Often when I ask people what they wanna do, like 80% of the time they answer “I wanna do nothing.”, “I wanna be rich.”, or some generic crap.

Most people are uncreative. They just wanna be rich without doing any work.

When I do “nothing” (or something very boring) for a few days, I get bored and start needing to do something creative. That creative thing can be a programming project or something completely different.

Recently, during Christmas holidays, I got bored while listening to music, so I learned music theory, bought FL Studio, played around with noises, and learned a lot about music. I learned how to layer sounds, about scales, and it improved my listening experience a lot. It felt like learning programming, then using software while thinking about implementation details… Except this time it was music.

I started noticing the layers of instruments, how lead and counter interact, and more.

I tried multiple times in my life to make music, but my expectations were extreme. I basically wanted to recreate the style of an artist who spent decades mastering music every day, and that’s not possible in a week. So after lowering my expectations to something simple (like a piano noise), it became a really fun experience. I learned a lot and I didn’t burn out like in my previous attempts.

Here’s an example of what you can do in a week:

It’s my fourth song. Notice how it’s simple - just an electric guitar lead and drums. That’s enough to have fun and learn.

High expectations are a recurring problem for me while learning. But the fun actually lies in learning the principles, not in the finished ultimate song or software.

It’s important to have fun in the process, not in the result.

I learned other skills too. I used to suck at writing stories, so I wrote one. It was 6 months ago and it’s here: TheBook.

If you’re going to read it, it’s very random. I learned the concepts while writing it, and I dislike rewriting finished projects, so you can literally see improvements while you read. Also, I didn’t think ahead, so when it got boring I just did a plot twist. But I had so much fun writing and drawing the art (yes, it has illustrations, including characters).

I’ve been thinking about writing a new story soon, or continuing this one. I was in the middle of writing Volume 3 and big things are starting to happen.

There are many things I’d like to learn (not master), but we only have so much time and we have to make money somehow. Because of my philosophy of building, making things (and learning of course), it saddens me to see some people waste their life away on useless things, but it’s their life.

That brings me to the present. I recently got into RSS feeds because I don’t wanna watch 10 minute videos of people yapping about stuff that can be described in 2 minutes. While reading, I wanted to write my own article, so here I am. I also wanted to put my thoughts somewhere, so they’re included here too.

Another thing a lot of people think is that money is the one and only priority. “Get rich”, they say, then proceed to do absolutely nothing for it.

I like my philosophy of self development as a priority and focusing on learning skills. Because if you know shit, money is going to find its way to you.

I also see a lot of people thinking they have to perfect the product they’re making, when in reality it’s more important to make yourself as good as possible. It’s a small misdirection, but they’re still learning and building shit, so it’s fine.

It’s hard to fail when you have skills.

In my case, I spent like 2-3 years programming daily, because I enjoyed learning it and knew I had to be useful to society somehow to make money and be respected. I finished multiple programming projects, and sometimes I browse my GitHub just looking at all the stuff in my portfolio. Then I created a company, and because of those years spent programming, I was able to learn SwiftUI in like a month and start making money. I’ve been working at my company for 2.5 years now, and I still enjoy learning new things while building products.

So far this article glazes learning and doesn’t highlight the pain. Learning is fun but it’s also hard, and it’s easy to burn out when you have the extreme expectations I described earlier. I often see people wanting to learn or make something, then somehow failing before even the “Hello World!” equivalent of their idea. I wonder how they can fail that early, but I bet it’s the expectations and stepping into the unknown for the first time.

Learning is also a skill you have to learn. This article is basically my experience with learning and self development.

If you keep learning and building, you basically can’t lose long-term.

So yeah, BUILD SHIT.