The Year I stopped calling myself Non-Technical

👤 Authored by Lashmi Bai Ravindrapandian
📅 Published on Mar 16, 2025

Sometimes the biggest barrier is not technology.

It is the belief that:

“This is not for me.”

For years, labels like non-technical, non-coding, and non-IT quietly became limitations I had placed on myself.

I admired people who could code.

They looked like magicians.

I stayed safely on the other side.

And honestly, I had accepted that maybe some things simply weren’t meant for people like me.

The Labels We Give Ourselves

During my career, I often came up with ideas, suggested alternative approaches, and occasionally asked questions that helped teams think differently.

I wasn’t writing the code.

I wasn’t building the applications.

But I understood the problems.

And sometimes, understanding the problem is where innovation begins.

Yet, I often found myself in the back seat because of labels like:

• Non-Technical
• Non-Coding
• Non-IT

That always made me wonder.

If an idea never existed, would the solution have existed either?

We celebrate implementation.

But sometimes we forget the idea that made the implementation possible.

I used to think about it like this:

The person who plants the seed should also enjoy the harvest, alongside the gardener who nurtures it and the owner who oversees it.

My Relationship with Technology

I am a civil engineer by chance, not by choice.

No regrets though.

That journey gave me a strong foundation in project and delivery management.

Technology was always around me.

I worked with it.

I benefited from it.

But I never really considered myself part of the “technical crowd.”

Back in the day, before AI became part of everyday conversations, VBA macros were the kings of automation.

A Small Task That Changed Something

The company I worked for encouraged us to experiment with AI and built an internal chat application.

At one point, I had a simple task.

Create more than 300 folders as part of a project closure activity.

Doing that manually sounded painful.

Almost as a random thought, I asked the AI tool:

“How can I create 300 folders in one go?”

The answer came back immediately.

VBA code.

Again… VBA.

I smiled.

And then immediately doubted myself.

Should I really try this?

Would it even work?

I knew only three things about VBA:

• It starts with Sub
• It ends with End Sub
• Files need to be saved as macro-enabled workbooks

Everything in between looked like a foreign language.

But this time I decided to try.

I copied the code.

Updated the file.

Clicked Run.

And then…

My Teary Moment!

Within a few seconds, more than 300 folders appeared on my desktop.

Instantly.

I just stared at the screen.

Then something unexpected happened.

I became emotional.

Because it wasn’t about the folders.

It wasn’t even about VBA.

It was the realization that maybe I had spent years putting unnecessary limitations on myself.

For the first time, technology didn’t feel like a wall. It felt like a bridge.

The Time We Quietly Lose

That small moment also made me think about all the time many of us lose because we don’t consider ourselves “technical.”

Time spent:

• figuring out mysterious errors
• searching for why something stopped working
• debugging simple mistakes
• trying to understand technical jargon
• struggling with formulas
• wondering why access was never granted in the first place
• manually doing repetitive tasks because automation felt intimidating

I suddenly realized how much friction technology creates simply because we are afraid to experiment with it.

Why AI Feels Different

I am under no illusion.

I am not competing with professional developers anytime soon.

That would be like bringing a spoon to a sword fight.

But AI changes something important.

It lowers the entry barrier.

It makes technology feel approachable.

Today, what people call Vibe Coding is opening possibilities for people who may never have written code before.

And honestly, I think this is only the beginning.

What This Experience Taught Me

This small experience taught me a few things.

Curiosity matters more than labels

Sometimes asking one simple question changes everything.

You do not need to master every technical skill

You only need enough knowledge to solve the problem in front of you.

Small wins build confidence

One tiny success can completely change how you see yourself.

Understanding the problem is valuable

Ideas matter.

Creativity matters.

Problem-solving matters.

Even if you are not the person writing every line of code.

Technology should feel like a bridge

Not a wall.

AI made technology feel more accessible than it ever did before.

Final Thoughts

For years, I called myself non-technical.

Today, I am not so sure that label fits anymore.

I still cannot build complex applications.

I still rely on people with deep technical expertise.

But I no longer believe that technology is “not for me.”

Because sometimes all it takes is one small moment.

One experiment.

One tiny win.

One screen filled with 300 folders.

To make you realize:

Maybe you can do more than you ever gave yourself credit for.

What was your own “Wait… I can actually do this?” moment?

I’d genuinely love to hear it.