When You Feel Like a Fraud
You ever just sit there after solving a hard-ass problem or finishing a clean-ass project… and still feel like you know absolutely nothing?
Like… you literally built an app from scratch, handled routing, optimized performance, wrote unit tests, and connected it to a backend you also built. But the moment someone asks, "So how does React actually render the DOM?" you start sweating like you just saw your crush with someone else.
Or maybe you've solved 300+ LeetCode problems — recursion, dynamic programming, graphs, trees — the works. But one night, you see a problem titled "Easy: Sum Two Numbers" and your brain goes, "Wait… how do variables work again?"
And don't even get me started on tech interviews. One minute you're running Docker containers, the next you're like, "Wait… what's the difference between a process and a thread again?" 💀
Your Terminal History Doesn't Lie
It's like my inner monologue is a whole performance: "Act like you know what you're doing. You're the dev. You got this. Don't let them know you're just out here winging it and reading docs mid-meeting."
Meanwhile, your terminal history's like:
how to reverse a linked listgit revert vs resettailwind text not showing??javascript sort function brain fog help
But hey — here's what I've realized: Feeling lost doesn't mean you're not growing. Feeling like an imposter usually means you're actually pushing your limits. You're not stuck. You're just leveling up — and it's uncomfortable as hell.
So yeah, I might act like I know nothing sometimes. I might downplay my wins, question my progress, and even compare myself to people who've been in the game longer than I've been alive.
But one thing's for sure — I'm still here. Still building. Still solving. Still showing up. Imposter or not… I'm in the damn arena.