Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?

June 2014, on the first day of my job, somebody asked me this cliché question:

Being naive, I answered the first thing that came from my heart (not mind):

Exactly 5 years later..

A teensy little contentment in life 😊

Did I really want to do it all these 5 years or was it just a naive answer a fresh out college mouth blabbered in front of a mentor?

Was I really passionate about it?

Maybe not in 2014. Over the 5 years, it evolved to, “Building something on my own, which is useful to people”.

Did I plan for it?

No. The pressure of finding something we love to do or we want to do is probably not letting us be and being content in what we are doing.

I am not suggesting to be a pole here, which doesn’t and can’t move out of its situation when it’s not good.

Taking small steps towards your liking is also good enough. Reflecting back to those 5 years, trying to find out how I arrived exactly where I wanted to be 5 years ago in my daydreams, this is what it was for me.

It was a natural drift towards the liking. Learning and exploring tiny bits of building something( now I understand you call it a product 😃). During the first few years, of course, it was disconnected blocks. Writing code and experiencing how it can solve real problems. Understanding how those problems are problems for some people and how a small piece of code with careful thoughts can solve it and then it looks trivial.

Building something just for the sake of building is one thing. Building for solving a problem and actually see your users use it to ease their problem is another thing. You now need to see the other side of the table. Knowing what and whose problem are you trying to solve.

If your intent was to build something useful, which in my case was, again explore bits and pieces of the other side too. And then join them together.

Yes, the first time the result can look messy. But you’ll get better at it. When you start joining 2 small pieces to make a bigger one.

The glorious tales of success talk about following your passion, but what if we haven’t found one yet?

The whole point is, not necessarily you will know

Or what you are passionate about.

But there might be a slight liking towards something and curiosity to know more about that. Start from that. Instead of trying hard to find a passion, go explore your likings and unfulfilled curiosities. One at a time.

If you do not like what you explored, at least you will know you need to move on to the next thing. Meanwhile, who knows you may find the “PASSION”.

At ImageTranslate, the product we built, did we change the world? Maybe Not.

Did we make a minuscule dent in the world? Maybe yes.

Did I find my Passion? Not yet.

Do I feel content about at least trying something? Definitely.

To see the numbers rising every day, the users, the payments coming in, are the little joys of life now. And the motivation to go try something else again, to take that one baby step again.

Right now gathering pieces that can be eventually joined to something useful again. (Read knowledge, experience or whatever)

PS: After completing this writing, I realized I used at least 5 different synonyms of the word “small”. So yes, those teensy tiny small little baby steps count :)

“It doesn’t matter how slowly you go, as long as you don’t stop” ~ Confucius

So, Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?

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