How Did One Moment Alter Your Path?

Out of nowhere, I got an email requesting to include a resource on my blog. Since my blog wasn't attracting much attention, I initially didn't pay much mind to it. However, when the request came again a few months later, I decided to delve into my blog, giving it a revamp. To my delight, it has now been nominated for an award! Check it out at awwwards.com/sites/curious-programmer. I take pride in the dedicated effort I've invested in it and am excited to be able to share my knowledge with the awesome tech community. <3

Mine is a bit… sad. I decided to step back from writing as much on DEV, and making my articles more large-scale. So, while it has been hard, knowing that I’ll still be able to be around and do everything I’ve loved to do on DEV, is amazing.

Working for 6 months with a colleague full of passion for this work lit a spark inside me and motivated me to do something more than the usual work.
So I started to write some tutorials and articles (not as much as I wanted, but it's more than zero) and felt really good!

Thanks @giuliano1993 :)

I've had a few "one moment" moments:

• Getting randomly paralyzed pushed me on long term disability for awhile as I survived and then recovered and ultimately reignited my passion for software engineering and helped me discover a love for mentoring.
• Saying "Congratulations" to a recruiter I'd interacted with but not gone through who got a new role made me aware of a local conference not on my radar. I attended and it helped me see I had more to offer the community, launching me on the path I'm on now.
• Finding out my dad had cancer again disrupted the book I was writing a few years ago and pushed me down the path of online courses in the wake of his death as a way to occupy my evenings and use time productively when I wasn't able to write for a time. This got me deeper into data science.
• Agreeing to go to lunch to catch up with an old friend pivoted quickly to me moving into teaching as she helped me see the time was right for me.
• Telling my wife I still felt impostor syndrome despite teaching 5 classes by then resulted in a "Go get a master's degree already!" moment, which further adds to my credibility in data science.
• One moment where a coworker forwarded on my medical information led to me leaving teaching in a hurry after management refused to address it. I suppose they're not all good moments.
• Saying "Why not?" and legitimately considering writing "Refactoring with C#" when Packt asked me to consider it resulted in a very successful and fun project last year.

Throughout my life, little moments and little "thank you for doing this" or "congratulations" or even "how are you?" moments opened the path to big changes in my life.