Today is 06/23/2026 in the EST time zone, where I am. In 2 days from now, I will officially be receiving my HS diploma and graduating from High School. So that is something. I’ve been interacting with the MakeCode community on the forums since the year 2021; honestly, it’s sometimes hard to believe that I have been on here for half a decade in retrospect.
I really just wanted to reflect, since it might be difficult to find another opportunity to do this.
I see the nature of time as a pure, emotionless, and sometimes unmerciful being. It moves on and on, at a great speed, even when you feel like you’re falling behind. It applies much too well to forum activity as well. You join these MakeCode forums when you’re midway through middle school; next thing you know, you’re probably going to get an HS diploma in a cap and gown, and you might slowly begin to slip away from the forums entirely as the passage of time directs you to bigger things in life, such as college, job searching, or dating. It’s not entirely your fault for that either.
As long as time moves forward like it always does, there will be regret as you look back on previous moments in life. Stuff like “I could have done so much more in that frame” is especially prevalent, and you feel like you’re wasting the important parts of your life. Sometimes I feel like I wasted my years in HS as well; I missed multiple important school events with my friend group, like Homecoming (mostly due to poor time management on my part). Life is finite; none of us on these forums are immortal, so every moment technically does count.
But, also, let me tell you this: it’s kind of impossible to avoid feeling this way; I think this “What If” stuff is plain human nature. Something hardwired in our brains to feel. I would say that you shouldn’t beat yourself too much over this since you might have been a different person in the past, and you really can’t change it (unless scientists + engineers finally build a working time machine or something). But you can focus on the present and the future; that is the way. The idea is to take action in life, not sulk too much and waste away as time continues to embark on its fearfully long passage.
Ultimately, as someone who is about to graduate from HS and depart to university, my key advice would be to lock in and cherish whatever you have on the table at the current moment, because you might be in a state of shock when you discover how it vanishes so darn quickly.