The First Time I Broke Something

Every builder has that story.
The first time you broke something.

Not in theory.
Not just a little bug.
But really broke it.
The kind of mistake where your stomach drops, and you think, "Oh no... what did I just do?"

Mine wasn’t huge in the grand scheme of things.
But at the time, it felt like the end of the world.

I was new.
Still figuring things out.
And I thought I was smarter than I was.

One wrong line of code.
One careless command.
And suddenly the whole project collapsed.

The screen froze.
Errors everywhere.
Nothing worked.

I remember sitting there, staring at it, feeling this wave of panic.
Like maybe I had ruined everything.
Like maybe I should just quit and pretend it never happened.

But here’s the thing about breaking stuff: it forces you to learn.

I didn’t quit.
I opened the logs.
I retraced my steps.
I started undoing.

It wasn’t quick.
It wasn’t pretty.
But slowly, piece by piece, the project came back.

And in the process, something clicked in my brain.

I realized breaking things wasn’t the end of the world.
It was the path to actually understanding how things work.

Because here’s the truth:
When everything just works, you don’t really learn.
You’re coasting.
It’s when things fall apart that you actually see how the pieces fit together.

That first mistake taught me more than a dozen tutorials ever could.

It taught me how to debug.
It taught me how to stay calm when nothing makes sense.
It taught me that every developer, no matter how good, makes mistakes.

Now, years later, I still break things.
All the time.
But I don’t panic anymore.

Because I know the process.
Break.
Investigate.
Fix.
Learn.

Every time I mess something up, I remind myself of that first day.
That first wave of panic.
And that first moment of relief when I realized -
I can figure this out.

So if you’ve ever broken something, don’t beat yourself up.
That’s how it goes.
That’s how you learn.
And honestly, that’s how you get good.