Finally thirty-eight. I felt thirty-eight when I was a year younger, so it feels good to be the age I have been feeling all year.
I am happy to be thirty-eight—another year on this beautiful planet surrounded by great friends and family. I feel great about this year—a year to be laser-focused towards my goals and start travelling again. Now that I don’t have to worry about visas anymore, Aussie Aussie Aussie.
As I sit down to write this, I feel happy and blessed. I got a few text messages last week from new and old friends who asked me what I would be doing on my birthday day and asked me to spend the evening with them.
My post last year started by thanking Manly, the suburb I moved to in Nov 2021. I need to continue the tradition. Moving to this suburb has been so good for me. I have never been this fit in my life, and I have never been this happy about where I have lived. As much as I miss my family and friends back home, this feels like home now. I wish family and friends could move here or spend time with me through the year.
A few friends did visit and stayed with me this year, which was the highlight of my time in this place—having people live with me or close by was great. Having good friends to spend time with after work or do other activities with, activities which you did alone, brought me so much joy.
The year that was
In January this year, I told myself that I should be chasing my dreams. It was high time. Each year, I would say “the next year,” and somehow 2023 felt like the best time to get started. Instead of working on multiple projects, I would work on the one project I was passionate about. I could not shake this thought for the entire month of Feb. I handed in my notice in mid-February. I told everyone I met about my plans and prepared to spend the rest of the year focusing on building my dream project.
March, April, and May were some of the best months of my life in Australia and Manly. I met so many people, ate so much good food, learned more about 2D programming and how to build games and did some of my best work on projects I worked on. BEST TIME EVER!!!
I wish I planned my finances better around working on my dream project. What I planned, as it turns out, was only 30%. I quickly realised I needed much more money to survive in this suburb. After having a positive bank balance for my adult life, being in -$50000 made me question continuing to work on my project. I was more stressed than enjoying my time building my project.
Something had to change. I paused my work on the project and applied for a few contract roles in Sydney, and I found myself a great project and team to work with. Finances are now back in order, and I am no longer stressed.
I hope to get back to working on my dream project soon. As of now, though, I am in a perfect place with work, social life and fitness. I don’t want to disturb this.
Here are a few personal highlights of last year:
- Exercised twice a day. At BFT with 5:15 Crew(now family) and myself at the local gym.
- Started group fitness 🥊. I never thought I would get into HIIT based training routine.
- More than 200 swims in the ocean.
- Almost died when attempting to swim from Manly to Shelly Beach and got rescued by lifeguards. I fear the ocean a little less now(more about this in another blog post)
- More in-depth relationships with new and old friends.
- Mom moving into the new apartment and telling me about the new birds she now gets to see.
- Travelling to New Zealand, India, Thailand, and Singapore with friends.
- Building more apps and writing better code than I did last year. I am much better at building native apps and working with node.js as a language.
- Friends from India in Australia to visit and stay.
- Being the best man at my best friend’s wedding.
My themes for last year were - Create - Dance - Travel
I am soooooooo happy that I was able to spend the year focused on these themes. I was part of creating some excellent software, learning hip hop, salsa, and bachata, and I travelled a lot around Australia, New Zealand, India, Thailand, and Singapore.
2024
Themes for 2024:
- Create
- Travel
- Fitness
- Love
I hope you all have an excellent 2024. 🙌🏻🤗
