Yearly Takeaway 2024

Ten years of annual retrospection calls for a slight format change. Instead of keeping a dynamic record and updating a single post, each yearly takeaway now has its own post except for the ones captured before this activity started. Those are all archived under a legacy entry which is a single post that acts as a dynamic record.

So without further ado, the most potent lesson I learned (or relearned) in 2024.

Anxiety Lies Dormant

I feel 2024 was tumultous but turbulence does offer room for learning. Lots of questions, thoughts and ideas bounced around my head all year.

• Deception is everywhere. Words are twisted, semantics perverted. Skepticism is crucial.
• Abusers will always take advantage of any situation.
• Baseless accusations are quite frequently admissions of the same crime.
• Is chasing enlightenment similar to seeking dopamine hits from social media?
• One cannot argue against tangible results - if it works, it works…
• Whether intentional or not, bosses will abuse their employees. It’s inevitable.
• Learning from others’ experiences is wise but also difficult.
• Systems Design is a skill of the future (this goes beyond video games)

But what stuck with me and has helped me tremendously in 2024 is rethinking anxiety. At the heart of many problems is anxiety; it lies dormant. Examining one’s relationship with anxiety can be useful. For one thing, anxiety is somewhat inevitable. We need to eat to live so we will always be anxious about our food sources. Accepting that our anxiety is unavoidable can be a good first step to becoming a better person. If we understand how anxiety affects us, we can prevent unfortunate things from happening to us. I believe that many bad things in the world are the results of unchecked or untreated anxiety. Hatred is born out of anxiety of the “other” and is stoked by evildoers for their own gains. Consider the proverbial seven sins; is greed not a result of uncontrolled anxiety around ownership? And envy surely arises out of anxiety over societal status. You could attribute each sin to a form of evolved anxiety.

On introspection, I’ve discovered I’ve made many of my unfortunate decisions during periods of high anxiety. Being able to stop and think clearly about an issue is crucial to addressing it; but if the mind is plagued with worry, how can anyone reasonably do this? Now before I take on an endeavor, I ask myself what role anxiety is playing in it. Am I doing a task to simply alleviate some unknown anxiety or will its completion actually result in something useful or noteworthy? At the very least, this has helped me keep my to-do list in check!