Ask HN: Imposter Syndrome/How to start projects I am proud of
Never thought I would really come to this but I really need to talk to a group of people who understand programming and could maybe give me some direction. I understand that this probably will get deleted because its an incredibly stupid situation, but maybe this will reach some people that can give some advice. To preface this, I am a 17 year old programmer. I have been doing various programming tasks etc. since around age 11 with basic minecraft things (plugins for servers, mods). I would link some of the old projects if I could find them. But as the years have gone on I have found myself doing progressively more and more illegal things with my programming "skills". Including most recently a gift card phone bot that calls gift card phone lines, bypasses captcha, and transcribes balance. I know I know, you can probably already tell that I think this stuff is incredibly cool. But recently, I have been thinking a lot about what I want my life to be exactly. I am sure that I want to program in college, but I just cant see myself putting any relevant info on a college app/job app because everything I have done is illegal. I know the obvious answer here is stop doing illegal stuff, but whenever I try and stray from this I end up getting incredibly bored. I have an addiction. I have tried so many times to start legitimate projects, I just can't stop myself from getting immersed back into the next illegal thing. It's starting to effect my mental health as every time someone asks what projects I have done I have no skills or projects to even show for it. There's also the other issue of grinding through the first 2/3 of a project and then getting bored and starting something new. I have 20+ 2/3 done projects that have no user interface/ small bugs etc. I just want to start a project that I can take ownership of as mine, not pseudonymously. I know this has been a bit of rambling I just am not sure what to do at this point. I need life direction. Thanks for listening lol