When I Wanted to Quit Coding (And Why I Didn’t)

I didn’t grow up around programming.
I didn’t come from an IT course.
I wasn’t the “built my first website at 12” kind of dev.

What I did have was a hand-me-down computer — and I used it to play games.
That was it. Just play.
No studying. No tinkering. No learning.

So when I finally decided to take coding seriously?

It felt like I was trying to read an alien language with no one to translate.

Confused and Alone

I still remember the first time I saw var, let, and const.
Not only did I not know what they meant —
I didn’t even know what I was supposed to Google to understand them.

“What even is a variable??”
“Why are there three of them??”
“What do you mean ‘store value’?? What are we storing!?”

It took me days — not hours — just to wrap my head around that one concept.

I had no one to ask.
No programmer friends.
No mentor.
No Discord server, no community.

Just me.
And the massive, overwhelming ocean that is the internet — filled with a thousand programming languages, tools, frameworks, opinions, and blog posts.

I had no idea where to start.

I Almost Walked Away

More than once, I opened my editor, stared at the blinking cursor… and just closed it again.

I told myself:

  • “Maybe I’m just not built for this.”

  • “Other people have the background, the degree, the brain for this.”

  • “This is too hard. I’m too late. I’m too lost.”

I wasn’t just confused.
I was exhausted.

And when you’re learning completely solo, that exhaustion hits different.
It’s not just about solving bugs.
It’s about battling your own self-doubt every single day.

But I Kept Going — And Here’s Why

Despite all that… I didn’t quit.

I walked forward — slowly, painfully — because deep down I knew:

“There’s a path here.
I may not see it yet, but it exists.
And if I keep walking, I’ll find it.”

That belief was all I had.
Not confidence. Not clarity.
Just belief that somewhere in this mess, there was something worth reaching.

So I kept learning.

  • One HTML tag at a time

  • One concept a day

  • One frustrating error after another

And little by little, things started making sense.
Not all at once — but enough to keep me going.

Discipline > Background

I didn’t have the right background.
I didn’t have a support system.
But I had discipline.

And I don’t say that to flex. I say it because that’s all I had.

I woke up every day and decided:

“Today I will learn something — even if it’s just one thing.”

And those “one thing” days? They stack.
They built the foundation I stand on now.

If You’re There Right Now…

If you’re reading this and you’re on the edge —
wondering if you’re cut out for this,
wondering if it’ll ever make sense,
wondering if it’s too late —

I want you to hear this:

It’s not too late.
You can do this.
You don’t need to know everything.
You just need to take the next step.

Keep walking.
Even when it feels slow.
Even when it feels lonely.
Even when it feels like nothing’s clicking.

Because the version of you that’s on the other side?
The one that actually understands it, ships projects, builds cool stuff?

They only exist because you didn’t give up today.