Journal 2022-01

January 2022 journal

Monthly retrospective

ToDo

Journal

2022-01-09

Finished Working minds. After years of resolving to read it, I finally started two months ago and have now finished.

2022-01-08

Started reading Change: How to Make Big Things Happen with an acquaintance in an online study group.

2022-01-03

Thoughts on the future of books.

2022-01-01

It has been 32 years since I started programming and 22 since I started working professionally.

Experience accumulates simply with the passage of time, while skills gradually decline if left alone, so the gap between the two keeps widening. I’d read about this and knew it, but experiencing it myself showed me how true it is. I need to study hard.

I belatedly realized that, for someone like me, a reputation exceeding one’s abilities harms learning. So for roughly n years I tried living by “don’t show off.” But I realized that excessive isolation harms learning too. I’d learned this from reading as well, and sure enough, experience confirmed it. I should interact with people without showing off.

As I get older, I feel my curiosity declining and my conscientiousness increasing. A few people around me have called me conscientious—something I’d never heard in my life. I had also read about the relationship between age and conscientiousness, and once again, experience confirmed it. I should cultivate more questions about everything so my conscientiousness doesn’t grow too high.

I’m belatedly learning how to get along with people humanely and speak kindly. Starting so late makes me clumsy, but I think I’m improving. Thanks to that, I’m building meaningful relationships with good people. Looking back, good people were always around me.