Start

"In the beginning, God created"
- The Bible, first line

Starting something can feel overwhelming and exhilarating at the same time. Whether that's building a deck, composing a pitch deck, initializing a new git repository, or writing the first paragraph of a blog, it's natural to feel pulled in two directions. There's the thrill of potential: the blank space waiting to be filled, the impending joy of creating, the possibility of something meaningful emerging. But there are invariably doubts:

Will I ever finish it?
Will it be any good?
Will anyone care?

Ultimately: Will trading my precious time for this provide sufficient rewards?

If that voice of doubt sounds familiar, you're not alone. That feeling is part of being human—especially for people who build things, who care about what they make. It’s easy to be paralyzed by the pressure to get it right from the start. But here’s the thing:

You don’t have to get it right.

People might not care about it.

You just have to begin it.

And therein lies the real secret. Most good things in technology—and indeed in life—don’t begin with clarity or confidence. They begin with curiosity, half-baked ideas, scrappy implementations, and late-night commits you’re a little embarrassed to show anyone.

I recall tentatively publishing my first ever project to the Internet—a very undercooked initial version of a real-time network monitoring app called AsItHappens. That messy, architecturally unsound piece of code became a vehicle for learning immensely about software design, development, deployment and support. It was a formative and crucial part of my software development journey. The app was far from perfect at the start, but it was a start.

If you're standing at the edge of a project, idea, "git init", or post and thinking, “I'm not ready”, then this is your invitation to take the first step anyway. Not because you're sure it will work. But because the only way to learn, build, and grow...is to start. And learning, building and growing is better than overthinking, procrastinating and regretting.

So whatever you've been putting off—start it today!

Indeed, this blog is me doing exactly that: starting. I'm writing it because the act of creating—including the beginning!—is more valuable than the certainty of outcome. Will it live up to my lofty expectations and help to enrich the lives of thousands of software developers in some meaningful way? Or will it fail unspectacularly, noticed by few and remembered by fewer?

Gotta be honest: I'm not sure.

— The Unsure Developer