#10YearChallenge

We all came across the #10YearChallenge, whether we participated, liked others' pictures or just scrolled down past them.

 2009 vs 2019

I shamelessly posted my picture, after scrolling through the very old part of my Facebook to find it, the part I made "only me" to prevent certain friends from reaching. And they know who they are. And how they used to laugh at silly old photos. 

An article appeared somewhere stating that Facebook started this challenge to collect data on how faces change over time. First of all, I'm not surprised at all if that's the case. Secondly, who cares? The people who participated in the challenge are the same people who share so many information through social media. Whether they do so through the posts or through the messages, their private information is there, somewhere, in a server belonging to Mark Zuckerberg. 

But I'm not here to talk about this. I'm here to talk about why everyone focused on how their appearance changed and not what they've achieved between 2009 and now. Who cares if you had a unibrow in 2009 and now you know how to use tweezers? Let's talk about achievements and real development.

I'll go first. In 2009, I was in my preteen, and now I'm obviously in my early twenties.

I had no idea what I wanted from life. All I cared about was fashion and Hannah Montana. Okay maybe not to that extent, but I was not sure of what I wanted from life anyway.

During those ten years, I developed so much better than I expected and imagined. I read so many articles on so many topics that I can't even remember, watched documentaries on also so many topics, traveled solo to three countries (minus Egypt of course), tried "exotic" food, traveled many times with my friends and family, made friends around the world, learned programming and electronics, drastically improved my English, and French, and even Arabic, learned German and Spanish, read a bunch of novels and took care of my mental health on my own (or almost).

During those ten years, I made so many different plans for my life. I had the courage to scratch them and make new ones. I wanted to become a pharmacist when I was at my pre-teenage. During high school years, I was in search of my passion. I had a phase where I decided to completely focus on myself and career, no kids and probably no marriage too. I had another where I'd give up everything too, but this time to become a vlogger and travel the world. I was not sure of what I wanted. Now what I want in the future is to make a balance between a career, having a family and having fun! It's going to be complicated and exhausting, but it'll be worth it.

During those ten years, my views on relationships shifted quite often too. At a young age, I was looking for love, I wanted to be in love. I had a teenage short failed experience, also insignificant. Then I gradually stopped considering it. I thought I could never find what I wanted, and deserved. Then I had a mini-experience, also insignificant. Afterwards, I believed again that I could never find what I wanted at least before the age of 27. I totally gave up. And then Alaa came to my life from nowhere. I fell in love headfirst. And now I know why nothing else made sense.

I'm so thankful to everyone I had in my journey, every single person had an impact a way or another. I'm so proud of myself. And in the words of Jessie J: "I'm still working on my masterpiece".