Thinking about 2024

The last few weeks have been glorious spending quality time with family. It gave me so much joy watching my son play with his cousins. They played together, swim together and of course, there were moments when they fought. Such is the delight of kids.

The last weeks also gave me the opportunity to spend time with family that I have not reconnected with in years. I drank a lot and ate even more. Btw, perhaps, it's just me but I also find it amusing to observe people in such social gatherings, specifically the topics that are discussed. Some talk about their work, others talk about their material acquisitions, such as cars and homes. I couldn’t talk about either of those things because I do not place importance on someone’s financial status etc. Anyway, two of my cousins made fun of me for switching from iPhone to Android. On this trip, I took my Pixel Fold and Pixel Watch. One of them actually asked if there was a financial problem, which made me switch to an inferior platform. People still believe that having an iPhone is a status symbol. Over 50% of Americans have an iPhone. How an iPhone is a status symbol is beyond me. Rolls-Royce is a status symbol. These days, iPhones are like the Alex drawers sold in Ikea that every Youtuber appears to have. Few months ago, I was on a train in London, almost 85% of people in my cabin had an iPhone. Android users were unique on that occasion.

It's a great equaliser that the wealthiest person on this planet is probably carrying an iPhone or an Android phone. Bill Gates uses a Samsung Fold and Elon Musk uses an iPhone. Both devices are attainable at-least for people in first world countries.

Anyway, I’m back home and find myself alone at home, at least for the next few hours. I started thinking about 2024. Yes, it's another year, like any other year. When one ends, the other starts. This has been happening forever, so what. A friend asked what I am doing on New Year's eve. My response, doing nothing, no plans, probably will sleep at 10pm like every other day. I do not understand why most humans on this planet place so much emphasis on 31 December. There is just so much pressure placed on this one day, it's exhausting.

My little brain started focusing on my life in 2024. From my work perspective, I am pretty happy with how things are going. I am not ambitious at all. I am never chasing a promotion. Actually, I am more inclined to focus on work life balance rather than climbing the corporate ladder.

I was stumped. What can I do in 2024 that will objectively will make 2024 better than 2023? After much deliberation, I settled on focusing on the what can I do differently in 2024. These can be minor changes.

Currently, I am thinking of 2024 as the year of personal experiments.

This year, I experimented with 30 days of no podcasts.It was an interesting exercise and I intend to do more of that in the 2024. However, I feel 30 days is still not long enough. 90 days seems appropriate. This is my where my headspace is currently.

I am also considering switching to working 4 days a week instead of 5 where I dedicate that one day to learning a new skill (such as coding). Before I discuss this matter with my wife, I am going to evaluate whether, as a family, we financially can afford this change in lifestyle. Now, a reasonable person may consider dedicating weekends to learning a new skill. However, weekends are for my family, for my wife and for my son, and also for me. Every human on this planet has 24 hours in a day and I dedicate weekends to family. That's most important to me. This is the single reason I do not do side hustles. In my life, time is the most limited resource, once gone to never come back.

This is what’s floating on my mind today. This blog post is like a window into my mind.

Wishing you a great rest of 2023…..

this blogpost was written after consuming one Four Pillars Gin and Tonic with two slices of orange.

Written on Ulysses (iPad Pro 2018) and published from MacBook 16 inch 2021.