Dreams and Motivation of an Aspiring Author

June 2025

Motivation has been a problem for me after that existential crisis. That period led to my greatest moment of clarity but now, I was struggling to move forward with my business and personal dreams.

Especially since I given up on a lot of things and my business fell apart, I had no long term goals I liked.

The long term goals I had now were a side effect of my existential crisis so they were the best decisions to make. They are not the decisions I wanted to make.

That's what they don't tell you about entrepreneurship.

It's not about hard work.

Sacrifice, that's what really matters. Whether you’re sacrificing your sanity, health or social life, you have to give something up.

Everybody works hard, only a sacrifice could put you above them in the race.

So for a while, I felt directionless and confused. I didn't have much desire to do anything.

It's one of the most annoying parts of depression.

The desire to do nothing.

A therapist once said the best place to start is to do something.

Even a small task could help start the ball rolling.

I decided that maybe I needed to learn a new skill.

That crisis of identity made it abundantly clear I was behind in social and life skills.

But what skill could I learn when I work twelve hours a day, much of my free time outside of that is spent traveling to and from work.

What about Internet security?

The idea popped into my head for a while and got more traction the longer I thought about the benefits.

It was a field that didn't require much more than a computer and time to start. That was something I had already.

After some thought, it made sense.

So I joined Hack Forums, and one mega thread for new comers in the Internet security field gave me the basic roadmap. I joined Tryhackme and paid for the subscription.

A weight lifted off my shoulders as I felt reborn. I couldn't explain it at the time, but while working a long shift job at the wholesale, I was doing one to two rooms at Tryhackme every day. I never been so enthusiastic about something in a long time.

It gave me new life but two months removed from that, I could figure out why.

Partially, it's because it is new but it was a series of skill sets that would have huge potential for high income.

The last reason, it was going to be hard. Internet security comprised a huge field of knowledge, each specialty is hard in of itself and you have to be solidly average at most of these fields to get anywhere in that industry.

The difficulty spike for me excited me like playing a video game on hard mode plus I have a vested interest in getting rid of my ‘poser’ mentality and my need to be good enough. I needed to master skills and not just learn something just to gloat how good I am at computers.

That's why getting to the top of Tryhackme isn't an achievement. It would have been to a twenty-year-old me, but that would be a stepping stone. Once I get there, I'm only half way through the rookie stage, after that it is HacktheBox and trying to hack my own computers with well-structured firewalls setup. At that point, I'm in the intermediate stage but I’ll have a long way to go.

I choose to learn skills related to being a Security Operations Center analyst (SOC analyst) / Malware analyst.

I know myself now, hacking or pentesting isn't that interesting to me. I would only try to learn hacking because it is necessary to know your enemy to defeat them.

I want to defend systems, websites and programs.

That job path requires me to learn about computer logs and would require some programming language which is even better.

Programming is another focus I chose, it’s a universal skill and it can be helpful even if I don't get a job in Internet security.

I could write my own programs.

As a writer, I had a dream to make a story choice app similar to Wizard’s Choice.

You would think with this new aspect to my life I would be too busy to write.

Actually, I have written more than i did before. The reason, I have not attached my writing to my economic future. Writing stories have returned to being an hobby and if I make money from it, great, if not, still great. Right now, I just want to be happy.

Another aspect to consider is time.

It took me years to become good at writing stories.

When I rushed ahead, I had an habit of quiting because I did not see any results quick enough. I now prioritize learning over success. If I know how to do something, I must find a way to make myself useful.

If I don't end up working as a SOC analyst, I can utilize my programming and knowledge of Internet security to secure web applications, apps or programs. I would have to learn assembly languages so I can utilize that in becoming a better programmer In the future. Motivated now, all I have to do is learn.