i came across this note that I wrote to myself in 2021 I'm worried about money cash flow and the future of my app's development business I feel like I need to be working around the clock on releasing new ideas and putting them out there in the hopes of one making it a success I don't want to let my family down and I want to make a living out of this I don't want to be relying on anyone I never thought that this would be published anywhere This was my own private thoughts The anxiety and the stress I was going through and trying to find some sort of meaning amongst the chaos At the time I was fresh building my app portfolio and the newness was starting to wear off The idea that this could be something was turning into a feeling that this isn't working the way I wanted it to work And I share this because you might be going through something similar now I was still in debt I felt worthless to make ends meet I was still doing freelance work but I was overdue with that and I couldn't find the motivation Every time I would sit down to work on my freelance projects I would get this nagging feeling that I should be building my app portfolio And then when I'm building my app portfolio I get this nagging feeling that I should be doing freelance work to pay the bills You can see how I felt torn On one hand freelance work was paying the bills It was paying the bills Now it keeps a roof over my head It puts food on the table Why would I focus on apps that might not even make a single dollar when I can get paid for my time at an hourly rate doing freelance but here's the thing If I built a career around freelancing then the money will stop the moment I stop I want to go on a holiday it stops I burn out again It stops Building apps felt important It felt like a real possibility at financial independence but it was harder than I thought I feel like I have this part of me that has odd notes every now and then Like everyone works in rhythm with each other and then I just come along and it's like a jagged note that is out of tune and makes interactions odd People find me odd at times I look back on relationships and I can pick out the times where the notes were odd where I did something wrong or didn't act the way I should where my interpretation of the event was perhaps different or I got myself stuck in a rut I'm reading this now and I'm remembering what it was like back then feeling out of place never fitting in had dreams and ambitions that no one in my life could relate to Get a job Stop wasting your time It's never going to work out I was lost I didn't want that sort of life And the same people giving me that advice they weren't happy anyway They were miserable Always complaining about Mondays the traffic and interactions at the office It just did not make sense What do normal people do with this drive with this passion to pursue the thing they love what do normal people do with this feeling of wanting more do they push it deep down do they even have that feeling maybe they just don't know any different There was something more to me than just working a 9-to-five job I just didn't know how to get there I need to get work done and I need to finalize this freelancing project It's a bit frustrating that it's still outstanding and I want it to be done I want to be paid I want my cash to go up but it feels like all it's been doing is going down and I haven't produced any meaningful amounts lately It's stressful and it scares me This hit me hard when I read it again because I remember the feeling all too well The fear of the unknown the fear that I won't make it that I'm a failure that this is a dream of mine that everyone is telling me won't work And when it doesn't work they'll laugh and say "I told you so." But probably not Looking back that was just in my head Because now that I truly can say that the moment has come where I've made it in this moment everybody's tunes have changed They now all say "I knew you would do it." And they talk about me with high praise But really I'm just the same passionate and curious person that I was back then I've done a lot of growing up but generally feel the same The difference now is the dollar sign attributed to my work It was meaningless when it wasn't making anything and now all of a sudden it has value What is blocking me apps take so long to gain momentum I want them to speed up and I want them to gain instant success but they don't seem to work on that schedule The time and effort I put into it seems to take a long time to generate a reward if there's any reward at all That last part was more insightful than I could ever imagined at the time It took me 4 years of building until it finally clicked And the truth is most of my apps have failed Most haven't even generated a single dollar of revenue If I held myself to the value of how much revenue I would create I would have quit a long time ago Instead I looked at this as a learning journey knowing each failure will lead me in a step in the right direction That if I stuck at it it wasn't a matter of if It was purely a matter of when But if I gave up it would be 100% determined to be a failure If I could go back to myself in four years time I would say it will be okay It will work out Looking back at things you have more clarity more perspective The failures I felt back then felt hard but now they look to me like determination and growth Can I promise you will find success building apps of course But let's first define what success actually is If you look at every day as a way to express yourself creatively to do the things that are hard and to learn along the way then there is no failure