Year In Review

2020 has been a long year. Like many of us, I faced several challenges, although a bit different. In this tiny article, I will list the few things that I worked towards this year.

Career

• After several years at Salesforce, I joined my first startup - Addepar. This happened towards the end of the year. I was sad to leave my wonderful team and people that I loved working with.

Finance

• I opened an account wi m1Finance and started fractional investing. Very small amounts. About $30 - $40 per day across 6 to 8 stocks. This happend around the middle of the year.

Personal

• I spent 15 days in absolute silence, i.e. no media, no news, no music. At the height of quarantine. I only allowed myself to create. This was one of the most interesting experiments I have done in my life.
• This was my first year living in NYC. I didnt know anyone, and lived the entire quarantine and the rest of the year without any friends or social interaction.
• Towards the end of the year, I found an interesting meetup - 52 living ideas, discussing valuable philosophical topics, so I joined them on their zoom calls for a few days.
• I bought a Lenovo Thinkpad to work on personal projects. So glad that I did. Its a wondeful device.
• I bought a 61 key Yamaha keyboard.

Books

• I read the single most valuable book of my life - Outwitting the devil - By Napoleon hill.

Goals

• Failed - Wanted to finish all the Spanish crowns on Duolingo. Currant stats - Crowns: 365, Streak: 952. Spanish XP - 28622, French - 611.
• Failed - Wanted to watch at least 2 udemy music theory courses. I only completed one.
• Failed - Wanted to be able to achieve at least some level of hand independence. But I didnt practice enough.
• Failed - Could not stick to my workout routine to get into the physical shape I had aimed for.
• Failed - Still cannot do either a headstand or a handstand without wall support.
• Failed - Choreograph and record dance videos.
• Success - Rewrite and Relaunch my personal site.
• Success - Create a way for me to freely share my designs on my personal site.
• Success - Open source a new library on github - lean-state-machine.
• Success - Created a course on youtube for functional programming.

This year, the failures are a little more painful. Especially since I had more time at my disposal because I wasnt commuting to work anymore, nor was I going out and dancing. And I wouldnt even call them lofty goals. It feels strange to look back at my year and reflect that I only did a fraction of what I know I am capable of doing.

The calendar year may have changed tonight. But its the man who's writing this story that needs to change.