Do you ever remember falling in love with programming when learning to code during school days or while working on a client's project? Probably not.
When I started learning to code, I never wrote code because I wanted to but because I desired to. No one to poke me around with tight deadlines, no need to race against time. Just the feeling of power and creativity in your hands to build something out of nothing but just pure code. It could have been anything as simple as building a small widget for my blog post, writing a game, solving a problem in LeetCode or Project Euler or maybe writing a bash script to automate my tasks.
You could probably relate to some but for me, these are some of the examples that resonate with me.
I'm writing this as a reminder to myself and other fellow programmers: don't ever forget that moment when your passion for programming had sparked. You might be older now and you're probably filled with a lot of responsibilities (especially if you're parenting).
Perhaps, you might never even experience that same amount of adrenaline and rush that you had when you were behind the computer in your room while your siblings and friends were trying to distract you.
There's never an end to learning. You can still find some passion projects that'll help you keep that spark. Have an open mind and be open to newer ideas. Solve a puzzle, read a book, write a game or maybe a blog post.
Don't do this because you need to impress someone or for the sake of it rather because you can and it brings you joy.
Oh and wishing you a Happy New Year! 😀🎄