You're probably thinking "339" is an odd number, both literally and milestone-wise.

My most recent article was written all the way back in September, so yes this is not exactly a "milestone" sort of post, I just wanted to keep things real with myself here and with the promises I made when I first stepped into this platform.

To get good at something, getting past the honeymoon phase of deceitful motivation and towards the disciplinary phase of sincere dedication is the key that drives anyone successful at the said something. While I was not able to be consistent with this outlet, I did recognize some of the early mistakes I made with my goals.

On posting my first article About Open Source Projects and how to approach them my intentions were not exactly present. I discovered Hashnode randomly while googling about something I do not remember and there it was. I opened it up, loved the UI and the overall system of appreciations and featuring, and felt the usual imposter syndrome before deciding to write the article, but then did it anyway.

I put a decent amount of effort into making it look cool and appealing and put it out on the same day. To my surprise, my article got featured the next day with multiple appreciations and shares on Twitter with even the founder of the platform ( Hashnode's not Twitter's ) and other bloggers sharing it.

While me being only a sophomore with barely anything under his belt other than a few tiny projects, OS contributions, and courses, the syndrome was kicking in harder than ever but there was a catch.

That being, the article was genuinely good. Yeah did not see that coming. I don't know how it will appear to someone who reads it now, I will probably cringe a bit if I do. But anyway, the point is that the article helped me in connecting with people so far beyond my reach. Their support and compliments humbled me and I decided to continue on this whim I had on a Sunday morning and made the promise of being consistent and honing this skill.

After putting out 4 more articles in more or less consistent weeks I decided that this was not the thing for me back then. The articles I made had less to do with what I was actually working and learning about and more for the sake of putting out an article. I was focusing more on my DSA at the time and a lot less on development so maybe that's a factor as well but enough about the could and should-haves.

While I love writing, technical writing was not something that I could be focusing a lot of quality on back then. It would not be something that I would have wanted to read and learn from, and more like something that would be constantly looking at other people's content and not being anything I am truly proud of. Not saying that always being proud of our articles should be the biggest factor when the matter of consistency comes into play, but always looking for other people's content and just mixing it up as our own is not exactly something we can even feel good to be consistent about.

So yes, I decided to break the promise made to myself back then and did not feel guilty about it, ok just kidding I did even if not a lot. But still, felt as though I was making excuses and still do while writing this article.

The little lesson I learned from my inconsistent portfolio as a blogger ( never stopped reading the articles though lel ) is to be hard on ourselves, to be as hard as we can to be consistent if we know that is what matters at the moment, setting our priorities straight with this field we are all pursuing is one of the most important skills to have. Just be patient and learn to let go.

Just wanted to put this out there. Clean slate. Idk if I'm trying to be funny.