Reflections on 2024 and Looking Forward to 2025
2024 started out as a great year. I hosted a team meeting at the beginning - first of itâs type - in my home town and got to take a little credit for some very positive culture-building foundational meeting-hosting.
Then things got pretty awful in a family-situation sort of way. In âwe understand if you need to take a lot more time offâ sort of way.
In looking back, though, I wonder if I took advantage of that to excuse my distance in day-to-day work. A huge part of my distance was legitimate. But there is a percentage that isnât legitimate, and I donât know how big that percentage is. It could be 5%, it could be 70%. While the amount may be in question, what isnât in question is the fact that itâs there: the unexcusable absence.
Do I want 2025 to be that way? Do I want the entire rest of my career to be that way? Do I want retirement to be that way? Will I be forever âchecked outâ? Will I always be ⌠absent?
I canât do this to myself. The brainrot habits Iâve gotten myself into will hurt Project 2040. I cannot coast for 15 more years like I have for the last 9 months. I spent a huge chunk of my initial career building up trust, and the last couple of years, Iâve been spending more than I make.
I have people that count on me at work. They count on me to be present, be helpful, and to be aware. This is what I need to work on this year (and maybe even this weekend). I need to block the rot.
For 2025, I need a thing to call my own. I tend to hold on to the way things are - I resistent to change. I remember folks at my work who pushed me for change, and my strength, my main contribution to the team, is that I say, âOk, sounds good - letâs do itâ, while not fully knowing what Iâm getting into. Will I ever have the know-how and vision to be an actual agent of change? To say, âI think we can do a better job as an organization if we switch to some whatever technologyâ, or âI think weâll be more effective as an org if we do x ⌠y ⌠zâ? Iâm not there yet. (But here I am, 15 years from retirement - so will I ever be?)
Iâve had events Iâve hosted that have been at the insistance or the nudge of others. Those have been the majority of my successes.
In my YouTube meanderings, I came across âMoney Lessons From Older Americans Who Learned The Hard Wayâ:
For one couple in the video, the man states the challenges of getting work when youâre older:
Continue working as long as you can⌠I tried to return to part-time work recently. Nooneâs hiring, or if they are, theyâre not looking for people my age.
Clips of other people talking about the challenge of getting a job when youâre older are thrown in. Then he continues
Honestly, I think they really donât want an old guy whoâs going to have to take a day off to go to the doctor.
Oof. I hadnât thought about that. I think thatâs more bitterness than reality, though. When Iâve felt the tugs of agism, my mindset has been, âthis person isnât going to learn or be eagerâ, it has never though âthis old person is going to need too many days offâ. Still - itâs interesting in that, as the person becoming old, I need to remember that my time gets even more scarce because of those unknowns.
When I was younger and single, I used to stay up all hours of the night, or wake up in the middle of the morning, and tinker with tech - learning for my job. When I got married, and especially when I became a dad, those oddball strokes of inspiration donât come like that anymore because that time and energy has already been spent. That manâs statement made me realize that as I get older, I may end up spending hours and days in a waiting room of a doctorâs office - pining to return home, not so I can tinker with tech, but so I can crawl in the bed and rest from the outing.
For 2025, I want to build up more trust with my own manager. I need to set up optional meetings for my team to connect. I need to find ways to make it easier for new people to get up to speed in my department. I need to understand things Iâve put off when it comes to all areas of software development life cycle. I say all this knowing there is more disruption - some unfinished business from the parts that derailed me in 2024 - thatâs going to cause me to lose even more days than I did before.
So donât waste the day. I can rot when I retire.