What I learnt this year.

Personal

I learnt that people are the most important thing in life. I’ve always known this. But it took me a while to realise that I can’t rest on my laurels everytime I get with a girl. Relationships with people must be nurtured and cared for. Fostered, loved and respected. Be good to people, forgive them. Honour them. Be tolerant of their flaws, because nobody is perfect, and everyone has something to offer.

I learnt that you can’t tell another person what is wrong with them as defence when they are telling you what is wrong with you. There’s a time and a place for that, and it’s not a valid defence, no matter how baseless their attack. It just makes you look worse and unable to defend your actions, or unable to apologise.

I learnt that happiness is not that hard to obtain. Life is amazing, and there’s something around every corner to laugh about and to learn from.

Work

I learnt that working in a team is a lot easier and more productive when you are together in the same room.

I learnt that working in a team is a lot harder and less productive when you are together in the same room.

Love

I learnt that love is blind.

I learnt that people are rarely open with you until you are intimate with them. And even then they hide as much as they can.

I learnt that love is a beautiful thing, and that you can’t relax in a relationship, you have to try, and try, and keep giving the whole time. Don’t ruin something that can be wonderful.

I learnt that relationships are about compromise, and a person who will not compromise back, or does not understand that everything is two way is absolutely bad news, no matter how great they make you feel.

I learnt that women are amazingly complex, and it’s amazing that any man is good enough.

And…

I learnt that life isn’t easy, but if you make the most of it, and stay cheerful, and talk to people, and try hard; every day is rewarding.

It’s been some time, and I thought I’d write. I’ve been free from the monotony of Kodak for some time now, and it was only shortly after leaving that I stopped writing regularly. Frankly I was bored most hours of the day and in need of release, so I vented through my journal. And most satisfying it was.

I know now that normal work is not for me. Given a job that I enjoy I dedicate myself to the task and find it hard to stop until it’s done perfectly. I just need to find such an avenue, I can’t see that avenue being science, maybe I’m wrong. I’m not sure. I just had a really miserable experience at Kodak.

Since then I’ve been programming like crazy. I love it! Filelight is good now, and functionally satisfactory for packaging up and distribution, I have plans though to make the widget generic so it can be used in other software, but currently I’m enjoying coding for amaroK, a media player that could be quite innovative, if our goals continue as planned. But even if that isn’t so and nobody likes it and everybody thinks it’s yet another media player it doesn’t matter because it’s great fun.

I like building things, and engineering solutions. Computers make those two things really easy.