2023 → 2024

Note: This post is translated by AI. If you find any unnatural phrasing or errors, please feel free to contact me via email or other channels. Your feedback is appreciated!

The annual review is mainly written for myself, but I also hope that my experiences and thoughts can attract like-minded people, or even help some people.

Before sharing my 2023 & 2024, I want to share my thoughts on annual reviews.

Seeing other people's annual reviews and goals for next year often makes me anxious. Looking at others who seem to have done a lot of things in a year, while I haven't done many of the things they have completed.

However, I currently figured out these three points:

1. That is someone else's goal.
2. If it is something you want to do, then do it. Don't blame yourself because someone else did it first, or feel that you don't want to do it anymore. If you are influenced by others, perhaps it is also a time to examine your motivation for doing these things.
3. This year was definitely not wasted, just forgotten due to lack of organization. Slowly taking stock will definitely reveal an unexpectedly large number of things done, just whether progress was made on the things I care about most. If not, just adjust today.

I really like what Cheng-Wei Hu said in 2022 Record: “If what you are doing is essentially an expression of your self-extension, then no one can compete with you on this point. And I firmly believe that most of the time we should not focus on competition, being unique is more valuable than being better”.

And my own expectation for the annual review is "Down-to-earth, not vanity":

1. Vanity: Others can only envy after writing it out
2. Down-to-earth: Others can learn from and exchange ideas after writing it out

I often see some articles that only talk about what they have accomplished, but don't mention the process much or make lofty statements. Reading them actually doesn't yield much gain, only increasing anxiety. Of course, the priority reader of the article is still the author himself, so how to write depends on the individual. So I can only say that I don't like such articles, and I don't want my articles to be written like that.

And this standard of vanity and down-to-earth is still in everyone's mind, because everyone can have their own interpretation. So in the end, maintain an open mind, continue to be aware and improve, and just have a clear conscience.

As for why review, this year is also hoping to leave a trace. Writing it down is taking a snapshot of myself at this time. I believe the future me will definitely thank the current me for writing it down, just like I am very grateful that the past me has done reviews.

Reviewing 2022's expectation for 2023: Hope to live with more margin (Yuyu).

Overall it is on track. Gained some margin in interpersonal relationships and finance, but faced many choices and setbacks in career development.

Compared to 2022, I let go of more things last year, or recognized that I could actually do fewer things, and could only do one thing at a time. This means if I am reading for this half hour, I can only read, I can't write Code at the same time. I need to concentrate my attention and resources more. It seems intuitive, but I appear greedy until I faced reality this year.

The consequence of lack of concentration is doing A while thinking about B. Wanting to do everything but worrying about other things while doing everything. I also waste a lot of time and get very tired because of frequent switching between things. This is exactly my long-term portrayal.

Some goals are not to be abandoned, but the time has not come. I must calm down and prepare now, so that my ability and resources can be in place, so that I can have the margin to do those things.

Interpersonal relationships have always brought me a lot of pressure. Although I am extroverted, I try too hard to feel and presuppose the other party's position, and often put myself behind others, ignoring my own feelings for a long time. My heart has no margin due to too many worries. But after starting counseling this year, there is great progress, which will be mentioned below!

My Insights This Year

1. I am not Sisyphus, I can push the stone away and walk towards the top of the mountain

Sisyphus is a mythological fable, often used by people to compare themselves, thinking that their day-to-day work and life are like Sisyphus pushing a stone repeatedly every day.

I used to be like this too, but I found that I am not Sisyphus after all, and my stone is not a fate that must be borne, but just my choice. I can push the stone away at any time, making the vision in front of me open, and walking towards the top of the mountain with a more relaxed but down-to-earth attitude.

The reason I realized this is because I was in extreme pain last year. If I didn't push the stone away, I would wait to be crushed to death by the stone.

And pushing the stone away, I can still walk to the top of the mountain. Resignedly admitting that I cannot continue to bear this weight does not mean that I have become a failure.

Is my goal to push the stone to the top of the mountain, or simply to walk to the top of the mountain? Realizing the nature of this burden and what I really want to do, only then can I move forward again.

Although I pushed the stone away, I also realized the process of repeatedly picking it back up. Now I hope to continue practicing awareness and actively let go of the burden I should not bear. And if one day, I find that I want to bear this burden, and the scenery I want to see cannot be seen without carrying the stone up, I will push the stone with a more open-minded attitude.

2. Planning a calendar is harmful to me

(The calendar I am talking about here is a very extreme way of planning. In the past few years, I planned and reviewed to record every period of every day.)

During counseling, I realized that when I listed things on the calendar, I felt despair —— Things can simply not be learned, simply not be finished.

This calendar represents an anxiety list. The calendar plans "results", but what I need is to "enjoy the process". In addition, it also represents a distrust of myself. I don't trust that I will do those things spontaneously without a calendar.

Continuing Sisyphus's stone, the calendar is like making this stone bigger and bigger.

In the process of counseling, I found that what I need now is simply to do. I need to trust that my heart knows what I want to learn and do "at this moment".

Planning too carefully beforehand will make myself painful, losing the fun of purely learning and executing, and life becomes very mechanical.

So now I choose to only put some schedules into the calendar, but for what to learn and what to do, I will only simply arrange the order, like a top-down Queue (data structure term, hereafter referred to as list). When I have time, I execute the list in order. As mentioned in the review at the beginning, I can only do one thing at a time, don't think about multitasking.

And not planning a calendar does not mean not planning, which will be mentioned again in the map below.

Finally, I also realized that "Energy Management" is more important than "Time Management". When doing one thing, I must first have good energy, and then think about how to use time efficiently. After all, when energy is bad, even if there is double time, it may not be possible to do it. If interested, you can watch this How to maintain high energy?

3. No longer account to others, no longer responsible for others' expectations

I often feel stressed if I can't account to others properly or might disappoint others.

The anxiety of needing to account might come from:

3-1. Social Media

Posting my life on it actually feels like accounting to others. For example, because there are many things that should be done, but I still posted updates about playing while not doing them. It makes me guess if they will criticize me: "Didn't come to the event / Didn't finish things, how dare you play?", or recently preparing for an interview, I would be afraid that others think "Aren't you preparing for an interview? How dare you play?"

The time when I need social media is often halfway through reading. Perhaps I really feel lonely at these moments.

But I now realize Social media cannot help me solve this loneliness. Social media will only stack a layer of anxiety on top of this loneliness.

3-2. Participated in too many "Self-growth" groups

I joined many groups last year that could "grow myself", including miscellaneous knowledge clubs, groups for regular foreign language practice, and projects cooperated after work. I easily filled up from Monday to Sunday.

But the current me actually doesn't have the spare energy. Filling myself up will make me ignore myself, and easily deviate from my own track. Doing a bunch of things, but always feeling not addressing the root cause, bluntly speaking, it is busy for nothing.

Therefore, I realized that I just don't have the spare energy to participate in these things, so I should withdraw. Handle my own affairs first, and participate in some random things when I really have margin and extra time. This ensures that besides doing things important to myself first, I can also enjoy it better without bringing too much pressure to myself and team members.

3-3. Solution: Leaving is not escaping, but valuing myself more

Previously I felt that anything that could make me better should be gathered, but that "good" might be very "vague", or it might be "others'". Think about "is this good" and "do I want it" first. A better way is to have a map about myself first, so that everything I do can find a destination on that map, otherwise it is easy to get lost on the ocean.

I think I would do this originally based on a FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) mentality.

I withdrew from almost all groups I participated in, such as entrepreneurship plans, Japanese self-study groups, community volunteers. I need to empty my time first, focus on drawing my own map, clarifying the channel I want to sail. This takes time, and I need to let myself accept this seemingly unproductive exploration period, don't rush to plant myself into other things.

On social media, I also started to silence and unfollow a large number of information or accounts I don't need to receive (even friends). I found that some people's updates are what I want to pay attention to and care about, but some people share a lot of travel or achievements that only increase my anxiety.

Originally I hesitated to silence them, feeling whether I was not strong enough or incapable of blessing my friends to live well, but I don't think so now.

I didn't need to care too much about others in the first place. The friends who truly exchange hearts and are worth paying attention to are actually only a very small group. The tracking numbers over a hundred on social media are all vain. People don't have the energy to take care of so many people. Compared to paying attention to their updates and lives, I choose to take care of my heart more.

At the same time, I slowly learned to express my thoughts, knowing that I have the right to refuse many information or invitations. If I don't want to do something or attend a gathering, I just don't want to. I don't need to explain one by one, not responsible for others' expectations, no longer pleasing others. My independent will inevitably conflict with others, don't be afraid of this conflict. And if friends cannot understand just because I refused a few times or have different ideas, then that is also a very good opportunity to filter out people who truly care about me.

Regarding social media and comparison anxiety, I also heard a saying:

Many people are anxious to let you hear them, selling anxiety to you, hoping you follow their ideas. But no need! Don't be led by others' ideas.

4. Truly hardworking people will not be treated badly, but fake diligence will not be sympathized with

Simply sprinting all the time, but not following the map, or even without a map of my own, getting lost is just expected.

If fill up my calendar, making myself busy with trivial matters and things unimportant to myself, then it is just fake diligence, also the "busy for nothing" mentioned above when participating in too many groups. The previous me was deeply trapped in it.

Fake diligence for a long time will only find myself living harder and harder, gaining nothing, instead feeling further and further away from the goal.

And true effort should be with awareness, checking the direction all the time, whether it is introspection or asking others. Just sprinting is fake diligence.

5. From diode to spectrum

Actually it means getting rid of dualism.

A diode only has two poles, just like the world only has right and wrong, black and white. But if only the world were that simple. Things in the world are actually spectrums, as Gooaye said in Gray Thinking, "There are infinite possible shades in the grayscale of black and white".

Just like "self", I used to be afraid that "expressing my own thoughts" would become self-centered, but having my own thoughts does not mean denying others' thoughts. I can have my own set of views on things while being Open-minded.

And someone being better than me does not equal me not being excellent. People who are excellent having different views from mine does not equal my views being wrong.

Best Decisions This Year

1. Counseling

Many things, although I can think clearly, are not down-to-earth. I am afraid that I did not think clearly, or even if I understood, I couldn't do it.

To put it bluntly, I have no confidence in my thoughts. I often fear whether thinking like this is being a "strawberry generation" (easily bruised), or thinking like this is not good, thinking like this means I am not a talent, blah blah about growth mindset vs fixed mindset.

Self-reflection seems simple at first glance, but it is actually extremely difficult and cannot be rushed, because people are very good at deceiving themselves, or find it difficult to accept their true thoughts at the moment due to various factors.

If discussing with friends or people around, some people will carry "the good they think in their hearts" in their words. For those who still have strong values, I am easily swayed by that implied value judgment.

But during counseling, I can confirm my thoughts with the counselor with peace of mind. He doesn't know anyone around me, nor does he give me too many value judgments. He just continues to ask questions, guiding me to say "the answer in my heart". So I gradually found that for the same question, my answer started to be different. I found that I didn't have to care how the counselor saw it, but seriously thinking about what my answer was.

I think this is where their professionalism is admirable, and I also feel very lucky to find a compatible counselor quickly.

These problems that have plagued me most seriously have been slowly clarified:

1. Comparison mentality (I have been setting up imaginary enemies around me, causing a bit of a barrier with many good friends, getting along painfully, but slowly discovering the problem may not be comparison)
2. Family of origin (I found that I was raised in a way close to abandonment since childhood. It's not that I didn't learn anything from my parents, I learned anger and hate)
3. Thinking too much, doing too little, unable to calm down
4. Excessive self-criticism
5. Love to escape, dare not solve problems positively, not good at rejecting (I don't need to be responsible for others' failed expectations)
6. ...

2. Draw my own map

Mentioned above Planning a calendar is harmful to me, but that is just removing the paranoia about time management. Still need to know roughly which direction I want to go.

After letting go of the calendar and original extreme arrangements, letting myself explore freely for two or three months, finding that I still had certain tendencies when having no plans, I started drawing the map again.

I hope that everything I do can be connected to some points on the map. Now I am also thinking about what to do roughly every month and every day through the map, but I won't specially fill up the time slots.

The content of the map will roughly be several fields I follow: "Programming", "Writing", "Japanese", "Exercise", "Wealth", and set the imagined appearance of each stage (30 years old, 35 years old), using this as a premise to think about how to stack my ability and status step by step, but I won't list it too finely. I only list the things to be done this year or these few months in more detail, and further away will be more abstract, such as "Become Tech Lead", "JLPT N2, Life conversation OK", "Write X articles", "Annual asset target growth ? %", etc. And many goals can complement each other.

Detailed planning, I will write another article later!

3. Use X(Twitter) more than Instagram

Reasons for not liking Instagram

1. Many people are friends in the real world. Many mutual follows come from real social pressure. I often feel pressured to share my thoughts there.
2. Instagram gives me a feeling of pink bubbles and whitewashing peace.
3. Cannot interact with many people at the same time. Instagram stories are one-on-one replies. I often post a story and have to repeat very similar conversations with many people, or post another story reply which disturbs people.
4. I don't like image-based design, I still like text.

Reasons for liking X (Twitter) (Basically the reverse of Instagram):

1. People here are purely attracted by my tweets, it's great to be able to communicate with all kinds of people purely using text.
2. Can post the good and bad of my life more naturally. Negative tweets when in a bad mood are often responded to gently, very touching.
3. Everyone can see the replies, and can also reply to each other. The exchange atmosphere is good (except for some weirdos occasionally).
4. Occupation, interests, and tendencies are more like my echo chamber. I feel I don't need to leave the echo chamber every day on social media, just realize to get in touch occasionally.

As for the reason not using FB, there is too much noise there. Friends, fan pages, groups, everything. Now treat it as a functional thing, don't want to do anything on it.

And Threads I am still watching. But what is recommended to me now are mostly storytelling or political posts. I observed there are quite a few language learning posts, maybe can develop in that direction.

Things Completed in 2023

Although mentioned down-to-earth and vanity at the beginning, I still want to share what I did this year, but modified the original title "Achievements, Milestones" to be more neutral "Things Completed".

1. Made two friends in Kyoto with broken Japanese
2. Encountered a blizzard on my first time skiing, phone was buried in snow for a day, found it back the next day
3. Pilgrimage
   1. Hokkaido (Golden Kamuy)
   2. Shimokitazawa (Bocchi the Rock!)
   3. Odaiba (Digimon Adventure)
   4. Karatsu (Zombieland Saga)
   5. Hita (Dam reference for Attack on Titan Wall)
4. Crossed from frontend to Full Stack Development, expect myself to become a more comprehensive software engineer
   • However started to be confused whether to hire frontend or backend if there is no full stack vacancy
5. Spent big money participating in TRE (adult expo) (Review article was copied randomly by media)
6. Took 42 Japanese lessons on italki platform (Missed N2 by 6 points)
7. Properly helping myself —— "Counseling" and "Alopecia Areata" (Spent a lot of money as well)
8. Deeply cultivated fitness habits
   • Physique obviously improved, no more back pain, no longer dislike my body when looking in the mirror while showering every day
9. Participated in a half marathon for the first time, successfully finished!
   • Finally can experience the marathon mentality, from wanting to finish quickly, to steadily moving forward step by step, no longer just thinking about the finish line

Expectations for 2024

Starting this year, I believe in "Making yourself strong is the only way to solve problems."

I always thought I was a bit allergic to this kind of law of the jungle remarks, but I think I haven't entered the stage where I can break away from the law of the jungle, or the environment I am in is not so gentle to tolerate the weak. Still need to prove my ability, compete with others, and thus continue to maintain or improve the quality of life, and have more margin to deal with various accidents that will happen in the future.

Overall still aiming to "Let every aspect of life possess more margin".

Work (Software Development)

Maintain competitiveness and options at any time

Company closed down early last year and transferred to a partner company, and the new company had layoffs in the middle of the year, and finally some unpleasant things happened at the end of the year.

Believe many friends in the tech industry or software engineers have experienced similar things, or at least watched these things happen on the front line.

Therefore, I hope to decouple from external changes as much as possible, have stronger market competitiveness, have confidence in the workplace, not afraid of not finding a new job, break away from job hunting anxiety.

Let myself not fall into the state of "no choice" or "stuck in the middle". This state is really painful.

Specific means to accumulate stronger competitiveness, I think the first is to understand the market better, maintain the habit of regular interviews and save more emergency funds. Daily routine is to make up for the "rigid demand" technical hard skills.

Not blindly following trends

For new technologies, pay attention, understand, but don't chase

Started to unfollow many technical KOLs at the end of last year, because I found they kept posting what new technologies, new tools. This is their nature as technical media, but I easily follow blindly due to FOMO.

The result of blindly following is that I might have learned and seen many trendy technologies, but can't find many job opportunities, because I only chased trends but didn't build a good foundation, and didn't pay attention to what kind of technical talents the market needs. Some trends are unverified by the market. And I am not a particularly smart person. Learning every technology takes a lot of time for me, so I always feel ineffective in my career.

Many people are anxious to tell their imagination of the future, telling you how good and great new tools are, solving what problems.

But the fact is The value of adopting new technologies in business may be extremely low, and the cost of migrating technologies is often far greater than the benefits brought by new tools.

Secondly, many new tools solved old problems, but also brought new problems. New problems are harder to solve than old problems because you can't find much information, and must spend a lot of time researching yourself. Old problems at least have many Workarounds already thought out.

Of course I am not denying technology innovation, just that I will look at new technologies more cautiously and calmly, no longer feeling that I should learn whatever new things come out, or whatever problem old technology has means it sucks.

Before chasing new technologies, first understand the technologies that lean towards rigid demand in the market, prioritize mastering those technologies, and chase trends if there is spare energy.

I slowly think technology is not the key, the problems technology can solve and the commercial value it brings are. Considerations for technology iteration and migration need to be done on top of this, cannot just consider technical indicators like execution efficiency, memory usage, developer experience, etc.

Of course, before ability reaches a certain level, it is hard to know "what is rigid demand, what is trend". Current idea is to see if any companies are using it, and what old problems this new tool solved, is this old problem painful enough, what kind of companies will feel the pain (like team scale, division of labor granularity, industry will be different), does the direction I want to develop really need to make up this technology?

Regarding this topic, highly recommend this Why You SHOULDN'T Learn Rust.

Finally record current thoughts:

I like writing code, but I write code to make money, so I can't learn technology very purely. Only when this technology is useful (able to find a job, commercial value is high enough), will I learn it.

And exercising the vision to select technology and allocating time and energy spent on learning programming more cautiously is also a major goal of mine in 2024.

Finance: Redeem more freedom than in 2023

Used to think talking about money was tacky, but now realize this is the most important thing. Money may not buy happiness, and the process of making money may be painful, but money is needed to deal with many accidents. Being able to deal with accidents also means having more margin.

And in a capitalist society working to make money is redeeming one's freedom from society, I understand financial freedom as the status of "redemption completed".

2023 still didn't control the budget very well. Although saved more money and started DCA (Dollar Cost Averaging), staying abroad too long, experiencing company closure, and various changes caused the financial situation to be poor.

This year has formulated a more specific budget, investment method, and working hard to increase the principal. Hope it goes well!

Interpersonal Relationships: Put myself first

Thank you to the people I met and stayed by my side this year, but I really let too many people live in.

I am a person who minds even cutting long hair, thinking many people say they like my long hair, there will be a feeling of betrayal if cut, but they might just say it casually.

In 2024, I will continue to practice focusing on myself while counseling, investing time and energy in people who love me, care about me, and are comfortable to get along with.

Slowly don't want to attend many gatherings. I only want to attend gatherings where we can really exchange, not just to make up the numbers or join in the fun.

For many former good friends, the reason we could get along so well was partly because I often ignored my own feelings. Maybe just similar living environment, or values fit well before, but many people are slowly not in my comfort zone. Being with them becomes leaving the comfort zone. I decided not to force myself anymore.

The comfort zone I want to step out of is in ability, not in interpersonal relationships. Forcing myself to get along with people I don't like is not stepping out of the comfort zone, that is just masochism.

In addition, seeing some friends around not doing very well, need to often remind myself to turn down empathy a bit. Can empathize, but don't substitute. Rather than acting emo together, taking good care of myself, reaching out when they need it is better than acting emo together.

Written at the end: Why should exert own influence

Saw a tweet on Twitter saying "Exerting one's influence is attempting to build the compound interest of one's ideal world. The biggest punishment for people who only care about themselves is getting more and more terrible people (in their own values)."

Yes, if I can't stand some things but don't stand up to speak, it is allowing the world to be shaped by them, making me further and further away from the world appearance I like.

If there are expectations for the world, then need to come out and clash with various ideas and values, adding my voice to this diverse world.

Hope in 2024, while living with more margin, I can also be more active in outputting (currently thinking of writing) and accumulating my influence.

Concluding with the favorite sentence of 2023: You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

Thank you to everyone who saw this. Everyone stay well in 2024.

If there are any thoughts to exchange with me, welcome to leave a message or contact me through the social links at the bottom!