Learn, Love, Linux
- 5 minsFixing my focus
If you train too much, they think you have no life. If you take rest days, they think your not serious. If you win, they think you got lucky. If you lose, they think you’re not good enough. If you share your jorney, they think your showing off. If you stay quite, they think you lack confidence. Others will always have something to say. The only person that these dreams and goals matter to is you. The only person you should be comparing your life to is the person you were yesterday. This is me sharing my journey because I feel like sharing it. For those who want to read it, emjoy.
It took me a while to get here and taking the time to reflect and realize that I had addictive behaviors was how I fixed my problems. College, church, and commitment were the things that got me to where I am today. From fasting, to falling back in love this is how my journey and my focus has transformed over time.
As of 2025-05-19 I have reached my goals. I was able to follow the road less traveled and obtain the LPIC-3 certification. There have been many times where I would doubt myself and my direction but knowing that knowledge is something no one can take from you was the thing that kept me pushing. I found and followed this certification roadmap after spending a few years at a community college questioning why the classes i’m taking are not pointing me closer towards computer science and technology careers. It the world of IT it can be very hard to distract yourself from the noise of whats popular and whats trendy, but if I have learned anything is “The only constant in the technology industry is change”. While studying for this LPIC-3 I found that quote to be just as strong in the tech industry as it was in life. My addiction was preventing me from acheiving my goals.
Educating myself
My goal in my career was to obtain a certificate from each level of this roadmap and find me a great job or use the certificates to validate my skills on my entrepreneurial ventures. This LPIC-3 and chosing to take the LPI certifications were great but there are better Red Hat certifications that are more than multiple choice questions and more hands on that would have probably helped me land other jobs or put me in different areas but the experience and my ability to describe or explain my experience in Linux helped me push through regardless of all that. The LPIC certifications are $200 each, while the RedHat ones are $500+ or more, you can understand, anyway back to my focus. In high school while leading people as the president of the computer club I kept trying to find ways to get more and more people interested in technology and came across Ubuntu and BakTrak Linux. I didn’t know much about it but I knew at the time that I could use those operating systems for hacking purposes and for networking and server related stuff. In college I joined the computer club and was introduced to Elizabeth Horvath who discussed her exciting interests in programming and Linux. That tripped a wire in my brain that started my journey into Linux. I grabbed all the books I could and downloaded any of the popular OS’s from distrowatch to learn which OS I should learn to use/sell/distribute.
While in school I would spend a bulk of my time at the student activity center playing spades, dominos, super smash bros, or whatever the latest game was back in the day. There used to be people of all walks of life. One of them being a kid who sold weed and bought the latest fashion every week. I sat with him one day and asked him why he was in school if hes not taking it seriously or making money elsewhere. He stated that he wanted to grow his business and education himself in ways he cant find on the streets. I asked him about how he was going to grown an illegal business. He asked me a question that changed my perception of his choices in life. “What is the difference between a drug deal and a car salesman”.
I couldn’t think of an answer other than “One of them is going to go to jail”. His response was simple. “It’s the product they sell”. People who need cars dont go to fast food restaurants or doctors offices. People who need weed don’t go to home depot. People who know what they want will come to you so the product almost sells itself. My approach at making money at the time was spend an hour a day online finding job opportunities on craigslist and sending business cards to people who need computers fixed. I made enough money back then to pay my cell phone bill, gas, and food to keep me happy but I was always looking for the next best thing to help me pay for other bills.
With the conversation I had with my friend and the things I was learning with Linux I figured that the next time someones computer gets hosed and they need to reinstall a fresh copy of windows I could possible convince them to use a Linux distro with free alternatives to