Becoming a network and cybersecurity engineer sounds cool until you realize it mostly involves staring at broken things, talking to your devices like they’re sentient, and Googling the same command over and over because somehow, it still isn’t working.
So why do I post about those failures? Because let’s face it—success is boring. “Look at me, I configured a switch correctly on the first try!” Okay, congrats, but where’s the drama? Where’s the spicy story? Where’s the emotional breakdown over a rogue semicolon in a config file?
My journey is full of those stories, and I post them because they’re hilarious, painful, and deeply educational—usually in that order.
Failure Is My Teacher… and It Has No Chill
Some people learn by doing. I learn by doing, breaking, panicking, and then doing again. I’ve misconfigured static routes so badly, I accidentally created what I now call “the Bermuda Triangle of traffic.” Packets go in… but they don’t come out.
Posting that kind of thing might make me look silly, but it also makes me honest. And let’s be real: everyone who’s actually done this stuff has messed it up too. The difference? I’m just putting my chaos on display like a circus act.
Nobody Learns From a Perfect Lab
If I post, “Here’s a screenshot of a working firewall rule,” nobody learns anything. But if I post, “Here’s how I blocked the entire subnet because I used ‘any’ in the wrong place,” people feel that. They learn. They laugh. They bookmark it for when they do it too.
Failures are where the real knowledge lives. I’m just out here documenting it like a scientific experiment gone slightly off the rails.
Because the Comments Are Half the Lesson
When I post a config fail, I don’t just get sympathy. I get explanations, better methods, and occasionally a gentle “yo, maybe don’t run that as root again.” The community chimes in, and suddenly I’m not alone in my digital despair. I’m part of a support group with a healthy side of sarcasm and unsolicited RFC references.
Failure Keeps Me Humble and My Logs… Spicy
It’s easy to start feeling like a 1337 h4x0r after you successfully set up a VPN tunnel. Then you forget to add a static route, and now half your network thinks the internet moved to /dev/null. Posts like that keep me grounded—and hopefully entertain a few of you while I’m at it.
Besides, I’ve learned more from a single misconfigured VLAN than I did from entire chapters of some books. #SorryNotSorry
Celebrate the Crash-and-Burn Moments
Why should I only celebrate the certifications and clean topologies? I want to celebrate the times I typed iptables -F without thinking, then sat there in silence like I just deleted my own birthday.
These moments deserve a post. They’re battle scars. And every time I survive one, I’m a little bit closer to being the network ninja I aspire to be. Or at least someone who reads the man pages before typing the command.
TL;DR – I’m Posting My Failures Because:
They’re funny (at least afterward).
They help me learn (usually the hard way).
They help others learn without repeating my mistakes (you’re welcome).
They make the journey real, not just resume-worthy.
If you’re also on this chaotic, caffeinated, Ctrl+C–Ctrl+V–fueled journey to becoming a network and cybersecurity engineer—post your fails too. Let’s make the internet a little more honest, a little more fun, and a lot more helpful.
And remember: every time you mess up a config, a future expert is born. Usually in the form of “you,” after 6 hours, 12 tabs, and one very dramatic sigh.
