# Facing the valley of disappointment: Dev Retro 2022 I generally look at how others write then I try to inherit some of their writing styles. But since this is my journey, I am gonna write it myself completely. # The Start of the Year The start of the year was pretty wonderful, I was in class 10th and I had seen hype in the crypto space. So, I started learning about web3. Learned solidity, made a few projects and then participated in Thirdweb hashnode hackathon. Learned new things **but never shared**. To be very honest, I did it because of the prize. I had never participated in any hackathon before and didn't even earn a penny from programming. So, I thought that I will just participate, make a product and win the prize. Life gave me a lemon, but I couldn't make lemonade out of it. When I couldn't win the prize, I just didn't feel like participating in any other hackathon # Reality hit hard I worked very hard for my 10th CBSE board exam. After the board exam was over, I got a freelance client who paid $ 120 for an NFT project. That project was on the Solana Blockchain and I learned a lot again **but I never shared my learnings.** I was very happy and thought that class 11th will be easy for me. But I never knew the other side of hard work. I never knew what a mental breakdown was and I never really knew what happens when no expectations get fulfilled. I was getting bad grades despite working very hard. There was a huge rise in the syllabus and I couldn't handle it at first # Couldn't stay consistent I couldn't consistently post about my learnings on social media platforms. I started using Twitter but I don't even have 50 followers today. I just have 1 follower in my hashnode as of today. I don't know why I didn't post and I don't want to waste my thinking of it too. I just know that in the coming year I have to be consistent so that I can break out of this valley of regret. --- # My Development journey The only thing which kept me alive and gave me pleasure in this valley of regret is coding. I can code for hours without thinking of anything. I did get to hear a lot of taunts from my parents for this cuz' my school academics were not great like that of 10th but I really don't care about that now. ### Web 3 I learned solidity, did freelancing and did get a decent amount of money. Then I started learning Rust for Solana blockchain. I found that Solana was faster than Ethereum and had very less gas fees. Found out that [buildspace](https://buildspace.so/) was the perfect place for learning that. But after a couple of months, I didn't feel like doing it anymore so I left it and started building apps with what I knew. ### Data Structures and Algorithms I started learning DSA from LearnCodeOnline didn't complete the full course but I learned a lot DSA is like a fundamental building block. Once you know DSA, it will improve your logic-building skills immensely. I don't know everything about DSA but I have found immense progress in my logic-building skills after learning a few concepts of DSA. ### Making Apps I knew how to make web apps with MERN stack and mobile apps with React Native. But I thought why stop at that I learned NextJs and Prisma. As of today, I can make full-stack apps easily --- # My current state I still am in a valley of disappointment. But I will implement my learnings from this year so that I can make myself better. I am currently learning about Artificial Intelligence parallelly to learning DSA. This blog will stay as a reminder to me. It will remind me about what to do next ### My Learnings to implement * I will share what I learn * I will stop putting expectations in everything * I am starting today * I will make a plan for the next day before every night (started this at the start of this month) * I will go out for a walk for 30 mins thinking about "how can I make this day better" every day (started this at the start of this month) # Quote for me > The best time to start a new thing was in the past > > But the second best time is now # Conclusion If you want to put up some suggestions, then please put them up. This year, I faced hard situations but I have learned from them. Now, I can successfully avoid these traps and make myself better. And yes, I don't expect to win prizes in Dev Retro 2022 😊