The Joy of building stuff

Day 17 / 365

Do you remember things that you did that made you happy?

For me, it was always making something. I used to collect things like boxes, batteries old utensils, and anything that I thought I could make something with. I and my friends could spend the whole day using random stuff to turn our whole room into a Hotwheels track.

I started the tradition in my colony to burn the Raavan effigy on Dussehra. I gathered my friends and collected all the scrap paper, wood, or cardboard that we could find and made our own Raavan. In the evening, not just the kids but the parents came as well, people did their poojas, and everyone had a great time. I realized that though I enjoyed building things just for the fun of it, seeing the stuff you build bringing joy to other people is even more fulfilling.

Ever since I started coding, I always tried to do the same with software. I used to build little apps or websites for my friends or my family members. But when coding became a job for me, I started to miss out on this aspect of it. It’s hard to get that sort of fulfillment working for a big company, where the affect your work has might not be so immediate.

But that changed this week when I put out my Whatsapp Bot. I put it up on Reddit and within a day, 100s of people have tried it out. And I got really kind messages from people telling me how that bot is helping them out. I felt that same feeling of fulfillment last night when I saw those messages, and after a long time in my life, I couldn't wait to wake up next morning and start building things again.