I turned 42 this year. 42 is a significant number for me. I am not sure if it's my favorite number, though. 42 is the answer to the great question of life, universe and everything. Well, I don't think there's a better joke than this. But jokes aside and while Douglas Adams seems to write it so matter-of-factly, the entire few pages where deep thought gives this answer to Loonquawl and Phouchg is filled with amazing philosophy....
A couple of years back, our investment advisor got us an invite to take a personality test from Gallup. It was part of a seminar/workshop that we signed up. This was one of the first such test I took so far. I’ve taken a handful since. This post is largely going to just talk about my experience with these tests and their findings. I remember taking psychometry tests as part of the placement process back in the day....
Late bloomer is a term often associated with developmental milestones in kids. It turns out the actual meaning is a lot more generous than that, despite what Urban Dictionary has to say on the topic. I always topped my class in school. Even through undergrad classes, I stayed in the top 5 ranks. So, “late bloomer” is not a term that anyone would associate with me. Frankly, I haven’t considered the possibility until very recently....
So I am an entrepreneur now. And I turned 41 last week. Despite all this, the year has been extremely eventful. We took two vacations, I attended two conferences; presented in one, my wife found a good position that challenges her and gives her the space to grow, my son completed a year learning to play the drums, finished level 1 of swimming. Not all was bright though: I got covid twice this year; my immunity seems to be in a terrible place, i've been dealing with a variety of stuff with my body - results of not taking enough time to exercise in my twenties are showing now....
Rest In Peace Manoj. I will miss you. I keep thinking I should have made some time to meet you - either here in Singapore or back home in Chennai. I think we met in the second year. And I don't think we hit it off all that much, though. We became friends much later, though, if I recollect right. I knew you wanted to be a pilot back then....
2022 was a lot of ups and downs. Its the year we traveled to meet our families after 2 years of lockdowns and restrictions. Its also the year we got vaccinated for COVID. And still got COVID anyway. Its the year I spent learning ROS. Its the year I almost shipped my side-project. Almost. Its also the year we decided that our impermanence in life is probably a good thing....
Earlier this year, we all got our booster doses and were eligible for traveling. And the situation also seemed to ease a bit after the initial Omicron wave here in S'pore and in India as well. So we took a quick 2-week trip to Chennai in March. Flights were empty, airports were empty and the whole experience was so chilled out. Am getting ahead of myself. Let me just look at how the year has fared so far....
2021 was not the best year I've been through, going by how tough things got for me - personally and professionally. But it is highly likely that this is the year that taught me the most about every aspect of myself, my life, my aspirations and motivations. Instead of pouring over everything that went wrong, am just going to reflect on the learnings and see what I can do better for the next year....
For the longest time in my life, I have wanted to learn meditation. People always made it sound so mystical and so powerful, that I wanted to have my share of it too. At least, that’s how the fad for meditation started. I remember trying to meditate as early as my mid-twenties in 2006-2007. My mom could meditate but she never made it sound like anything special. My maternal grandfather was so good at it that we always thought he was asleep sitting....
I’ll be 40 in a year or two. I distinctly remember feeling a stomach churn and completely unprepared when I turned 30. I had just finished my MS thesis and joined Atheros. I had a long way to go to have something I could call a career. It was very unsettling at that time. But then things happened and here I am, almost ten years later, still embarked on a journey to identify the problems I really want to solve....