2025, Year in review

O LA LA LEO, O LA LA LA ULEO. 100% not the intro I wanted, but here we go again for the fifth time. Welcome to my yearly brain dump. As always, TLDR; “generic“ year with plenty of internal conflicts, busy with all kinds of stuff at work, struggled with keeping up with self and people around me, realization of mediocrity and lack of growth, REALIZATION of parents’ affection as an adult, living old days with homies, and that’s it I guess. Too much for a TLDR; eh?

One thing I’d say for sure is, I’ve been looking forward to writing this for a while now. That’s actually weird and surprising. I’d be honest, as I’m writing this, I’m in a much better mental space than the majority of this year. Which is kind of a good thing, and I’m happy that I’ve improved at handling adult life and grateful to people around me for their patience. This one is going to be super long, brace for impact!!

Similar to the last few years, we started off with a few ambitious assignments at work. Needless to say, it was intense in all good things. A new approach towards collaboration. It went well and somehow fell apart in a few weeks. Looking back, I’d say we’re learning and have made very good progress since. Unfortunately, it got dragged for too long. Well, it’s done, we learned a lot and ended up shipping it in a few more weeks.

Out of the blue, my beloved phone died. As dramatic as it may sound, I’m too attached to everything that I own and not really a fan of changing tools often. But it was beyond rescue, and I switched to a newer device. It served me well for almost three and a half years.

Between all this, a few things brought joy. My friends from graduation moved to Bengaluru, and it’s just surreal to see all of them every weekend just like the old days. Looking back, I’ve hung out with these boys almost every weekend and it’s just so peaceful. We did a small road trip to Mysuru. Nice 👍

Among all things in life, uncertainty is the cruelest of ’em all. Saying goodbye to friends is not easy, especially when it’s formed over many years. We need to eat it all and move forward. Hope everyone is doing well.

If I can recall correctly, around early May I was desperately looking for a new hobby, just something to pull myself away from thinking about work. Funnily enough, I went back to building random things with ESP32 and Arduino like college days. My scripts are here if you’re interested. I also got myself an action camera. Have always wanted one, and I’d suggest you get one too if you really care about capturing random things as videos. My goal is to freeze as much as I can and look back when I can’t. hahaha.

Right around May, I struggled a lot with keeping up with everything. Loads of questions and doubts about my abilities as an engineer riddled me. I just went into a patch of extreme lack of motivation and interest to do anything. While most of it was from things happening around me, I’d say as an adult I just couldn’t navigate it well.

Next few weeks were better and helped me a lot mentally. Parents came over for the first time, and I’m grateful they did. I learned so much about the latent bravery you discover when you really don’t know anything. I visited a few places in and around Bengaluru. It was super peaceful and, to be honest, I realized a very different version of my parents. Considering my strict upbringing, this helped me a lot to understand parents better. Good times. Oh, I also did a small trip to Sakleshpura with my friend. It was a very unplanned, hasty trip, but a trip nonetheless.

I kept struggling with myself over and over again around this time. In a desperate attempt to fix it, I decided to run away and took a radical decision. When I think about it now, it was more like a quick fix rather than an informed decision for everyone involved. I’ve always deeply cared about the trust and value people put in me, but at that time, it just felt like a burden rather than a duty to carry. I’m happy all is fine now, grateful that I had friends and family around me whom I could talk to. Thanks.

My learning from all of this is truly profound. First one is Patience. When we say we’re patient with something, we’re probably at 10% of it. As absurd as it may sound, it truly is. Our parents and people around us have been immeasurably patient with us without us realizing. And when it’s time to do it for ourselves, I feel all of us should try a little harder to bear everyone and everything.

Manifestation is a very powerful thing. While this is somewhere close to superstition, I’d say it’s more like the expenditure of mental energy on things we like to think about. On the way to being an adult, I just need to learn to let go of things I don’t like to entertain and hold on to everything else. It’s difficult, but future me, just avoid negative crap, please.

I went back home soon after all this. Caught up with family, a little bit of roaming around. But I feel I should have taken a few more days off when home. This year I was home for only a few weeks and spent most of my time working. This year I’ll try to balance it well.

We did another rainy ride which triggered my PTSD from the Udupi trip. We visited Coorg after I came back to Bengaluru. My god, it was so wet. I hate riding in the rain half blind. It truly felt like old days from college with friends. Nostalgia aaah! Anyways, I’m glad nobody noticed my cringey attempt to catch attention with a photo, HAHAHAHA. I won, but at what cost 💀. It was a trip to remember, and I should definitely try doing a few this year. I also finally crossed 10K kms on Sunny, truly an achievement considering I learned how to ride a little while back 😭.

Acceptance is another thing I learned this year. I kept looking back and realized most things would be better off if I just accept people and situations as they are. It’s completely fine for something to exist and not be pleasing to my liking. In the end, we should be living in a world full of real people, not reflections and façades. Accept everything and move on.

“Stupid“ and “Stale“ is what I’d grade my growth this year. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but hear me out. Compared to last year, I mostly got stuck (not in a negative way) with things I’m comfortable with. I did a bit of Rails and a little bit of complicated frontend work, but nothing extremely challenging. What felt challenging was thinking product. I genuinely feel concerned about my abilities as a product builder. I couldn’t figure out basic interactions and approaches. There’s just so much room for improvement in every department, it honestly scares the hell out of me. Attention to detail specifically went for a toss, which is shameful, and I’m actively trying to get better at this. 2026 would be all about growth, and it’s a challenge to myself.

While all of this is there, I did explore quite a bit of stuff outside work. I’m super comfortable with Neovim now. Personally, that’s a great achievement and I’m really happy about it. I believe I’ve also gotten better at planning, I’m really thinking through things I want to build. There’s quite a bit of improvement needed while working in a team, but I’m making progress. Did a little bit of Rust and Go this year, fun languages to work with. I was mostly busy with building Tankyu-Sha. Overall, the exposure to new tech was quite meh. Will improve this year for sure. Also, I got the least amount of feedback on my growth this year, would like to improve that as well.

I guess the realization of mediocrity is harsh, but it’s necessary. It’s necessary to look yourself in the mirror and compare to your peers. I’ve become extremely lazy and risk-averse, when I should have the exact opposite mindset. I want to go back to running and keeping my head down this year.

I went back home last month to attend a marriage. The highlight was a looong trip with parents and a first of its kind. I’ve discovered many new sides of parents’ affection as an adult. I’m genuinely happy for this event. Again got busy with working from home, but it’s all fine. Spent time at home, and that’s all that I needed.

This is my December. This month has been surreal. It’s been healthy, busy, unexpectedly calm and peaceful. I’m happy this year ended like this. While I personally do not promote the idea of being happy, I feel this month’s been close to what I’d say a healthy life would be. I got myself a bicycle last month and did around 250 kms till now. I still struggle with integrating it into my daily commute, but cycling’s been rewarding.

I spent like some madman this year. I don’t regret it fully, but maybe 70%? I feel I spent on the right things, but definitely not at the right time. I’m hoping for better financial calls next year. Also please drink less man, wtf. Coffee of course, ha ha ha ha.

Anyways, that’s it for this year. I’m looking forward to the next one.