When I first started with open source, OpenMRS was my very first community. I still remember my first pull request — openmrs-core#5107. It got rejected.
To this day, I still get a bit embarrassed when I look back at the mistakes I made in that PR. 
At that time, I was at my all-time low, feeling unsure if I even belonged in open source.
But then, I stumbled upon @mherman22’s GitHub profile — it said:
“Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
”
For some reason, those words struck deep — and from that moment, I decided one thing:
I will never give up.
There were rejected PRs.
There were PRs that got ghosted.
But I kept on going —
like water, which never stops flowing, no matter the obstacle. 
Today, I’m proud to share that I’ve completed Hacktoberfest 2025 
I shipped major features to Google’s Gemini CLI and made multiple contributions to OpenMRS — the very community where my journey began.
A special thank you to @dkigen for reviewing my PRs and guiding me throughout my OpenMRS journey. 
Your feedback and encouragement have truly helped me grow.
Open source has taught me that progress isn’t always visible day by day — but when you look back, you realize how far you’ve come.
To anyone just starting:
Don’t give up. Keep learning. Keep contributing. Your time will come. 
