A long time ago in the milky way galaxy.
It was a time of complete excitement and drive. I was just graduating from the University and the hopes were very high. I had my whole life played out in my mind, I could tell a complete stranger what my hopes and dreams were and how I was gonna get there.
I'm getting ahead of myself, My name is Shalom and I am a software developer with high hopes that someday one of my many ideas would see the light of day.However, this is not an article about my hopes and dreams and the little images in my head that make my wake up in the middle of the night to Code, NO, it's about the biggest heart break I had ever had till date.
Naturally, before now I thought that heart breaks only happened when relationships go sour and one or both partners throws in the towel.
I have never heard of a relationship consisting of more than 2 people, but if there is .....However my biggest heartbreak didn't come from a woman in my case. No it did not. It started with having an idea to work on.
it is still a very viable idea so i won't put it on the internet to whom it may concern.I and a couple of friends, started work on the idea and when we thought we were good, we started looking into accelerators and also Venture Capitalist in the hope of putting the product on the market and by extension become the next Evan Spiegel in a couple of years. It was then that I started to rue the country I was born into. We got a lot of unrealistic offers so we decided to go into the international market to source for funds.
It was at this point that we found out about Ycombinator, and truthfully I think they ofer the best package for up and coming companies. So we applied, I think we submitted two months before the deadline. Till date, that is still the best use of my brain ever. I was so optimistic about the whole thing, I was so sure we were gonna get in. I could see it with my mind eye.
Anyways, as you have presumed, we didn't get into the program but that was not the end. It definitely wasn't my first time hearing NO but it was my first time being truly depressed. I remember checking my mail on that Thursday and seeing the negative reply, i was in the mist of about 2000 people and all i wanted to do was weep.
Not cry, not sob, I wanted to weep like a babyNone of the people with me knew what i was going through emotionally and because i didn't want to cause a scene, i kept a straight face but still. I walk a minimum of 10 miles in flip flops wondering what to do with my life. It got so bad that 6 months after then i could not bring myself to write a piece of code, and when i did, i couldn't understand why i was writing it. When it was time for anther batch of YCombinator, I had a panic attack. I couldn't breath or think.
Eventually, i started programing again a couple of months ago. I second guess most of my decisions now while i program but at least i have a piece of me back.
I'm on my long walk back to redemption, i hope one day i find the old me and I get back to my dreams of being the next Evan Spiegel.