Road To Forge

Tag: life

  • One Day This Will Look Like Wood Carving

    By Bogdan — RoadToForge
    I started this blog because someone told me it could make me money.
    That was the honest reason. I am not going to pretend otherwise.
    But somewhere along the way something shifted. I stopped thinking about the income and started thinking about something else entirely. Something I did not expect.
    I started thinking about leaving a message behind.
    Not for the internet. Not for followers or traffic or any of that. But for my children. And maybe — this sounds strange to say out loud — for someone reading this in two hundred years. Or five hundred. Or a thousand.
    Think about the people who wrote on scrolls. On animal skin. On stone. They carved words and symbols into whatever surface they could find. They probably never imagined that thousands of years later humanity would look at those marks and find meaning in them. Enlightenment even. They were just writing. Just leaving something behind. Just saying — I was here. This is what I thought. This is what I lived.
    I am not saying my blog will survive a thousand years. The thought makes me laugh honestly.
    But the impulse is the same. Deeper than money. Deeper than traffic. Just — I want my children to know who their father was. What he was thinking at forty years old. What he believed. What he was building. What kept him going on a long drive through the dark.
    That is worth writing for. Even if nobody else ever reads it.
    And then I started thinking about something else.
    Right now in 2026 I am using artificial intelligence to create cartoon videos for children. I type a description into my phone and minutes later a cartoon character appears. Moving. Talking. Teaching kids about helicopters and trains and airplanes.
    It feels revolutionary. It feels like the most exciting time to be alive.
    And it probably is.
    But so did every other era to the people living in it.
    The people who first used a printing press probably felt the same way. The first person to photograph a human face. The first filmmaker. The first person to record a voice. Each one of them standing at what felt like the edge of everything new.
    And now we look back at those early tools and smile at how primitive they seem.
    Because they are.
    I think about Constantin Brâncuși sometimes. The Romanian sculptor. One of the greatest artists who ever lived. He worked with stone and wood and bronze. Simple materials. His hands. His tools. His vision.
    I am not comparing myself to Brâncuși. I want to be very clear about that. The thought genuinely makes me laugh.
    But the impulse — the desire to make something — that part I understand.
    He used the tools of his time. I am using the tools of mine.
    And one day — maybe two hundred years from now. Maybe three hundred. Maybe sooner because technology moves so fast now — someone will look at what we made in 2026 with AI on our phones and it will feel exactly like wood carving feels to us today.
    Ancient. Primitive. Charming. Human.
    So here is what I want to say to anyone reading this.
    Use these tools now. Whatever you want to make — make it. Write something. Create something. Build something. Document something. Express something true about your life and your time.
    Not because it will make you famous. Not even because it will make you money.
    But because this moment — right now — is genuinely historic. The beginning of something enormous that none of us can fully see yet.
    And the people who picked up the tools at the beginning — the ones who didn’t wait until it was perfected or proven or safe — those are the ones whose work becomes interesting later.
    Be one of those people.
    I started this blog for money. I kept writing it for something I cannot fully name. Something between legacy and expression and the simple human desire to leave a mark.
    To say — I was here. In 2026. Forty years old. Romanian. Truck driver. Father. Believer.
    Using what they will one day call ancient technology.
    — Bogdan

  • Two Months Is a Newborn Baby

    By Bogdan — RoadToForge

    There is something I have noticed about the way people approach new things.

    They start. They work hard for a few weeks. And then — when the results do not come immediately — they stop. They tell themselves it is not working. That they are not cut out for it. That maybe it was a bad idea after all.

    What they do not realise is that two months in — you are a newborn baby.

    Think about your job for a moment.

    When you started any job you have ever had — did you walk in on day one expecting to be exceptional? Did you give yourself two months and then quit because you were not yet the best person in the building?

    Of course not.

    You went there to learn. To earn. To grow slowly over time. You gave it years without even thinking about it. You showed up every day and you got better gradually without putting a deadline on it.

    But when we start something creative — a YouTube channel, a business, a new skill — suddenly we expect results in weeks. One month in and we are checking the numbers obsessively. Two months in and we are questioning everything. Three months in and if we have not seen dramatic results we are already thinking about giving up.

    Why do we do that?

    We would never quit a job after two months because we were not yet the best employee. But we quit creative projects constantly for exactly that reason.

    The gym is a perfect example.

    Two months of training and you feel better. You are sleeping better. Your energy is higher. But you look in the mirror and the dramatic change is not yet visible. Most people stop at exactly this point.

    But the people who stay — one year, two years, three years — they become unrecognisable from where they started. Not because they had special talent. Because they refused to quit before the results had time to arrive.

    The milestones.

    I think about progress in milestones. Real ones. Honest ones. Not the ones social media would have you believe in.

    The two month milestone — you are a newborn baby. You can barely lift your head. Everything is new and overwhelming. Results? None visible yet. But the foundation is being laid whether you can see it or not. Nobody looks at a two month old baby and says — why is it not walking yet? Why is it not talking? This is clearly not working. And yet we say exactly that about everything else we start.

    The six month milestone — the first real step. You are starting to sit up. Starting to recognise what works and what does not. The first signs that something is genuinely developing. This is the first big hurdle. Most people never reach it. The ones who do start to feel something shift.

    The one year milestone — first steps. Wobbly. Uncertain. But moving forward independently now. You have made enough mistakes to start avoiding the obvious ones. You can feel yourself improving even when the numbers do not yet show it.

    The two year milestone — running. Not perfectly. Still falling sometimes. But genuinely moving with confidence now. Real visible improvement. People who knew you at the start can see the difference clearly.

    The three year milestone — this is where it becomes real. This is where the gap opens permanently between you and everyone who quit at month two. You are talking in full sentences now. Communicating clearly. People can see who you are becoming.

    Every single thing I have ever learned in my life has followed this exact pattern.

    When I started boxing I barely knew how to hold my hands up for the first few months. Raw. Awkward. Getting it wrong constantly. Even at the six month milestone I was still a baby. I had just barely started to grasp the basics. A very raw understanding of how things worked. Nothing more.

    Judo was the same.

    And truck driving. I have been a truck driver for eleven years now. Eleven years. But I remember clearly what the six month milestone felt like. Driving a large truck through Central London. Tight streets. Busy junctions. Heart racing. Genuinely nervous. Still making mistakes. Still shaky in difficult situations.

    Now I drive through Central London without even thinking about it. The decisions happen automatically. The instincts are built in. What once felt impossible now feels completely natural.

    But it took eleven years to get here. And at two months I was a complete newborn.

    In trucking most companies require three years of experience before they trust you with their vehicles. Not six months. Not one year. Three years. Because they know that under three years you are still making expensive mistakes. Insurance costs more for drivers under three years for exactly this reason.

    After the three year milestone something fundamental changes. The experience is in your hands. In your instincts. In how you read situations before they become problems.

    I am building a children’s educational cartoon channel right now.

    I started a few months ago with no experience. No technical background. No team. Just a phone and a determination not to watch another opportunity pass me by.

    I am around two months in now.

    And already — even as I write this — my brain plays tricks on me some days. Maybe this is pointless. Maybe I am wasting my time. I am improving but I am not seeing the results I hoped for yet.

    And I catch myself doing what most people do at this stage — blaming outside things. The algorithm. The platform. The timing. Anything external. When the honest truth is simply that I have not been in the game long enough yet. I have not put in enough time. I am still a newborn.

    So let me be honest with you. As much as I am writing this for you — I am writing it for myself.

    We all go through this. Every single person who has ever started something new has had those days where the brain whispers that it might be pointless. That the results should have come by now.

    They should not have come by now. It has been around two months. You are still a newborn.

    My first episode was rough. Really rough. But I posted it anyway. And I kept going. The gap between episode one and episode eleven is already significant. And I am still only at the two month milestone. If the quality has improved this much in two months — just imagine what three years looks like.

    Something is starting to click.

    If you are at the two month milestone of something new — something you genuinely believe in — stay.

    Think about it honestly. You would not quit a job after two months. You would not leave the gym after six weeks because the mirror has not changed yet.

    So why are you expecting this to be different?

    Reach the six month milestone first. Then aim for one year. Then two. Then three.

    The people who reach the three year milestone are simply the ones who refused to quit at two months.

    Nobody becomes exceptional quickly. They just stay longer than everyone else.

    Two months is a newborn baby.

    Give it time.

    — Bogdan

  • From Romania to the Road — My Story Begins

    By Bogdan — RoadToForge


    I was born in 1986 in Romania, in a small tight knit community I’ll just call my home place. The kind of place where everybody knew everybody. Where neighbours helped neighbours. Where children played football in the streets until it was too dark to see the ball.
    We had no internet. No mobile phones. No technology as the world knows it today. We were poor. But looking back we were rich in ways that money cannot buy. We ran free from morning until evening. Playing outside, swimming in the river, making our own fun. A childhood that today’s children will probably never quite know.
    My home place was a mining community. Most of the men worked underground. Including my father. He spent over twenty five years in the mines — hard, physical, dangerous work — to keep his family fed and housed.
    I was the fourth of five children. Above me were three older siblings. Below me was my younger sister — just two months old when our world changed forever.
    My mother passed away when I was about one year and three months old. I don’t remember her. I never got the chance to know her. My aunt stepped in to help my father with raising my younger sister. That’s what communities did back then. Nobody was left to face tragedy alone.
    My father raised us largely on his own for years. Working underground every single day.
    He never gave up.
    When I was about nine he remarried — a woman who also had two children of her own. Our house became a full house. It wasn’t always easy. But we had each other. And we had our father.
    Leaving Home
    I was a good student when I was young. Then at fourteen I moved away from home to attend college. Away from my father. Away from everything familiar.
    I fell in with the wrong crowd. Teenagers — drinking, smoking, staying out nights. The kind of rebellious years a lot of young boys go through. Eventually I got expelled. My father stepped in and arranged for me to transfer back to a school near home. I repeated a year. I finished eventually.
    At seventeen I left Romania for the first time — heading to Hungary with friends looking for work. Six months. A new country. It didn’t work out. But I learned things I couldn’t have learned anywhere else.
    I came back home. And then at eighteen I moved to Holland. Looking for a better future.
    Holland
    Holland was a completely different world. Clean. Organised. Full of opportunity — or so it seemed.
    I was young and far from home with no real guidance. I worked many different jobs along the way. But I also went down the wrong path with the wrong crowd. Made choices I’m not proud of. That’s not who I am today. I won’t go into the details — not yet anyway. Some stories take time to tell. Maybe one day.
    What I will say is that at some point I looked at where my life was heading and I didn’t like what I saw. It wasn’t a gradual drift. It was a conscious decision. I knew that if I stayed on that path I would end up somewhere I didn’t want to be.
    So I left. I moved to England. I started from zero. Again.
    A Fresh Start
    Starting over in England with nothing is not easy. And being Romanian in England during those years brought its own challenges. I faced discrimination — people who looked down on you, who underestimated you. It was frustrating. But it made me more determined.
    I found a boxing gym. Structure. Purpose. My coach believed in me and gave me my first proper job.
    I worked hard. I took on many different jobs over the years. But even with all of that there were still periods when I drifted. That familiar emptiness that hard work alone couldn’t fill.
    Then something changed.
    A Romanian boxing coach came through the doors of the gym. He was a Christian. We became friends. And through that friendship I found faith. It filled something that nothing else had reached. It changed me not just on the outside but from within.
    That was the real turning point.
    Building Something Real
    Eventually I became a professional truck driver. I met my wife and we built a life together. We moved around, worked hard, started over more than once. Eventually we settled in Ireland where we now live with our three young children aged five, three and just ten months old.
    We bought a house. We built a family. There have been hard times — financially and in other ways I may share another time. But we are still here. Still going. Still building.
    Have I made it? In the worldly sense — not yet. I’m still a truck driver. Still working long hours. Still figuring things out day by day.
    But in the ways that matter most — yes. I have a family I am proud of. A home we own. A faith that keeps me grounded. A sense of purpose I never had when I was young and lost.
    I’m fulfilled. And I’m still on the road.
    But then again — as humans we are never truly satisfied. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Maybe it’s the journey itself that matters most.
    Come with me on the journey.
    Why RoadToForge
    The name means something real to me.
    The road — because that has always been my life. Romania to Hungary. Back home. To Holland. To England. To Ireland. Always moving. Always starting over.
    And forge — because everything worth having has to be forged. Shaped by hand. Built through effort, time and persistence. My father proved that going underground every single day for his family.
    I’m trying to do the same. In my own way. On my own road.
    This blog is about life. About ideas. About fitness and health. About innovation and technology. About lessons learned the hard way. Sometimes even politics. Whatever is on my mind — I’ll share it here honestly.
    No filter. No pretending. Just honest writing from someone still very much on the journey.
    This is RoadToForge. And this is just the beginning.
    Come back soon. There is a lot more still to tell.
    — Bogdan