The Race Was in My Head

I feel so sick of constantly feeling like I’m falling behind everyone. I keep comparing myself to people who already have something I don’t have, people who seem to have everything figured out, people who are further ahead, more connected, more experienced, or simply living the kind of life I wish I had right now. And honestly, sometimes that comparison gets exhausting. But then I stop for a second and think about how blessed I actually am to even be able to continue this journey. I have the opportunity to learn, to build, to meet people, to make mistakes, and to keep trying again. Maybe I don’t have everything I want right now, but I still have the ability to become better than who I was yesterday. And I think that’s what I’m going to focus on from now on. Not being better than someone else. Not trying to catch up with somebody else’s timeline. Just being better than Kenneth from last week.

Last week was honestly one hell of a week. I did things that I genuinely thought I would never be able to do. There were situations where I had to step outside my comfort zone, talk to people, put myself out there, and actually participate instead of sitting back and overthinking everything. Looking back, I think I had been letting social anxiety or whatever was stopping me from enjoying things and learning from the people around me. I kept thinking too much about what people might think, whether I belonged somewhere, whether I was good enough to talk to someone, or whether I had enough knowledge to even be part of the conversation. Eventually I just broke that barrier. And once I did, I realized something pretty obvious. Most of the things I was afraid of were happening inside my own head.

That change has already started opening up more connections for me, especially in research and cybersecurity. I’ve met people I probably wouldn’t have approached before, had conversations I would’ve avoided, and started realizing that you don’t always have to know everything before you start talking to someone. Sometimes you just need to be curious. Sometimes you need to ask a stupid question. Sometimes you need to admit that you don’t know something. And sometimes that one conversation can lead you somewhere you never expected. I’m genuinely grateful for the people I’ve been able to connect with recently, and I think that’s something I want to keep building on.

People are always going to have opinions about you. They’re going to tell you what you should be doing, what you shouldn’t be doing, what path you should take, what you’re wasting your time on, and what they think you should become. And honestly, that’s fine. Everyone has an opinion. But at the end of the day, you know yourself better than they do. You know what you’re capable of, you know what you’re struggling with, you know what you’re trying to build, and you know what matters to you. You don’t have to accept every opinion just because someone said it confidently. Take what helps you. Leave what doesn’t. Keep learning from people, but don’t lose yourself trying to become the version of you that everyone else expects.

And speaking of things I’m completely done with… college.

Lmao.

I’m genuinely tired of the whole thing. The people, the environment, the unnecessary drama, the random things that somehow become important, and the feeling that I’m spending so much energy on things that don’t really contribute to where I want to go. I’m not saying I’m going to completely abandon it because obviously I still have to attend, complete my assignments, write my papers, and get through the degree. But mentally, I’m done giving it more importance than it deserves. I’ll attend, I’ll do what I need to do, I’ll fill the attendance, I’ll get my degree, and then I’ll come back to the things I actually want to spend my life working on.

I think I’ve finally realized that I don’t need to win every environment I’m placed in. I don’t need everyone in college to like me. I don’t need to prove myself to people who don’t matter to my future. I don’t need to participate in every argument or care about every opinion. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is simply stop giving something your energy.

So that’s what I’m doing.

I’m putting more of that energy into myself.

I’ve also been doing a little bit of coding on the side, and I’ve started continuous learning on PortSwigger again. I’m trying to balance the development side with application security instead of treating them like completely separate things. The more I learn about development, the more I realize how useful it is when I’m studying security. Understanding how an application is built makes it much easier to understand where things can go wrong. I’m still figuring out the balance, but honestly, it’s starting to feel much more natural now.

CPTS is still sitting right there in the middle of everything. I’m trying not to rush it anymore. I want to complete it properly, and right now I’m aiming to finish it around June 2027. I can actually say that with more confidence now because I finally feel like I understand what I’m trying to accomplish. I’m not trying to race someone else’s timeline anymore. If it takes me until June 2027, then it takes me until June 2027. If I finish earlier, great. If I need more time, I’ll take it. The important thing is that I stay on the path and keep improving.

And honestly, nobody gives a damn about my timeline anyway.

That’s actually kind of freeing.

Nobody is coming every morning to check whether Kenneth completed his CPTS module. Nobody is keeping track of how many labs I finished this month. Nobody is going to care whether I learned something at nineteen or twenty or twenty one. At the end of the day, I’m the one who has to live with what I know and what I don’t know. So I might as well build myself properly instead of constantly looking sideways.

One thing I know I need to improve is research. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Sometimes I feel like I’m doing things just because they look like what a pentester should be doing, instead of actually researching deeply enough to understand why I’m doing them. I don’t want to just LARP my way through cybersecurity. I want to actually understand the technology. If I come across something unfamiliar, I want to read about it, experiment with it, look at the source code when possible, build something around it, and figure out what is actually happening.

That’s also why I’ve been getting more interested in source code, development, and lower level concepts. The deeper I go, the more I realize that cybersecurity isn’t just about knowing more tools. It’s about understanding systems.

And speaking of that, I’m going to start sharing some of my Silver notes soon. I want to write about what it actually does, how it works, how it relates to Active Directory, and why understanding it matters from a security perspective. I think those notes could actually help someone else who is trying to understand the same concepts, so I’d rather put them out there instead of letting them sit inside my vault forever.

That’s another thing I’m trying to change. I don’t want to keep everything private until it’s perfect. I’m going to share what I know while I’m still learning.

Some of it might be incomplete. Some of it might eventually change as I learn more. Some of my older notes might look completely different six months from now. And that’s okay. That’s the whole point of documenting a journey. You’re not supposed to know everything at the beginning.

Looking back at myself from even a few months ago, I can already see how much my mindset has changed. I’m still nowhere near where I want to be, and sometimes that fact bothers me. But I’m also starting to understand that being far away from the goal doesn’t mean I’m failing. It just means there’s still work to do.

I think the biggest thing I learned this week isn’t actually technical. It’s that I need to stop measuring my life against other people’s lives.

Someone else might have the certification I want. Someone else might already have the job I want. Someone else might have better connections, better projects, better grades, more experience, or whatever else I’m currently comparing myself against. Good for them. Seriously. Their success doesn’t make mine impossible.

I’m going to keep trying to become better than Kenneth from yesterday. Maybe that’s enough. Maybe I don’t need some massive transformation every week.Maybe progress is just sitting down again after a terrible week and continuing anyway.

I’m still figuring things out. I’m still going to get confused. I’m still going to compare myself sometimes. I’m still going to have days where I feel like I’m doing nothing right. But now I know I can break through some of the barriers that used to keep me stuck. Last week proved that to me.

Let’s see where that takes me.

Until next time.