Year in Review - 2023

When the year started, I came across a tweet, which goes something like

Even though it was intended sarcastically, a quiet yearning for a better life pulsed within me. I realized, I kept getting sad, because I was worrying about all of my issues at once and just couldn't figure my way out. Everyone has their own problems to deal with. My circumstances weren't the culprit, rather it was my inaction. If I want something to change badly enough, then I only have to be the one architecting it.

You know that feeling when you ditch the finish line and just enjoy the walk? That's what this year was for me. I stopped caring about results and started addressing my problems one by one, knowing my future self would thank me. The progress however minimal it was, kept me motivated to keep trying and confidence I gained on overcoming one problem kinda spilled over to motivate me when facing a different problem.

Highlights :
- My bike became one of the best things that I invested on for myself. Had I not had it as an option, I wouldn't have been in a position to take certain choices, which actually ended up uplifting my mood, big time.
- Ended up doing different things for networking with people from different walks of life like CBE Bikers, CBE Reads, CBE Toastmasters. But, I kinda wish I knew about this much earlier, so that I could have learned more stuff from people. But shifting to Chennai, I'm excited to find out more such opportunities.
- Investing in hobbies. I always had the mentality to save and invest as much as possible and have sufficient bank balance to keep me afloat. But this year, I've learnt investing in our mental health - be it in movies or trips or hobbies or anything that makes you happy - has much more ROI than any other investment choices you could make, because when you're happy, you are much more productive and that takes care of everything else.

Vanenburg:
Reflecting on my time at Vanenburg, I feel lucky to have ended up at a company, which really valued people more than just as an employee at the company. Although, I was very well aware that I could have got a better package, I thought I shouldn't prioritize making more money at this stage and thankfully, the reputation I built came in handy, when I needed it the most and I was able to leverage it for my own personal transformation as an individual.

I was mostly associated with Flowcreate project through my time and I could see lot of parallels with kind of transformation that the product went through and the personal transformation that I went through and people at the forefront, were in ways key factors in both. They really honed my decision making skills and prevented me from taking lot of impulse decisions which I could have ended up regretting. And being responsible for CloudOps tasks, I'll literally be the first person to get my hands-on whatever comes out of the product. So in ways, I've always been treated like a superstar in the team.

This journey has been rich in learnings, both technical and personal. Yet, all things evolve, and sometimes, we just tend to outgrow people, places, relationships and that's OK. I'll still be looking forward to how the team is taking the product forward. I still feel anxious about moving forward on my own but I'm leaving the place as the most confident and happiest version of myself as I'm looking forward to more challenges and learnings this year as well. 😀