I think the internet made me grow up too fast.

When you're 14 and watching people your age launch startups, raise funding, ship products, and build audiences online, your brain starts treating all of that as normal. Suddenly the benchmark for “doing well” isn't just getting good grades anymore. It's building something real.

Most of what I know about programming didn't come from school. It came from random YouTube videos, GitHub repos, Twitter threads, late-night rabbit holes, and reverse engineering things I probably wasn't qualified to touch yet.

The weird thing is that the internet compresses distance. Someone building in San Francisco feels just as close as someone sitting in your classroom. You consume their thoughts daily. Their wins become visible. Their momentum becomes visible too.

That can be motivating. It can also completely destroy your sense of pace.

For a long time, I felt behind constantly. There was always someone younger, smarter, shipping faster, building cooler things. But eventually I realized something important: the internet only shows snapshots. You rarely see the confusion, the failed ideas, the abandoned repos, or the months where nothing works.

Still, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

The internet gave me access to ideas and people I would've never encountered otherwise. It made Lucknow feel less isolated. It made building feel possible. It made me realize that permission matters far less than initiative.

I genuinely think the internet is the closest thing our generation has to a global mentor.