DON'T
You Can. You Can't. Don't.
I've heard a lot of opinions about what I should do with my life.
Some came as encouragement.
Some as doubt.
Some sounded like advice but felt like a warning.
And some were simple:
"You can't achieve what you want."
For a long time, I thought the hardest part would be proving them wrong.
It wasn't.
The harder part was learning which voices to listen to—and which ones not to become.
"Not every voice deserves a place in your decision-making."
Because when you're trying to build something different, people will have something to say.
Parents.
Teachers.
Friends.
Strangers.
Sometimes even people you respect.
And eventually, you have to decide what their voices are worth.
"You can listen to everyone without letting everyone decide for you."
YOU CAN'T
One of the biggest "you can't" I've heard wasn't about coding.
It was about what I wanted to become.
I wanted to be an entrepreneur.
I wanted to build something of my own.
And I knew that if I wanted to reach somewhere meaningful, I needed more than ambition.
I needed skills.
I needed to become capable enough to create my own opportunities.
But not everyone saw it that way.
I was opposed.
Mocked.
Underestimated.
Parents.
Teachers.
Peers.
Different people, different reasons.
But sometimes the message felt the same:
"You can't achieve what you want."
And honestly?
I never really understood why.
"Someone else's limit is not automatically the limit of your ambition."
SOME PEOPLE BELIEVED ANYWAY
Then there were a few people who were different.
Some of my friends had an almost ridiculous amount of confidence in me.
1001%.
I don't even know why.
They didn't need proof.
They just believed I could do it.
And sometimes, that's enough.
Not to guarantee that you'll succeed—
but to remind you that someone can see something in you that you haven't learned to explain yet.
"Belief doesn't guarantee the outcome. Sometimes it simply gives you enough reason to attempt it."
I NEVER THOUGHT I COULDN'T
The strange thing is—
I don't remember genuinely thinking,
"I can't do this."
I questioned everything else.
The journey.
The price.
Whether it was worth fighting for.
Whether I was doing enough.
Whether I was working hard enough.
I'd ask myself:
Is this worth it?
Is this enough?
Am I actually doing enough?
Those questions weren't telling me to stop.
They were forcing me to look at myself honestly.
And sometimes...
that honesty hurt more than failure.
"Self-doubt asks whether you are capable. Self-honesty asks whether you are actually doing the work."
THEN CAME THAT DAY
I was in Grade 10.
There was a person at my school who trained students in AI. He was also the CAIO.
At the time, I was working on a school project directly under the direction of my Director.
I'd been asked to integrate some AI into it.
So I started.
That same day.
I was building, figuring things out, and learning as I went.
Eventually, it caught his attention.
He asked for the Git repository.
I sent it.
The project represented roughly four or five days of work.
I expected a review to take some time.
Maybe hours.
Maybe a day.
Maybe more.
Instead—
about fifty seconds.
That's roughly how long it took.
What followed wasn't a technical review I remember for its feedback.
I remember it because of how I was spoken to.
I was humiliated.
Mocked.
Scolded.
Demotivated.
The project I'd spent days working on suddenly felt like something worth making fun of.
Maybe he had his reasons.
Maybe he saw problems I couldn't see yet.
Maybe there were genuine technical issues.
I'm not denying that.
But the way it happened stayed with me.
Because it didn't feel like someone trying to teach me.
It felt like I was being compared.
He had far more industry experience than I did.
I was still a student.
Still figuring out where I stood.
And yet, in that moment, my attempt itself felt like something to look down on.
That hurt.
"Criticism can improve your work. Humiliation only tests whether you will keep working."
Not because I suddenly believed I couldn't build.
But because I learned something about what can happen when you start moving beyond where people expect you to stay.
GOING FORWARD HAS A COST
When you start moving differently, not everyone understands it.
Some people encourage you.
Some become curious.
Some genuinely help.
And some may try to pull you back.
I can't know what was going on inside someone else's head.
But I know what that moment taught me.
Going forward can make you uncomfortable to people who were comfortable with you staying where you were.
You have to learn how to handle that without letting it decide who you become.
"Growth doesn't require everyone around you to understand it."
PEOPLE ABOVE. PEOPLE BELOW.
There will always be people ahead of you.
There will always be people behind you.
Someone may underestimate you.
Someone may compare themselves with you.
Someone may pull your leg.
And sometimes the hardest voice to deal with isn't outside you at all.
It's your own.
That's why strength matters.
Not arrogance.
Strength.
The kind that lets you listen without breaking.
Accept criticism without losing yourself.
Admit when you're wrong.
And keep your direction when someone tries to make you feel small.
"Real strength is not becoming impossible to hurt. It's refusing to let every hurt decide who you become."
THE VERSION OF ME I DON'T WANT TO BECOME
There was another version of me, though.
A version that focused on the problem instead of the solution.
A version that could stare at everything going wrong and forget there was still a way out.
It didn't necessarily say,
"I can't."
It just kept asking:
"Why is this happening?"
Instead of:
"What can I do about it?"
That's a difference I've learned to recognize.
Problems are easy to stare at.
Solutions require movement.
You can spend your entire life describing the wall, or you can start looking for the door.
"Understanding the problem is necessary. Staying inside it is a choice."
PEOPLE DIDN'T ALWAYS UNDERSTAND
When I started learning to code, most people around me didn't really understand what I was doing.
Some were fascinated.
Some were confused.
Some were surprised.
Some probably wondered:
"What is he even doing?"
There was another assumption too.
Maybe I was escaping my studies.
Maybe I was wasting time.
Maybe what I was doing didn't really matter.
But I kept doing both.
I learned.
I built.
I explored.
And I studied.
Then came Class 10.
94%.
I didn't achieve that by choosing between my skills and my studies.
I learned that I could make room for both.
And somewhere along the way, I also earned money from what I was learning.
Not because the amount was huge.
Because it proved something.
The thing people thought was a distraction could become a skill.
And that skill could become something real.
"What looks unnecessary to someone else can become the foundation of the life you're building."
DON'T SUPPRESS YOURSELF
This is probably what DON'T means to me now.
Don't suppress yourself.
If you want to speak—
speak.
If you have something to say—
say it.
Don't forget you're an individual.
You have a voice.
You have a life to build.
And you're allowed to build it your way.
That doesn't mean ignoring everyone.
It doesn't mean every person who disagrees with you is wrong.
It means listening without automatically surrendering your own voice.
"Respecting someone else's opinion should never require abandoning your own."
DON'T LIE TO YOURSELF
There's another kind of don't that matters even more.
Don't lie to yourself.
Don't pretend you're working hard when you're not.
Don't call consuming learning.
Don't call planning building.
Don't call hesitation trying.
Because eventually...
you know.
You can fool everyone around you.
But you still have to live with yourself.
Every day.
"The most dangerous person to deceive is yourself, because you are the one who has to live with the lie."
THE PEOPLE WHO SHAPED ME
I've had people shape the way I think.
One of the most important is my mentor.
He's more than a mentor to me.
In many ways, he's like a father figure.
He's someone who is still fighting for his own success, still pushing himself, still striving.
Maybe that's why I connected with him so deeply.
He didn't just tell me what to do.
He taught me how to face things.
How to think.
How to mature.
How to deal with situations instead of running from them.
He gave me something I didn't know I was missing.
Perspective.
And some lessons aren't taught through instructions.
You learn them by watching someone keep going.
"Some people teach you with words. The rare ones teach you by the way they live."
YOU CAN
Maybe that's the part people miss.
Someone saying "you can't" doesn't automatically make them your enemy.
Someone saying "you can" doesn't automatically make them your truth either.
They're voices.
You still have to decide what to do with them.
Listen.
Question.
Learn.
Then choose your direction.
Because your life can't be built entirely from other people's expectations.
At some point,
you have to put your own hands on it.
"Advice can point toward a direction. Only you can decide whether to walk it."
DON'T
Don't suppress yourself.
Don't fake a life just to make it look right.
Don't let someone else's doubt become your identity.
Don't become so obsessed with the problem that you forget to look for the way forward.
And don't lie to yourself about the work you're putting in.
You don't need to prove everyone wrong.
You don't need to silence everyone who doubts you.
You just need to be honest about what you want—
and honest about what you're willing to do for it.
"You don't have to win every argument. You have to remain honest about the life you're trying to build."
I don't know if I'll become the entrepreneur I imagine today.
I don't know exactly where all of this will take me.
I don't know how many times I'll fail before I get somewhere.
But I know this:
I'm going to keep trying.
Maybe the goal was never to prove everyone who said "you can't" wrong.
Maybe it was simply to make sure...
I never became the person who believed them.
"The greatest victory isn't proving them wrong. It's refusing to let their doubt become your identity."