. And sometimes you learn how to build something by simply starting to build it.

You don't have to know everything before you begin.

So Give It a Go

I think there is a time in life when you have more freedom to try things. You might not have a family, a mortgage, or a lot of responsibilities yet, and you can afford to spend some time doing something just because you want to see where it goes.

Maybe there is a project you've been thinking about starting. Maybe there is something you've always wanted to learn. Maybe there is someone you want to tell how you feel. Maybe you just want to try something completely new.

It might not work.

Mine didn't always work either.

But I don't think you lose much by trying. You might fail, you might learn something, or you might discover something you never expected.

So if there is something you've been thinking about doing for a while, maybe you don't need to think about it for much longer.

Just give it a go.