I Spent Two Years Proving I Didn’t Need Anyone What happens when your whole identity is built around not needing help. My computer wallpaper has said the same thing for over a year now. A girl …

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Code Like A Girl

A personal reflection from an AI/ML engineer who spent two years equating self-sufficiency with capability. Drawing parallels between ML systems that improve through feedback loops and her own reluctance to ask for help, she describes how a difficult period forced her to reframe independence — not as isolation, but as trusting her own judgment while remaining open to input. Practical takeaways include trusting early instincts, documenting wins, being selective rather than closed, and normalizing uncertainty as part of any good process.

I Spent Two Years Proving I Didn’t Need Anyone

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What Changed When I Stopped Treating Help Like Failure

<p>Nice post! Sometimes we have the illusion we can do things alone, but that’s a BIG lie. This text alone I’m typing requires a LOT of people working under the hood to make sure it happens! You can have a walk alone, but someone made a paved road and other stuff you can actually use. You can maybe be completely alone in the woods using clothes you made yourself, but even if you are the hermit, your mom had to give birth to you, so it’s impossible to actually do everything alone! You can be a man living in a cave, making everything, but your mom or someone had to feed you while you were a kid to make that possible.</p>
<p>In tech it is the same way; every little step you take was paved by someone who walked someone else’s paved road. It’s nice to code in Rust, but someone had to pave that road, and this can go as long as you want! The reality is that humans are a community and always were! Doing anything alone is an illusion that we create, which is not true.</p>
