I got my first cube in 1997.
I remember the thing very clearly in my head. It had white skeleton and the pieces were of different colors than a regular cube. One of the sides was pink! When I got to play with an actual, official Rubik's Cube, there was no pink side to it. I played with that cube in 1997 and finally managed to solve one of the sides.
It was a big achievement for me cuz I was a just heading into teenage and no one in my friend circle had even seen a Rubik's Cube, let alone solve it completely. I finally broke that cube by rotating it too much and then I learned to put it back together again. I put back all the pieces in all the right places and then I had a completely solved cube, but of course, I knew I had not done it the way it should've been done.
I bought more cubes over the years, cheap copies that had screws in them, that got stiff and then broke apart in pieces if I rotated them too much. I bought small 2x2 cubes that were attached to keychains, and I bought a jumbo cube that was bigger than a coffee mug. I tried them all, and I couldn't solve it.
By that time, we were all on the internet, and I tried looking up solutions online, but I never had the patience to sit quietly, read everything and try out the solutions. I always had an unsolved cube in my house that I spun few times every month or so, but I never solved it. I wanted to feel that pride of solving the cube on my own without looking at any guide or online solutions. That pride held me back and I still had an unsolved cube in my possession.
The WHY of it is really funny, and now that I have had some free time in my head, I've given it some thought. The wanting to solve it was not enough. The feeling of wanting to be proud for solving it was not enough.
The excuses that I gave myself were not the results that I wanted to see. So I finally opened the guide that I had downloaded years ago, and gave it a read through. I applied the moves given in the guide and voila, solved cube.
Now all that remains is to learn those moves so that I can finally solve the cube without looking at any kind of guide. There are three things that I learned from all this.
1) You have to give up the pride.
2) You have to take help from where you can.
3) Your actions have multiple consequences.
Right now, I have a solved cube and there is still a slight feeling of unrest in my head. Because as they say, it's never about the destination, but it's about the journey and there are many more journeys ahead...
and here is a Rubik's Cube Solution Guide if you're looking for one
PDF link, right click and choose save as.