Be Happy

We all enjoy the festivities that the last month brings but it’s also a time for reflection. One hopes that the coming year will bring more opportunities and happiness. But in order to improve in the following year, one has to review the past one. Even if that review reveals a couple of things to improve on, I’d say that’s a pretty good start.

Like many others, I also do such thinking towards the end of the year. Some people might know that the past couple of years haven’t been kind to me, to say the least. However, I did decide last year that I will improve things by:

  • Resuming my community involvement
  • Changing job to an interactive and moderately mobile one
  • Blogging more
  • Moving to a bigger house
  • Taking care of unfinished certification business e.g. VCIX6 and 5 AWS certs etc.

Having a late setback towards the end of the year meant I wasn’t in a great mood to start with but looking closely, I feel it was a much better year than I initially thought. I was able to knock off some of those goals off my list and made good progress on the rest. Obviously, that means the ones with “good progress” will go on to the 2019 list as well.

Review

Resuming my community involvement went well and for the first time ever, I attended both VMworld US and Europe in the same year. In addition, I attended vRetreat 2018, Ravello Blogger’s Day 2, Cloud Field Day 4, Tech Field Day Extra at VMworld US, Future:NET 2018, LonVMUG and UKVMUG. I love meeting people, having a great chat and exchanging ideas so will keep doing more of that in 2019.

You already know that I moved from Atos to Rackspace. Rackspace needs no mention so I’ll spare you the introduction. It’s a fair distance to travel but we’ve agreed on a good balance with a couple of days a week in the office (or when necessary) and remote for the rest. That achieves the interactivity and mobile goals and it’s well-known to be a friendly and fun (literally with a NERF Gun culture) place to work. It’s an exciting time and the company is growing so do let me know if you are interested in joining (especially in Germany and the Netherlands).

I did blog more but also wrote a couple of articles covering Future:NET for Gestalt IT. I could have blogged more but the new job got in the way – something to fix in 2019. Mentored a couple of people to blog and increase community involvement too. Plan for 2019 is to increase blogging/podcasting, write for the company blog, mentor people within the company and external to contribute more. Please do let me know if you (or anyone you know) want to discuss ideas, need guidance etc. I’ll be more than happy to help.

Work started almost immediately on moving to a bigger house but last year hasn’t been too good for the housing market (in my area at least). Trying to find the perfect home for your needs is also not easy. While I haven’t been able to achieve that goal, a lot of effort went into it and it’s looking promising now. If all goes well, the family should be in a new house in the summer. That brings its own set of challenges in terms of settling in and initial work but this is indeed something I would love to complete as it will solve so many problems. Fingers-crossed!

Lastly, I was indeed able to complete the certification targets. I said unfinished certification business because things kept moving and I felt I should have been able to complete them earlier. Better late than never though and they’re out of the way. Maybe all AWS and some more cloud certs for 2019 but that will depend on which direction I take within Rackspace. In addition, I am a little behind on some technologies that I really want to deep dive into and they will be on my plan for 2019.

Conclusion

Considering all this, it does seem like a pretty good year in terms of achievements. It wasn’t all plain sailing but much better than the one before. The review also showed that there are some unfinished goals and some new ones that I can move on to so those will be my target for 2019.

I also fully realise and appreciate how lucky I am to have a great family but also you all as friends. Sounds cheesy but I do consider the community to be friends. Meeting you at events is my reason to go to them and having those chats energise me. My interaction is genuine and if I can help anyone with anything, that’s my reward. Also, I listen to everything you say and the advice that I am given at times.

Like one friend said recently: You’ve got to enjoy life!

Photo Credit: Alex Block on Unsplash