Why My DIY Website Almost Drove Me Insane - And Why I’d Do It Again

First, let me start this off by saying, I have zero clue how to blog. I don’t know how I’m supposed to write, how long my posts are supposed to be, if there’s some sort of standards to meet or something, no idea. I’m not a professional blogger.

But, I do know that the whole reason I made this site is to serve as my portfolio, a contact page, and a way to get to know me better, so with that in mind, I’ll just be writing my inner thoughts as they sound inside of my head, out onto this medium for anyone who wishes to, to read.

So, as per the title, creating this site really tested me. I’m not a web professional, and I don’t dream in code, so tackling this was a pretty hefty challenge in itself. Thankfully, we are in a modern age, and I can use the tools of all professionals to my heart’s content: Google, YouTube, Reddit, and ChatGPT. Using those, I managed to piece together a lot of what I was, and wasn’t, supposed to do.

However, even with all those tools, my patience was really tested. Things didn’t work the way I was imagining, expecting, or even predicting. Plugins didn’t execute, updates were blocked due to faulty code, and tiny little mistakes in the middle of an ocean of script caused me to scream in frustration at times. Very difficult to hold in a yell after hours of trying to figure out why something didn’t work, and what to use instead as a backup method, when it’s 2 am and you’ve taken loss after loss on the day when this newest idea was supposed to be a 20 minute implementation.

Because of that though, I can say that I came out of this as a better man, and an improved person. My patience has increased, my knowledge base and skillset have both grown, and I have a new appreciation for what people who do this for a living do on a constant basis. Empathy is only possible when you’ve experienced the same situation as someone else, after all. And because that is the case, doing this has given me the ability to look at what someone else is doing with a lens of understanding, instead of a microscopic focus on perfection. Now when I see a website glitch, a design quirk, or any other flaw - I see the human behind it, the one who spent hours on troubleshooting, the one who put compromises in so that it would all work.

This whole process just taught me that creation isn’t about flawless execution; it’s about the willingness to try, the ability to be adaptable in any situation, and the resolution to see the whole thing through without quitting. I am proud of myself for doing this, and I feel accomplished in completing this task (for now, I’ll make changes in future), much more accomplished than I would making a cookie cutter website, or just giving up on having a portfolio site entirely.

Building things, learning things, trying things, and adapting things to work for you; they’re all so much fun. I wouldn’t hesitate to do this whole process again, given how much it’s provided me.