Emil's Corner
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January 17, 2023

From 2022 to 2023

TL;DR In 2022 I was the most productive and learned the most this far, but it was also the busiest and most stressful year of my life. My goal is to make 2023 more peaceful while crushing some personal goals.

Recap of 2022

This was a really weird year for me. It was the most stable and uneventful year of my life, but at the same time the most stressful and distressing one.

The year started with a lot of school work. I was working on the Capstone project at the university and trying to get all my bridge studies done during the first year of my Master's.

Then in May I first started an internship at the university's language technology lab, from which I moved to a full-time research assistants position. I never took any vacation. I worked the full year either on school courses, work or both at the same time. This led to me being burned out at the end of the year. I have honestly never been so out of juice as I was in December 2022.

Now there were a lot of good things too:

  • I got back on track with training and eating healthy. I trained 3-4 times per week for the whole second half of the year. This honestly saved me from a way worse burnout. Keeping track of my health and training actively has always been a corner stone of my life.
  • I got back into the work life when I started at the University. The salary is not great, but it allowed me to start building up savings and investments again.
  • I learned a lot! I built search solutions for different problems at work and worked on some API design. I also actively learned Rust, Go and system development. While my Rust skills are not yet enough to get a Rust job, they are closer to that every week.
  • There were many developer meetups in Turku. I did not realise how much I had missed meetups and other events during the COVID lockdowns.
  • I learned to appreciate work/life balance and time with loved ones much more again. Life easily gets into this productive mode and getting burned out really reminded me of what's important in life.

Goals for 2023

Remove useless stressors and replace them with things that bring me joy: Master's degree has been really stressful for me because I don't get any financial aids for it. I have to work full-time to finance my studies. And I don't really even care too much about getting a Master's degree, I basically started it out of boredom. That's why I'm taking a break from my studies at least for the first period of the year. I need to re-evaluate my goals and where I'm investing my time in. I want to read more books, travel and spend time with my family and friends instead.

Train 4 times per week and drop weight to under 85kg: Last year I trained mostly 3 times per week and this year I want to bump it up a bit while also dropping a few more kilos. I have gained quite a bit of muscle and strength, but I also want to improve my cardiovascular condition this year.

Move to a bigger apartment with a dedicated office space: I have been living in this studio apartment to save money and to live close to the university. Now that I'm working and putting school to the side, I want to move back to a bigger apartment where I can have a dedicated physical space for a office. I'm quite minimalistic, but I do like to have some extra space at home. I do spend most of my time there after all.

Double my income: In 2021 I took a long unpaid vacation after which I started studying. Getting any income after that feels nice, but the truth is that the academic salaries in Finland are not enough to live comfortably and that is why this goal is my main goal for this year. I'm not sure yet how I'm going to accomplish this, but I will find a way. Switching from academia to industry would already double my income, but I'm also thinking about some possible side hustles.

Closing thoughts

2021 was a really scattered and unfocused year for me, but I was relaxed and happy. 2022 I regained my focus and worked on my goals, but I was really unhappy. In 2023 I'm going to be focused and happy.

Although last year was not a good one for me, I'm happy that I experienced it and learned about the things that I don't want to have in my life. Now I have the knowledge and motivation to become a better version of myself and improve the quality of my life while doing so.

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