회고
In this post, I'm going to wrap up my personal year in 2023. I'll summarize what I did, how I did it, and what I felt in 2023 as a developer and as a person in my own life, along with some keywords. I'll also put the pieces of the year together and decide on goals and action items for next year, so that I can commit to taking action.
I started working in November 2020, so it's been three years since I started working, but as I've written before in my [[Life Map], this year I've felt more confused than ever. For the first time since I started developing, I've been truly lost, and it's been a long time since I've felt like I had a life without a clear direction.
But a year isn't as short as you might think, and like any year, there are small and large fluctuations. It wasn't always bad, and it wasn't always good. I'll try to summarize what happened and what I was thinking in basic chunks, so let's go☝.
After a long time, I fell in the middle of an unfamiliar place. I moved to Pangyo for work and started working in a new space with new people and new systems. Of course, there were some similarities to before, but I couldn't let go of the strange nervousness I felt when I was unfamiliar, and I really struggled with 'fitting in' for the first time in my life.(I'm an adaptable person, after all.) Even my teammates told me that I would fit in anywhere.
One of the things I tried to do during this time was to migrate a project I had been working on (let's call it the Rocky Road project). I had been using open source to run the project, but I was using legacy code and open source that was outside the intent of the Rocky Road product. The decision was made to move the backend and frontend code to a new repository. So the front-end developer and I dug separate repos and started migrating together.
In hindsight, my biggest regret is that I didn't completely clean out the open source code from the Rocky Road project. The lack of a clear plan to determine what to keep and what to discard, the lack of organized documentation, which made it difficult to understand the code structure according to the business logic, and the fact that we had to do a lot of things in a limited amount of time to start from scratch. And there were so many other external causes... I won't write more because this is my life story. Anyway, moving the code was quite difficult and painstaking, but what can you do? 🤷🏻♀️ I started by removing as many old packages as possible and moving them to match the company convention.
Then I started migrating the Rocky Road project, and by the end of the project I was starting to question whether I was building a good product.
The project wasn't progressing as much as I wanted it to, so I wanted to learn, which is good any way, so I tried to do a side project, and I studied with three data analysts. When I got together with the project team and assigned roles, I decided to be a backend mentor and work on the frontend. I wanted to mentor so that I could organize the work I had done so far, and at the same time, I wanted to work on the front end so that I could close the gaps in my knowledge when it came to working with front-end developers. However, I quit the project study before I could finish it.
Suddenly, the company's schedule became too tight. The workload started to increase like an accelerator, and with the shortage of manpower, the team members, including me, were enduring adverse times in their own ways. With all the attention on the company, it was inevitable that I would have to ask for concessions from my study partners more frequently. I realized that it would be too greedy to hold onto a study that I couldn't do properly, so I eventually stopped.
Even in school, I was the kind of person who didn't know how much to do once I started something. I was the kind of person who would do everything at 100 percent because I wanted to do it right, so I might have been remembered as someone who tried to do everything and did it well. However, when it comes to things that have priorities, it's a toxic habit, and I think that's why I started out with the intention of studying intensely but ended up quitting, because I couldn't balance my personal life with the company's internal situation and decided that my priority was the company.
However, I am fortunate and grateful that my study group members were very understanding and generous, and we stayed in close contact and talked. I think it was a valuable experience in terms of interpersonal relationships.
I started to work out of the office and the project was rapidly expanding. Even though I was looking at the world with positivity and optimism, my physical strength started to run out due to various external pressures, and my nerves were getting sharper and sharper. I had to finish the Rocky Rock project on time, so I pushed through with inertia. At the same time, with no time to take care of myself, I was like a car running without brakes and with worn-out wheels. I didn't know when or how I would break down. But somehow I had to hold on to my sanity.
When I got home, of course I couldn't do anything because I was so exhausted. I'd never been this low on energy in my entire life, and I'd come home and just lie down. I would stare blankly at the ceiling and feel sorry for myself. However, it was very clear to me that there was nothing good in living like this anymore, and I finally started to express to others that my time was important. I decided to tackle the most basic physical fitness issue first, because working and studying are all based on physical fitness.
I was so unmotivated to exercise, so instead of overdoing it, I looked for something I could do in small steps, and eventually settled on a fitness game (Ring Fit) that I could play at home. The first few days were excruciating, but I kept playing every day because I didn't want to live a life of being bedridden all the time. Eventually, I started to feel stronger again, lost the weight I had been slowly gaining, and most importantly, felt less mentally exhausted.
October was a month of late nights and what felt like an eternity, but the stamina we built in September got us through it. The time flew by, and the Rocky Road project we had been working on for a long time came to fruition with a client. Moreover, there was an inflection point when Rocky Road was finalized and new team members joined the company. I was able to take a breather as I started working on other projects and had a clearer sense of R&R.
With some breathing room, I started to focus on my personal growth again. I started to think about what I wanted to do more of, and I started doing things like Gitto and Memoer. My first purpose was to organize my year, my last three years. But I think I'm seeing more value than that. I've been doing this for about a month now, and I'm learning so much from meeting motivating people and getting to know people who have a good outlook on life and work. I want to do more than just organize my thoughts.
In 2023, I realized that it's important to take small steps instead of being overly ambitious. I also realized that I need to define what I want to achieve in my professional and personal life, because there will be things I can learn at work and things I can learn in my other activities.
I also realized that I need to look at the status quo with a little bit of determination. I realized that I didn't have to respond to everything that was going on around me, and that I needed to take care of myself in order to do that well.
So, I decided on a few action items that I'm going to follow through with and learn from.
No matter how busy I am, I'm going to take the time to reflect and process my emotions for the day. Even if it's just 30 minutes. I'm going to implement two processes.
plain첫 번째, 오롯이 나의 관점에서 하루에 일어난 상황과 그에 따른 감정 및 내 행동을 살펴보기. 두 번째, 몇 발짝 물러나서 거시적인 관점에서 그 감정들과 내 행동에 대해 다듬고 그 다음 액션 아이템 정해보기.
The purpose of this behavior is to avoid projecting your feelings onto others and to avoid getting stuck in your own (especially negative) emotions. Try sticking to this behavior and see how much you've changed.
I'm currently forced to write 2 posts a month through GitHub, but it's a good habit to keep. To keep it up, you need to motivate yourself.
plain그러므로 블로그 포스팅은 나의 지식을 정리하고 타인에게 공유하는 것에 가장 큰 목적을 두도록 하자.
And I think we need to connect this to the idea of "studying" itself, whether it's taking lectures, reading books, or doing research.
I didn't start meeting new people until the end of the year, but I remember thinking 내가 올해는 새로운 사람을 만나지 못했다니! around the month of September.
plain새로운 만남도 시도이고, 도전이다. 현명한 결정을 하고 타인에게 이로운 영향력을 주기 위해선 끊없이 인사이트를 습득해야 한다. 그 인사이트는 결국 사람한테서 얻을 수 있다.
There are so many different types of people in the world, and there are probably types of people I've never met, so there's still so much to learn. I look forward to meeting more people and continuing to refine myself next year, just as I did at the end of this year.
I heard something the other day. I can't remember the exact words, but it went something like this.
plain개발자에게 운동은 필수다. 그마저도 안하면 앉아 있기만 할테고 사람으로서 삶을 영위하기 어렵기 때문이다.
In the modern world, any job that involves working in an office is similar, but developers in particular have a "sedentary" image. Well... It's not entirely true. In reality, we're often sedentary and rarely move because we're talking to our computers.
I've realized firsthand that when I don't move, I feel my muscles stiffen and it really affects my productivity, so I'm all about health first and foremost. If you're not healthy, you can't do anything. You need to be healthy physically and mentally. To do all of that, you have to exercise.
For now, I feel like I'm losing enough weight by doing ringfit, but I'd like to find a way to be active outside in the future.
I think hobbies are important. I believe that having a hobby is directly related to mental health. It's important to reduce stress by doing what you love.
However, I am a hobbyist because I have a lot of original interests. I thought, 취미 100개를 만들어 로테이션 돌리자 취미 100개를 만들어 로테이션 돌리자 But you can't be greedy and do everything. So I need to reduce the scope of my hobbies a little bit.
So I started to pick up hobbies that I can do consistently. For example, calligraphy or the violin.
I've done a lot of year-end recaps since I was a kid, and every time I've done one, I've always ended it with the same sentiment: 'It's been a hard year, but I've done well. Let's be happy next year. I'm the kind of person who sees the good in everything, so I think all the hard times I've had have become my nourishment now, because they're all things that have made me stronger.
And now I'm in my fourth year, which is not just a junior year. I'm sure I'll be more deeply troubled next year than I was this year. To make sure that it doesn't end up as a struggle, I will continue to explore ways to hold onto my center even when I'm shaking. I want to be a person who can enjoy being shaken instead of thinking that I don't want to be shaken.
I hope that by following the above action items, I will be able to write another happy retrospective this time next year with the know-how I have gained over the past year.
Anyway, thanks for a great 2023. Good luck next year, myself!