Maulana Jalal ad-Din Rumi said:

But don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth, without complicated explanation, so everyone will understand the passage. We have opened you. Start walking. Your legs will get heavy and tired. Then comes a moment of feeling the wings you've grown, lifting.

Technology was never something foreign to us. My father loved computers. He showed us how to burn CDs, how to format a hard drive, and once sat down with a friend to solder a broken battery connector back together until it worked again. Back then I didn't have my own PC, so his desk was my playground. Paint, wallpapers from the internet, movies and games. At some point I understood that this machine could do more than I ever imagined.

My first phone was nothing special, but it didn't take long before it was loaded with custom ROMs and APKs. At school I was part of the student newspaper and one of the very few who could actually work with Word. It never felt like a skill to me. It just felt logical.

Then the iPhone arrived. None of us could have afforded anything from Apple back then. My uncle had the first iPhone 3G, my father got the 4 later on. Across generations, the older ones passed their old devices down. Eventually the iPhone 4S ended up with me. That design, that build quality, those apps. It felt like a different world. The love for Apple has only grown since.

What I didn't know back then was programming. Until I stumbled into university and suddenly understood: I write something in the code, and the page changes. That moment sparked something in me.

Had I discovered Swift and SwiftUI earlier, I probably would have gone down that path sooner. But gaming took priority back then, and I don't hold that against myself. This path was never my decision alone. Allah writes the roads, and I don't regret a single step. Every detour, every delay, every wrong turn brought me exactly to where I am today.

Today I work as a Java developer at a large company and learn iOS development on the side, because it brings me joy, because it challenges me, and because I want to understand how good software is truly built. I am not the best developer. I never was. But I don't believe talent alone is what carries you forward. Motivation is temporary. What remains is the intention, the niyyah, and the effort that grows from it.