Well, this year went by in a flash. When I think about where the time went, I think about regret — time I spent doing things that didn't matter but seemed urgent then. I think about all the things I said I would do but didn't end up doing it. Goals that ended up taking the backseat while I let myself be pulled away in directions of whatever caught my attention at that moment.
It's easy to do, regretting the past. At least for me. I have to force myself to think about the good things. Sometimes I have to think really hard. But there are some good things. There are always good things to be happy and grateful about. Some progress towards a goal, while it might not be enough, is progress nonetheless.
So here are the good things, non-exhaustive and in no particular order. This list is mostly to remind myself of the good things and be grateful for them.
I've a lovely family and good friends. I've a great job where I get to build open-source software with my amazing, talented colleagues.
Though there was a period of time when I was sad and depressed, I'm starting to feel like myself again.
I rediscovered my love of books. Once I stopped reading self-help books, I started to love reading again. I read mostly fiction this year. Mostly from authors I didn't know before. They were all lovely books. I especially loved Days at the Morisaki Bookshop and its sequel. I also read a ton of manga. Jujutsu Kaisen, if you're curious.
I managed to revive one of my side projects, Aurelius. I had fun working on it and I've been using it everyday. While building it, I got deep into local-first software. It gave me lots of ideas for future projects.
There were two more projects that I wanted to revive but I decided to do less and only do one more.
I wanted to learn two new programming languages — Elixir and Golang. I ended up dropping Elixir but I learned Go! Over the course of a few weeks, I read Let's Go and Let's Go Further. Great books. Following my own advice, I'm currently building a side project, Herald, with Go. I'll talk more about Herald in a later post. I'm slow at building right now but I'll get more productive, I'm sure.
And though the year is at its end, there's still time to catch up.
September 23rd. The beginning of the final 100 days of 2024. I realize this post comes a little late, so technically we're in the final 93 days as of this writing. But I'll say 100 days because I already started catching up. So here's what I want to do, to end 2024 on a high.
I want to launch Herald by the end of the year.
I've started to get into some of the more technical topics that I had on my list of things to learn — AI/LLMs, system design, devops, etc.
I also want to build a few tools for myself. These'll be small weekend projects that'll give me the chance to get better at Golang.
I want to do Advent of Code 2024 in Golang but I realized from past experience that it's a bit of a time sink so I might not end up doing that. There's still time to decide.
I might not end up doing all of it in the next 3 months but some progress is better than no progress. There's a couple more things that I won't talk about yet. I'd rather do it and then recap at the start of 2025.
Anyway, that's my rant for the day. My point is, there's still time to start working towards your goal(s). Try and push yourself in the final 100 days of this year. Maximum effort!