2021 was a different year. A lot happened, with moving to another country at the top of the list. The whole experience wasn’t exactly pleasant, so I’ll refrain from discussing it in the near future. Just thinking about it at times is still an uncomfortable experience.
Now that 2022 is on its way, it’s time to review some things I want to change in my personal and professional life. Throughout this process, I need to keep in mind that March will bring new changes to our household routines, but I’ll deal with those once we get there. A good place to start is what I wrote back in 2020. The first set of items I mentioned are currently like this:
- [FAIL] Train my brain to not make me feel guilty when I’m having fun
- [FAIL] There was a period where I was watching a movie per day, but it didn’t last long
- [FAIL] Reading is mostly dead
- [FAIL] No gaming. Zero.
- [FAIL] Working out is a mirage at this point.
I’m going to take my own advice on this one. At least, I’ll be able to figure how wrong or right I was with my initial assumption that I knew exactly what to do to turn my situation around:
- Work time is work time. Fun time is fun time. Just need to tell my brain that. Easier said than done
- Just set aside two slots per week to watch movies and maybe a daily slot to watch an episode of a show I’m interested in. Seems like a good compromise at this point
- I’m picking up my kid’s books and setting aside time 30 minutes every day to read. There’s a Roald Dahl collection with what might be my name on it
- There was a recent change in the household regarding gaming equipment (I’ll write about that soon), so I’ll try to make good use of the new arrangements
- Three workouts per week. No excuses. Anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes, depending on my energy levels.
As for work, it’s complicated. I’m still trying to find my bearings and figure out what I actually want to do. I might never figure it out until I retire. For now, there’s a list of things I’d like to go through:
- Spend time understanding technologies I use almost off-handedly. I want to know how specific things work under the hood, but have been avoiding it for years now under the excuse that I’m “too busy” to “waste time” on “counter-productive” activies. Black boxes are fun and all, until they stop being fun
- Learn new technologies. I’m now fully aware that my toolbox is very small (smaller than it should, at least), and I should dip my toes in different things. My interest in specific areas like infrastructure and security has increased in the recent past and I definitely want to put in the research hours. But I also want to learn new programming languages and other interesting bits.
I’ll follow up with a sort of progress report.