Introduction

I finally finished the Etch A Sketch project at The Odin Project: Etch A Sketch(TOP). What a relief! I remember a little over two weeks ago when I started that I was daunted by the task. I had never written a program before that had a user interface (GUI) that others could interact with. The majority of my programming was mainly either forms, or in the console. I had a genuine complex that perhaps I was biting off more than I could chew. Why?

Fear and Self-Doubt

I was mostly afraid that my document object model skills were sub-par. I didn't think I would be able to figure out how to start the grid. I had a lack of confidence in what I had taught myself over the past few months. None of those thoughts mattered then, and they obviously don't matter now since the project is done. You can go check it out for yourself: Etch A Sketch in JavaScript.

Overcomer

For the longest time, when I first joined the Discord for TOP, my name was Warmaster-I am an overcomer! I had written it like that to remind myself in the early parts of the course that this wasn't always going to be easy. There would be times where things would be difficult and I'd have to have some grit, resolve, and sheer determination to finish strong. Today was one of those days. I was tired of trying to make the rainbow button work and I had almost convinced myself to re-label the rainbow button to accurately reflect how it was working (Random Color Brush). I was also going to try and be content with the darken and lighten buttons not working and planned to just remove them. After all, I had the basic requirements completed for the project.

What stopped me? Myself. I stopped me. I remembered that I am an overcomer and that I could accomplish what I set out to do. I wanted to be an over achiever in this project because I had the time. I wanted to implement my own feature set to be different than others and learn what it takes to plan my own ideas out. It was fun, it was rewarding, and I don't think I would have been able to say that had I just scrapped some ideas just for the sake of moving on. I was in the shower and I had this fleeting thought that, I wouldn't feel right if I didn't finish strong, that which I had started. It took me a mere 4 hours to get those things going once I had some directional guidance from a super patient peer of mine who goes by the name 'snaitseb'. Once he showed me how to properly implement "modes", I was flying. I have a lot to study up on after the lesson but I feel a lot more confident with pass by reference functions in JavaScript.

Conclusion

Never sell yourself short. Don't stop short of your intentions in whatever it is you set out to do/achieve in life. You are just as capable, if not more capable than anyone else. I always say, if I can do it, so can you. Join me in being an overcomer. Stick to your guns, and only change or modify from the plan if the change is 100% necessary. Until the next one...be good!

Photo by Malte Luk: https://www.pexels.com/photo/crop-man-writing-on-whiteboard-in-modern-office-5310564/