The Rabbit Hole Started With AI
A few days ago I caught myself doing what I always do when my brain gets bored and my wallet is still alive.
I started looking at AI coding tools.
First it was Antigravity CLI. Then OpenCode. Then my company had me hook into their OpenCode setup using ChatGPT models, and suddenly my brain did that very normal, very stupid thing where it goes:
"Hmm. Maybe I should subscribe to ChatGPT Plus."
Which, of course, immediately mutated into the more dangerous thought:
"Hmm. Maybe I should finally build my dream workstation."
Classic me. One minute I'm looking at tools. The next minute I'm mentally pricing a machine that could probably render my regrets in 4K.
It sounds ridiculous now that I write it down.
I've wanted to build my "dream PC" for years.
I started programming on an Intel i3 4th Gen paired with a GTX 750 Ti. That machine carried me from 2015 until around the pandemic. It survived because I survived. I upgraded it piece by piece whenever I could afford to stop pretending I didn't need better hardware. Eventually I ended up with a Ryzen 7 5700X and a much better graphics card.
Looking back, none of those upgrades happened because I suddenly became rich.
They happened because I squeezed every last drop out of what I already had until it started sounding like a dying appliance.
And honestly? That was the whole game.
Today my desktop still does everything I ask of it.
React.
Laravel.
Docker.
Next.js.
AI coding assistants.
Blogging.
Architecture work.
The machine is fine. More than fine. It is not begging for mercy. It is not wheezing in the corner. It is not sending me smoke signals asking for retirement.
So why was I looking at new hardware?
The answer wasn't performance.
It was temptation.
The Year My Relationship With Money Changed
One thing that surprised me this year is how my relationship with money changed without asking for permission.
When I was at my previous company, my savings usually hovered around ₱20,000.
Payroll would come in.
Maybe I'd reach ₱35,000.
Then I'd spend until I was back around ₱20,000 again, like some kind of financially illiterate hamster on a wheel.
After changing companies, something shifted.
Instead of resetting back to where I started, I began raising the floor.
₱20,000 became ₱50,000.
₱50,000 became ₱90,000.
₱90,000 became ₱120,000.
Today it's around ₱160,000.
Not because I'm suddenly living like a monk.
I'm still paying for groceries.
Internet.
Electricity.
Water.
Life still shows up uninvited and asks for money like it pays rent.
I just stopped treating every extra peso like it had to be sacrificed immediately to the gods of impulse buying.
Then my wife and I decided to do something much bigger than buying another shiny rectangle for my desk.
We're moving.
We found a place in Santa Rosa through one of her friends.
They're renovating it before we move in this August.
The rent is ₱12,000.
Advance payment is another ₱12,000.
The moving truck will cost around ₱12,000.
Funny enough, it's 12-12-12.
The universe really said, "Here, have a neat little pattern while you empty your savings responsibly."
When I subtract all of that from my savings, I'll still have roughly ₱124,000 left.
And that number matters.
Because it means I'm not torching my emergency fund just to feel productive with my money.
I'm using my savings the way savings are supposed to be used.
To build a life.
Not to buy a faster benchmark.
The Real Upgrade
I also had to laugh at myself because I realized something else.
The only hardware upgrade I genuinely need right now is probably a larger SSD.
My brother even gave me a 4 TB Synology.
So no, my desktop is not the problem.
My desktop is fine.
It's me that's the problem.
I'm the one getting distracted by shiny hardware like a raccoon with a credit card.
I caught myself thinking:
"Don't fall into the hip-hop rapper mindset."
You know the one.
The mindset where you finally start earning decent money and suddenly feel like you need expensive things to prove you're no longer broke.
Like buying a giant PC somehow erases the years you spent making old hardware suffer through your ambitions.
But when I looked at my actual behavior instead of my ego, the evidence told a different story.
If I really believed that nonsense, I would've already bought the workstation.
Instead, I've spent months talking myself out of it.
That's not someone chasing status.
That's someone learning patience.
Or at least trying to, while his brain keeps opening shopping tabs like a drunk man with Wi-Fi.
The realization that stuck with me the most wasn't about computers.
It was this.
Years ago my dream was to build the ultimate PC.
Today my dream is to build software.
The PC has quietly become just another tool.
Maybe one day I'll build that workstation.
Maybe it'll have ridiculous specs.
Maybe I'll laugh while ordering parts because I remember this post and how close I came to turning a perfectly good savings account into a very expensive coping mechanism.
But I hope when that day comes, it won't be because I wanted to prove I made it.
I hope it's because I'll genuinely need the tool.
Until then, I'd rather invest in a home with my wife than another benchmark score.
A year from now, I'd rather have my own place in Santa Rosa, a healthy emergency fund, growing savings, and the same reliable desktop...
...than the world's fastest PC sitting in my parents' house collecting dust and bad decisions.
And somehow, writing all of this down made that decision feel a lot easier.
Every Time I Reach a Hill...
After I finished writing all of this, something funny happened.
My brain did what it always does.
Instead of celebrating that my wife and I are finally moving into our own place, it immediately skipped ahead.
"Hmm... I wonder how many solar panels would fit on this roof."
Then reality interrupted.
"...shit. It's not my house."
Five seconds later my brain was already asking another question.
"How much does a house cost?"
That's the pattern.
Every time I reach a hill, I'm already looking for the next one.
Looking Back at the Wrong Turns
The funny part is that this isn't new.
Looking back, my entire life has been built on changing directions.
I graduated high school in 2008.
I passed the quota for Saint Louis University in Baguio and started nursing.
One year later I realized I absolutely hated blood.
That year was a disaster.
I failed every subject.
I was depressed.
At the time I thought I had completely wasted a year of my life.
So I shifted to Information Technology.
A couple of years later I got distracted.
Photography.
Graphic design.
Another change.
Another reset.
Eventually I transferred schools and enrolled in networking and security.
Then one web development subject completely changed everything.
For the first time I remember thinking,
"I actually enjoy this."
I switched majors again.
Graduated in 2017.
The same year my wife graduated too.
Back then we were still just boyfriend and girlfriend trying to figure life out.
I applied for an internship at a startup.
I made it through the internship, but when it ended only one of the three interns was offered a job.
They chose the candidate who already had a couple of years of experience.
At the time it felt like another closed door.
Not long after, a friend's older cousin was looking for a graphic designer at a hotel in Baguio.
My friend referred me because of my background in graphic design, photography, and anything visual.
I got the job.
Looking back, another "failed" path had quietly opened the next door.
Three years as a graphic artist.
Then COVID happened.
Lockdowns.
Lost my job.
Lost my savings.
Started over.
Prosperna found me.
Those four and a half years changed my career.
They gave me opportunities I will always be grateful for.
Eventually I realized I had outgrown what they could offer me.
In my final year there, I also ran into some issues with my government contributions that ultimately confirmed what I already knew—it was time for a new chapter.
Not long after, a new opportunity came along.
Today I'm here.
Failures Don't Disappear. They Compound Into Skills
Today I'm no longer just building frontends.
I work across frontend and backend.
I investigate production issues.
I build proof-of-concepts.
I research new technologies.
I design systems.
Sometimes my job isn't even writing code.
Sometimes it's simply figuring out what the right problem is.
When I look back now, something becomes obvious.
Those weren't just failures.
Looking back, I don't think I failed my way through life.
I think I accidentally built one weird résumé.
Every career I started gave me something I still use today.
Every wrong turn quietly became another tool in the toolbox.
Nursing taught me that it's okay to admit I'm on the wrong path instead of pretending I'm happy.
Photography and graphic design taught me composition, storytelling, and visual communication.
Networking taught me infrastructure and systems thinking.
Working at a hotel taught me customers, deadlines, operations, and the reality that businesses don't stop because you're having a bad day.
Prosperna taught me software engineering, teamwork, and what building software at scale actually looks like.
My current company is teaching me that software engineering isn't just frontend or backend anymore. Sometimes the job is writing code. Sometimes it's debugging production. Sometimes it's researching. Sometimes it's designing systems. Sometimes it's simply asking better questions than everyone else in the room.
None of those careers survived exactly as they were.
Every lesson did.
Seeing Potential
Even outside software, I've always been like this.
People throw away broken furniture.
I see a future desk.
People see scrap wood.
I see shelves.
People see an old cabinet.
I see material.
Maybe I'm just cheap.
Or maybe I've spent my whole life learning that value and price aren't always the same thing.
The View From This Hill
The same thing happened with computers.
I started with an aging i3 and a GTX 750 Ti.
Today I have a Ryzen 7 workstation, dual monitors, a Synology NAS, a server rack, managed networking, dual internet providers, and a setup that fifteen-year-old me would've thought belonged to someone on YouTube.
Yet somehow my brain still whispers,
"What should we build next?"
Maybe that's just who I am.
Maybe I'll always be looking at the next hill.
I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
Curiosity got me here.
Ambition got me here.
Constantly asking "what's next?" got me here.
The only danger is forgetting to look behind me once in a while.
Because from where I'm standing today, it's easy to think I'm "just" a mid-level software developer.
But the kid rebuilding furniture from discarded cabinets...
The student who failed nursing...
The graphic artist who lost his job during the pandemic...
The guy knocking on doors during the COVID lockdowns, hoping someone—anyone—was hiring...
The developer wondering if anyone would ever give him a chance...
I think they'd all be pretty amazed by the life I'm living today.
One Promise to My Future Self
So I want to make myself one promise.
When we finally move into our place in Santa Rosa...
Before I start planning where the server rack goes.
Before I think about networking.
Before I wonder if the roof can support solar panels.
Before I ask ChatGPT how much houses cost.
I'm going to take one evening.
Sit on the floor with my wife, even if the furniture hasn't arrived yet.
Look around the empty room.
Take a deep breath.
And remind myself:
This hill used to be the next hill.
Because I know myself.
Tomorrow my brain will already be looking for another one.
It'll start planning the next project.
The next upgrade.
The next goal.
The next dream.
And maybe that's okay.
That curiosity has carried me this far.
I just don't want to climb so fast that I forget to appreciate the view from the hill I'm already standing on.
