This comes in the last second! I wrote this while realizing 2 things. I saw an author of mine reminiscing his 2024. And I realize, it’s Dec 31, 2024! It’s been wonderful, with a lot of lessons. It was beautiful, enthusiastic to bad, and sorrowful for me from the beginning to the end of 2024!
It feels like a new life lesson to be a patient, wise, and accountable person in the family. I have so many things I achieved, while a lot that I felt like being held back.
Main Uncontrollable Events
1. Father’s Sickness
Somewhere in July, he got spinal tuberculosis. Yeah, I thought TBC only happens in the lungs! It can affect so many parts of our body. It got worse after that. Not only he’s incapable of rational thoughts, it hurts him mentally.
He started hallucinating, seeing things that were not there. And a lot of complications. FYI, before this event he already had problems with his kidneys as well, and somehow because of that, which already hurts his thoughts as well, is that he has insomnia.
Oh yeah, he can’t walk. So he’s in a sleeping position most of the time. That already sounds like a no-no for me who knows how important it is for our body to consistently move!
This happens consistently, there are no months where he doesn’t go to hospital! Aside from the fact that he must go to the hospital 3 times every week for hemodialysis.
It was somewhere in 2018 that he got his kidney problem. And I never would’ve thought that we’d been surviving and helping him for 6 years.
The fact is, it’s breaking me down, the fact that you see your own father as his thoughts break down. Even as I write this, he just got in to ICU and we’re waiting for him to recover.
2. Grandfather’s Passing
Somewhere in November.. this was so sudden, that I didn’t even have time too much to react, all I heard was my father asking me to come to my hometown and replace him because he was sick (he literally couldn’t sit or stand). That day, on the spot after the call, I just asked for a leave and went back to my hometown.
I arrived in the afternoon, just 2 minutes after his passing.
It’s my first time dealing with someone’s passing. I’m glad it went well. I was able to see my other relatives that I never knew I had and the ones I hadn’t seen for a long while. The funeral lasted 3 days.
3. My Own Sickness
While the first half year is doing great, the latter went bad. While being sick is nothing to me, it’s proven to be a true blocker! Can’t believe I got sick. I mean I know why, but the fact that I just had to be sick:
- Recurring fever/cough
- Falling from motorcycle → Unable to use the right side of my body because of TFCC
- Cubital Tunnel Syndrome While haven’t proven yet till last 2024, I think it is. And it’s annoying, it could be fatal, but mine wasn’t that bad. It’s annoying, but I’m working on it.
- Overwork / Stress / Somehow I think I passed a few weeks or days being mindless
While this is burdensome, I am thankful to The Creator, The Planner, and God himself for allowing me to achieve things I’ve been wanting to do. While a lot of things have been delayed, I have a keen mind for doing a lot of things.
Things I Achieved in 2024
While putting all the troubles aside, I have achieved some of the things I wanted when I wanted it and it proved to be an incredible knowledge even to myself.
1. Get to Know About Myself
Everyone has their strength and weakness. What if you can thrive to succeed by leveraging all the strengths you have instead of using your weaknesses? What if you have an unfair advantage over someone just based on your traits?
It’s a real shame, not knowing what things you do knowing God has given you a talent that you never use, never knew about, or never developed well.
I’ve been thinking about sharing my journey through assessments, early on, however, as I said, I got caught on my father’s sickness.
However, this year, I’ve done around 6 assessments. And that has shown me some insight that I never knew I had. I know these tools; I’ve tried this tool before, but maybe at the time, I wasn’t able to decipher them myself. Some of them include the DISC Personality Test and the Holland Code. You should check them out!
2. Knows More About Building Second Brain
At a time, I read a lot sometimes I don’t however, when I do. I got enthusiastic about it, and when I say enthusiastic, I’m quite crazy about it! And at the time it was self-development. I really want to know about myself and know about others, and in fact, once you know about elements in you, and understand the other elements through reverse engineering the knowledge you have plenty of knowledge!
Ever thought of storing your knowledge somewhere? Ever write something and totally forget where it is? I still do even though I understand the concept, but that’s because I’m inconsistent about the app I use! It’s confusing you know to find the right app for the job! I switched from Notion, Obsidian, then back to Notion, and tried out Memos, but eh, it’s easier to just use Notion.
I’ve learned about the concept of having a second brain.
What is it? Well, it’s a trendy word for storing your notes, inspirations, quotes, everything! So good, you can use it again and again. Maybe find something related to the word “inspire”, you can find it if there are notes related to it. I know it’s simple, easier said than done though once you explore a lot of knowledge.
I’ll introduce you to some of the new terms if you want to know about them!
- Johny Decimal
- PARA
- Zettelkasten
- CODE for Capture, Organize, Distill, Express
3. Touched WordPress!
Finally, I started my lesson about this over the weekend, I have been curious like crazy about this, and although haven’t finished it, I plan to use this knowledge to rebuild this website because I can’t seem to find the themes I liked well!
I want something low code, haven’t got to the block-theme part yet!
4. Started My Own Project: Building a Chrome Extension!
Yep, thought it was simple and easy. I mean it is if you made simple apps, but I’m building a project in Vue! I’m going to write about this as well in my blog, hopefully teaching others how to start a project itself!
5. Learned about LLM Engineering!
Learning about LLM was in my roadmap somewhere, however wasn’t planning for it this year, but well in the end, it’s an accidental check in the roadmap! I was planning for it at some other time, but somehow my company requires me to learn this thing quickly. I’m having fun with it a lot and this put me through a lot of ideas of what is possible and what’s not!
In fact, I started writing about LLM Tokens Simplified: Strengthen Your Knowledge in LLM Now! because the token’s nature is the key to understanding LLM! There are other factors, but this is one of the key! I’ll continue writing about these as well hopefully as it’s not complete if we only talk about token!
Things Delayed or Canceled
Well, to be precise, I have quite diverse interests, and am often inconsistent about things. Here are some checklists that I missed.
- Start writing consistently!
- I want to start my own project! Well, I do, but starting the project wasn’t the goal; it was to understand business operations and extend my knowledge of business and technology so I could move agilely, and create better impact in an organization!
- Learn WordPress! Half-done! Happy, but I think it should be here because I forgot some of it! I’m planning to re-learn some basics again and write them for my documentation.
Reflections: Things I Should’ve Done
All that aside, I think I need to end this mindless exploration just to satisfy my curiosity. Indeed, my brain has limitations in remembering all of these. I do keep references bit by bit. Maybe learning about things has encouraged me to be more confident.. and I like it. But being confident while having to review your knowledge again first is also hard!
With that, I wish I had done more writing! Like really really more! Quicker!
1. I wanted to write while learning.
There’s this book that I haven’t done reading, and that is Writing to Learn and Show Your Work.
Just from the title, it explains itself! However, what encouraged me more was a little piece of writing by Ahmad Rosid from his book Mendapatkan Uang dengan Menulis Tutorial Koding which I’ll translate here.
My memory is very bad (I think most people are like that), maybe it’s because I’m a person who really likes to try many things. Because there are too many ideas or knowledge in my head, it makes it difficult for me to remember everything.
One way to back up your brain is to write.
At first I wrote only for my own consumption, to record anything while studying or working to be opened again later when I forget. …
This part felt so relatable. While those books just command me to start writing for this and that, and fame (which is understandable for personal brand), I just don’t feel strong reason enough. Ahmad Rosid’s book makes me feel so relatable. Props to him! It’s also because of him that I got reminded to write again after all of the events done past the middle year.
However, the fact that I’ve learned how to store, and motivated to write this year, and somehow I forgot; that means somehow, I didn’t make it. This might mean that I’ve implemented things incorrectly!
2. Re-set a new roadmap
After all of these events, I am confused about what I want to do. While I have a set of plans, I really can’t do it because of conditions, and money. Everything we do and invest in the end requires three things: Effort, Time, and Money.
I’m planning to dedicate more time to writing and reading, and also learning and building. Huff, such a demandful demand from myself.
3. Review things often
While I do self-review from time to time, it’s not consistent! I was streaking from doing my Todoist weekly then somehow I got into Roblox playing some Tower Defense games because I’m stressed out. Playing chess with kids beating them, hahaha hahaha. Nah, just kidding, some of them are pro players, I am not as good as I used to be in chess. I’m quite clumsy now.
Well, my goal is to be consistent but often will do for now. I want to still want to play, enjoy my time, and relax.
4. Learn to rest well
Literally, I got so ambitious, that sometimes I forgot to rest, regardless of work or my own interest. It’s like a mindless zombie really! However, I found that talking about my interests helps! It introduced a pause.
“Is this good?”, “Does he understand what I said?”, “Did I help him/her to understand this topic?”, “Should I try a different approach?”, these thoughts came, and made me re-think, and sometimes just rest for a moment.
5. There are more!
But I hope this gives you insights. I’m quite blunt. But I hope this message, inspires you to also think about your 2024. Review yourself for the next year. Don’t lose! Because winners never lose!
They either win or learn.
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