The Version of Me That Would Have Hated What I Built

I found an old notebook last week. From before I started any of this. Full of ideas about what I wanted to build and how I wanted to build it.

The person who wrote that notebook had principles. Strong ones. He believed in doing things a certain way. He had opinions about what was right and what was cheap.

I read it and realized I had broken almost every one of those principles. Not out of laziness. Out of learning. The principles were wrong, and customers taught me that, and I changed.

But there is a nagging feeling underneath it. How do I know the decisions I am making right now are not going to look just as naive in three more years? And if they will, what does that say about how confident I should be today?

I do not have a clean answer. I just know that growth looks a lot like betrayal from the inside, and you only get to find out if it was the right call by living long enough to look back.

Have you ever looked at your early plans and barely recognized them? And does it feel like growth or like drift?