root@webby:~$ whoami

Yo people, today I'll be sharing a story, 'my story' , on how I got where I am. And by 'where I am', I don't mean physically but Mentally. I get it, I get it, you're probably thinking "Jeez, what does this guy think of himself to talk about his own Mental state this confidently"

But the thing is I believe Im just well aware of my strengths, so am I of my weaknesses. This isn't me thinking Im built different, well… maybe I am, but that's not the point. It's self-awareness you know. Either way, trust me peeps, Im damn sure you'll be seeing yourself a little differently by the end of this. So you better ride with me just for the thick of it.

How it Started?

Like any other quiet kid, I believe I got lost to the screens since early childhood days. Nahh, I wouldn't say lost. Actually I found Something to lean on, escape into, and call it my own. And mate, by early I mean early, however not as earlyy as today's generation kids though. I remember getting my first PC when I was just in 2nd grade, again, if a Gen Alpha is reading this, dont laugh kidd, that's actually a flex alright.

Good ol Windows XP days. And "What did you do with that PC?", oh yeah I played games. I am just another quiet kid, am I not? What do you expect me to do, not play games?? that wasn't happening, okayy. But I wouldn't be me if that was the only thing I did. Things apart from games I played and things I did to actually play those games.

I still remember the struggles I had to go through to install those damn games. And for your reference, I'm talking about struggle of installing mini games not your regular battleground games. 'Struggle to play mini games?? What? What?? What??' Yeah the same ones that you query 'online games' now and thousands pops up right there straight up in the web to play. 'But how can you struggle to play mini games, they're like couple of MBs in sizes, just download it.' Yeah good observation but my ADSL connection wasn't a prodigy when it came to speed. Oh yeah… most of you don't even know what ADSL is. But yeah this aint no wikipedia, so google yourself. For now just know it was painfully slow. 'How slow we are talking about?' Slower than 110years old grandma….. nahh im kidding, it was much slower than that. {Eye-balls popping fact: average download speed: 40Kbps}

So imagine yourself downloading files at 40kbps. 💀 Hell Nahhhh! Imagine a 30MB file taking 3 hours to download, imagine a 2 minutes YouTube buffering sign after each 30 sec plays, imagine wifi driver randomly getting corrupted for no reason. And yeah these 'now' problems weren't even problems back then, these were something completely normal and everyday thing. And looking back, that's probably where the level of patience I have came from. Not from years long monk meditation or a self-help book, but from literally sitting there staring at a loading bar for 3 hours and hoping that it doesn't corrupt at 99%. That's what taught patience real quick whether I liked it or not.

But it was never just about patience. Every loading screen, every failed download, every random error, and every little problem I had to figure out quietly, carved out a piece of who I am today. I didn't know it then. I wouldn't know it for years. But something was being built silently.

Hacker. Allegedly.

Now here's where it gets interesting.

I still remember the first time I heard the word 'hacking'. And no, it wasn't from some documentary or a movie. It was from a friend. Casually. In the middle of a completely unserious conversation about a girl and bro just goes "what if we hacked her." Like it was nothing. Like he had a plan.

He did not have a plan.

But the next day this guy actually comes back with homework done. Pulls me aside and starts explaining bruteforce. Objectively it's a pretty simple concept. But to me as a kid?? That completely broke my brain in the best way possible. The idea that there was an actual way, a real logical process behind something that sounded like movie magic…. I couldn't stop thinking about it. It felt like someone had just told me the matrix had a back door and I could reverse engineer it. My friend moved on. Probably forgot about it by the weekend. I didn't. Well… I thought I did. For the next two years I barely gave hacking another thought. Until Grade 7. That's when curiosity came knocking again!

However, breaking things wasn't totally unfamiliar to me. Nothing too crazy tho, pretty basic like messing around with hidden guest networks which somehow used to pop up everywhere I go as the router provider kept them hidden and active by default(RT5390_1 iykykk). And after getting inside the network, well.well..well... we all know where curiosity goes next, right? Default gateway, default login credentials, and then that unbeatable little 'IM IN' feeling! Or sometimes, it was just a matter of testing weak WPA passwords until one finally matched and the whole thing opened up.

Then I came across phishing and back then it felt almost ridiculously easy to pull off. All I had to do was setup some lucrative offer, send them to someone and wait for them rush straight into it and yeah almost everyone I sent it to fell for it, I mean everyone!!

Honestly, looking back as a person I'm today, it's not something I'm proud of and I won't come up with clever excuse to justify it, that curiosity doesn't magically make crossing a line okay. BUT I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel completely insane rush of adrenaline every single time it worked. That addictive sense of power, control and disbelief made me overlook the person at the other side of screen.

And then hell went loose when the rumours spread around school. Somehow, I'd became "the hacker". But surprisingly enough that didn't get me in trouble, instead it did something I never would have never imagined. GLORIFIED ME!! Yup, you heard that right! Everyone was calling me a hacker. Before I knew it, that became my whole identity in school. That was what people knew me for. And yeah, as corny as it sounds now, that version of me did enjoy it.

Then came the realisation, I was never nearly as good as people thought I was. I was only stepping into the field with super basic stuff. Just because I could do something no one around me could, didn't magically make me better than everyone. It just meant I had opened one small door into a field that had thousands more waiting behind it.

And honestly, cybersecurity has way too much to offer for anyone to act like they've figured it all out. The more you learn, the more you realise how much you don't know. Every day, there's something new: a new exploit, a new patch that somehow brings new vulnerabilities, new systems, new frameworks nobody asked for, and some compliance requirement that nobody wants to comply with.

The realisation hit me harder than anything. For the first time, I stopped trying to look like I knew things and started obsessing over actually understanding them. That's when I became an absolute content consumption monster. At that time, I wasn't just watching a couple of videos after school. I'd spend entire days glued to the screen, jumping from one tutorial to another, falling into endless rabbit holes about computers, networking, programming, operating systems… pretty much anything tech related that looked even remotely interesting. One video turned into ten, ten turned into fifty, and before I knew it, I wasn't watching videos anymore…I was living in them.

Yeah folks, I was doing it not because someone asked me to, not because I wanted to earn certifications, and not because there were exams waiting for me at the end. I was doing it because I genuinely wanted to become the expert everyone already believed I was. I wanted to understand, not just know. I wanted answers, not people's assumptions. I wanted to reach a point where if someone called me by that nickname I could look at myself and genuinely believe I'd earned it.

But while chasing that, something important developed within me. I wasn't just learning cybersecurity anymore, it was more than that. While absorbing every bit of knowledge about tech and computers, I reached a point where someone could bring up almost any tech related stuff and I'd atleast understand what they were talking about. I wasn't a master of one. I was a jack of all trades.

And honestly I think that became one of my biggest advantages. By not locking myself into one field too early gave me range. Cybersecurity was always the direction but everything around it matters too. Random tech tutorials, computer tricks, browser settings, system errors, Wi-Fi problems, coding concepts, software fixes, device issues…none of it felt connected at the time. But slowly it all started making sense. Those random pieces weren't distractions but fragments of the bigger picture I didn't know I was building.

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. -Steve Jobs

That's why I believe it's easier to specialise after becoming versatile then to become versatile after only mastering one thing. One you get too comfortable being 'the expert' in one corner, it's easyy to ignore the rest of the playground.

The Spin-Off!

How do I take off a mask when it stops being a mask, when it's as much a part of me as I am? -Elliot Alderson ~`from Mr. Robot series´

Then the school era came to an end. And honestly, I was relieved. For years, I'd wanted to get rid of that label. The one I secretly wanted to escape from every single day. Funny, isn't it? Most people would probably kill to have a nickname like that. A reputation. Something that makes people remember you. But for me, it slowly started feeling like a character I was forced to play. Because the thing was… people saw the final boss version of me, while I was still somewhere in the tutorial level.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I knew more than most people around me. I could do and understand things they couldn't. But the gap between what people thought I knew and what I actually knew was getting bigger and bigger. And that feeling?? Yeahh.. not exactly comfortable.

So when I finally joined the high school, I decided to do something completely different. I wanted to be nobody.. just another average joe. Not average in a cool and mysterious wayy… I mean average average. The type of guy nobody expects anything from.

Thankfully… or maybe not so thankfully💀.. COVID joined the chat. Classes went online, so nobody really got to know much about each other and by the time we went to classrooms, I had already blended in. I was exactly what I wanted to be for so long.. just another quiet kid in a back row. But you know the thing is when you're carrying around a bomb with you, it leaks now and then. And mine definitely did at some points.

A few people actually figured out I was better with computers than I let on, but thankfully not enough for the whole "hacker" thing to start all over again. Although, I wasn't really helping my own case. For example, why did I even think it was a good idea to spin the wheel in classroom group chat and randomly giveaway Netflix Premium accounts (Obviously not mine… iykyk. 💀)?

Maybe it was dopamine.. maybe I just enjoyed the thrill of it. Whatever the reason, that's about as far as I went. One of my classmates even came up a nickname "Mr. Premium." 😭 Honestly… that was a massive downgrade from "the hacker." 😂 Fortunately it didn't stick to become my whole identity again.

But something else was happening behind the scenes. While I was trying so hard to be someone else. I was slowly convincing myself too. And honestly. That's the scary part. At first, it was just a small thing. I stopped bringing up tech stuff. Stopped showing people what I knew. Stopped chasing random things that caught my attention. And I didn't even feel bad about it. That was the dangerous part. Because when something disappears slowly, you don't notice the silence it leaves behind.

I wasn't sitting there thinking, "Damn broskii, I'm losing myself." Nah. It was much more subtle than that. I was just comfortable. Comfortable not knowing the next thing. Comfortable not exploring. Comfortable being the guy who had no expectations to meet. And matee, that sounds amazing on paper.

No pressure. No one expecting anything from you. No one waiting for you to prove something. But then I realised something weird…. I always thought expectations were the thing holding me back. Turns out, they were quietly driving me all along. I was merely the passenger in the back seat, too busy complaining about the ride to realise I would've been standing still without it. Because when you stop expecting anything from yourself, you also stop giving yourself a reason to become better.

And that was the weirdest part. Nobody took anything away from me. Nobody told me I couldn't do something. Nobody stopped me. Looking back, there wasn't one dramatic moment where I stopped growing. It was hundreds of tiny decisions. Hundreds of "I'll watch it later." Hundreds of "Maybe tomorrow." Until one day, I was no longer able to identify that version of me.

It took time. Not days.. not months but years. And the funny thing is… I spent all those years trying to become just another average guy. And the problem?? Maybe I wasn't supposed to be onee. Yeahh, yeahhh ohhh mannn who tf do you think of yourself??? Maybe im an average guy, maybe i always was.. will I be an average mediocre guy for the rest of the life? Hell nahhh, you can come back to this in ten years if you're still breathing, I guess.

Because somewhere along the way I realised something. It was never about proving everyone else wrong. It was about proving one person right.

That little kid.

The one who genuinely believed he was gonna be the best out there. The one who'd sit through an entire tutorial, get slapped with twenty different errors, and still refuse to quit because there had to be a way. The one who looked at every problem like a puzzle instead of a wall. He had to be found again! And yeah turns out he never disappeared. He'd just been buried underneath comfort. Routine. Peace. The kind of peace that slowly convinces you to stop chasing the next thing.

I was able to pull myself back to what I actually always wanted to be, What I need to be, for the people who rooted me to be, for that kid who believed he was gonna the best out there, for that restless curious kid who never thought of giving up mid tutorial no matter how many errors prompted along the way. That kid never died, all those years it was somewhere inside hiding behind a mask built around comfort and peace. I don't blame myself completely for getting lost like that. We all know life happens and it was my time. Comfort was never where my story was supposed to end.

And honestly the comeback wasn't some big dramatic moment. No spotlight. No montage. Not me sitting up at 3am with a sudden revelation going "yes. YES. I have returned." Nahhh. It was more like… you know when you haven't talked to someone in years and you randomly run into them and within five minutes it feels like nothing changed? Yeah. It was like that. Except the person was me. And the five minutes was like two years. But yeahh yeahh you get the point.

And just like that, without any formal announcement or a single motivational quote, I was back. No ribbon cutting ceremony, no inspirational speech, no new year resolution that lasted three days. Just one video. One rabbit hole. 3am. Certifications. Meetups every week or two. New people, new conversations. The whole thing just quietly rebuilt itself like it was waiting for me to get out of the way.

Respawned

so where really am I today? Honestly? Probably somewhere between that little kid downloading games at 40kbps and the person that he thought he'd become.

Look, I'm not here to sell you some version of me that's got it all together. I don't. But I've been in this long enough to know how it actually works. Not from some bloody textbook or a course but from years of quietly poking at things, breaking them, figuring out why, and going back for more.

And yeah I'm still learning. Still getting humbled almost every single day. This very field has this funny way of reminding you that you're not as smart as you thought you were. Every single time I think, "Alrightt…. I'm cooking", then I discover three new things I never heard of. And broskii, it's almost disrespectful at this point.

Most of my days still dont look very exciting or flashy either. It's usually just me, a screen, way too many tabs than necessary open, some documentation that somehow answers everything except the question I actually have, and a problem that's definitely not getting solved in the twenty minutes I confidently promised myself. And then four hours later.. that "I'm cooked feeling". But still ends up watching another video, opening another article, trying something different, falling deep into a rabbit hole without even realising at 3am.

Funny enough, that's when I know I'm doing alright. Not because im making some crazyy progress, not because I somehow became cyber wizard, but that feeling of wanting to understand something because it's interesting. Not because there's an exam. Not because there's a certification waiting. Not because someone told me to. Just because my brain refuses to let it go. I think that's what I missed the most. Not the skills. Not the title. Not people calling me "the hacker." But that restless little voice constantly asking, "Yeah… but why does it work?" Looking back, maybe that was always the real story behind the screens.

It was never just about the computers, the games or even cybersecurity. Those were just the places where I kept accidentally running into myself. And honestly… I still don't know where all of this is going. I know the direction though. Cybersecurity. It always has been. Because there are still promises I made to that little kid that I haven't kept yet.. Some of those dreams were impossible from the day he dreamt them. Like kiddo… how exactly was I supposed to become the world's best hacker at 19 when I'm already 21? Yeahh yeahh… maybe the realistic ones. But then again… "realistic" is a funny word. Realistic according to who? Almost every impossible thing you've ever admired was unrealistic… right until somebody did it. Maybe I'll achieve some of those dreams. Maybe I won't. But I'd rather spend my life chasing something people laughed at than settle for something I never really wanted.

Because the dreams of that little runt begin where most people's careers end.

Not Me. It's Him.

And the internet loves romanticising passion. It loves showing you the highlight reel. The six-figure salaries. The startup exits. The 19 yo "self taught hacker" who somehow looks like he came out of the womb with linux commands printed off his forehead. Yeah… okay bro. What it doesn't show you are the boring nights. The ones where you've spent four hours reading documentation and somehow understand less than when you started. The same bug. The same error. The same tutorial. Wondering if maybe… just maybe… you aren't built for this after all. I know. Because I've lived them. More times than I'd like to admit. And honestly? I still do. So if there's one thing I hope you take away from this, it isn't my story. It's yours. Because somewhere while you were reading all this… I hope you remembered someone. Not me.

That little kid you used to be.

The one who thought the world was way smaller than his dreams. The one who couldn't stop asking questions. The one who believed impossible just meant "not yet." So…

How's that kid doing these days? Is he still around? Or did comfort quietly convince him to stop dreaming too like I did? I told you at the very beginning that you'd probably see yourself a little differently by the end of this. I wasn't talking about me. I was talking about him.