This year, I started with a commitment to "become the very best version of myself and to become acquainted with the shakers and movers of this world". As the year runs to a close after tonight, and I'm forced to reflect on my accomplishments, challenges and other events that occurred in my life in the outgoing year, I see myself helplessly asking the question: Did I accomplish what I set out to accomplish?
At the start of the year, I set out to accomplish the following things:
To become a full-stack web developer
To stop watching pornography
To get fit
To get a job or at least an internship
So, let's start our evaluation of the year from the very last item on the list.
The Job Hunter
At the start of the year, I was determined to get a job or at least an internship for two reasons:
Firstly, I needed some cash to upgrade my workstation laptop from my hunk of metal at the time to something more presentable.
Secondly, and probably this is the most important reason why I aimed for this, I wanted to comply with the demands of the Student's Industrial Work Experience Scheme or SIWES to get real work experience in the area of hardware repairs.
So, How did it go? you might be asking. I was able to secure an internship as a Technology Intern at the Abuja Branch of Coscharis Technologies with a little help from my father who had previously worked for the company before his retirement early this year. In this capacity, I learned a lot about power electronics devices such as U.P.S., inverters and rechargeable solar batteries. I also got enough money to buy a new laptop. So, I can say that in this area, I accomplished my goal. Although, I still feel like I could have done more.
Success Rating: 95%
Fitness Junky
This year, I initially committed to getting fit. I took home exercises very seriously and did every other thing I could do except register for an actual gym membership. I kept going with my initial momentum until I got to March, and then it became a struggle to keep going. I ended up giving up completely on it by late August, just before my birthday and have been unable to renew my initial zeal up until this very moment.
So, why did I lose steam?
I guess, it was because of the following reasons:
I was doing my workouts alone in my house. On some days, I noticed that it became difficult to simply get up from my bed and do the work.
I failed to establish a strict routine that incorporated working out. As a result, I ended up resorting to doing it whenever my chakra was flowing properly and not doing it at all when it seemed like a boulder was blocking said chakra flow.
What would I do differently next year?
Try to incorporate more jogs into my fitness plan and try to run with someone by my side as opposed to doing it alone. The reason is that I noticed that I tend to work harder when others around me are doing the same.
Approach it with more flexibility. Training myself whenever I see the opportunity to do so.
If I can, I'll try to get a gym membership and hire the services of a personal trainer.
Overall though, I noticed some positive effects and made progress along this front as well. At least, I got a 2-pack, if that counts 😅
Success Rating: 60%
To Fap Or Not To Fap
As a kid, I got introduced to pornography by a friend at church. What started as a simple curiosity eventually evolved into a pleasurable way to kill boredom and finally, it became a nightmare. I soon realized that I began to do it compulsively and couldn't seem to get myself to just stop doing it. I hated myself all those years. Anytime I did it, I would heap curses on myself and swear to never do it again. All this to no avail.
After eight years of swimming in a pool of guilt and shame, I finally discovered something: The desire to have sex is a natural one, but shame is what drives the act of fapping. With this new realization, I decided to come clean and selectively began confessing to my loved ones. It wasn't easy at first, but they understood me and offered me help.
As the year went on, I stumbled on Nofap as a methodology and have been diligently implementing its teachings to the best of my ability. And although I've not completely stopped fapping, I've been able to gain significant control over my urges and lusts and brought them all under my control in service of the overall mission of making me a better person.
I'm particularly proud of this because this monster called pornography has done a number on me and so it gives me joy that I can say with confidence that I'm putting it in its place. Although, the war is not yet over and the enemy still looms large. Alas, Aluta Continua, Victoria Ascerta come 2023
Success Rating: 65%
My Tech Journey This Year
This year, I was immensely devoted to tech. To put it simply, it was all I did this year. I slept with my bugs, woke up to them, had breakfast and lunch with them jumping about in my head, and sometimes I could see if statements in some of the most unexpected places. I became, for all intents and purposes the very definition of a coder.
I signed up for and got accepted to join the African Leadership Accelerator (A.L.X) 12-month Software Engineering program and in the process, I also improved my knowledge and worked on (or at least, started) some pretty cool projects.
As a brief overview, here's a list of languages and frameworks I learned a little bit about this year:
HTML
CSS
Javascript
Python
C
Vagrant
Linux
SASS
Flask
Node.js
MongoDB
MySQL
Nginx
And lots more. And these are a few of the projects I started working on this year:
Success Rating: 85%
So, these are the things I was able to accomplish this year. I didn't make a lot of friends this year whom I would consider to be the Shakers and Movers of the World but I did make a lot of friends who in one way or the other, helped me greatly. Thank you guys.
It's been a wonderful year, 2023 has a lot more to do just to meet expectations. I'm confident that it won't disappoint.
Alright, thanks for getting this far. See you when I see you.