Friendly Terminal

I don’t exactly remember how, maybe I saw a tweet or maybe I just stumbled across this GitHub repo called Friendly Terminal. I got curious, so I peeked in and found out that it was a terminal extension which prints a motivational message whenever the terminal is opened. I really liked the idea, so I decided to give it a try and added a few motivational messages of my own. It also considers what day and time of day it is, which is pretty cool.

It is such a small thing. Whenever I open terminal, I get a message. If I open a new tab in my terminal, I again get this message. So I get to see a message tens of times a day. Also, as it picks the messages randomly from a list of messages, it doesn’t feel that repetitive. I don’t consciously take note of these messages every time, though I know I always read them. It barely takes a second, as I open the terminal and start writing stuff in, the eye just dances over this message which is faithfully there to spread positivity and boost my confidence. I actually feel like it has made a difference.

There have been times when a message like: “You can accomplish anything, as long as you’re persistent” or “I know you can do it!” Or “Keep up the good work, Kshitij!” Was all I needed to hear to give me that tiny delta of positivity which kept me to keep trying on the problem and not give up just yet. We spend a lot of time in our terminal, writing and testing scripts, moving data, finding stuff, therefore terminal should be like a close friend of ours who knows all about our work. This simple extension just makes it a tad bit more real.

I firmly believe that we should surround ourself with as much positivity as we can, and yes it all adds up. You might not need it on your good days, but every so often there comes a day when you feel that everything is falling apart, that you are an imposter, that this problem is just too hard, that you are all alone in this journey, and that maybe just maybe you should give up. It is times like these when you’ll need this support structure you’ve built around you. If you are anything like me, you won’t even ask for help when you are low, in fact that becomes the most difficult thing to do, fully realizing that it is the most essential thing as well. This set-up-and-forget extension will be there for you when you open your terminal that day, to remind you that you are awesome. That you are a brilliant human being, full of amazing qualities. That you should take a break ever so often. That it will be alright. That you can get through this.

Written on March 31, 2020