Jan 2, 2024 5 min read Life-Journey

2023 is over?

I'm not sure why time passes so quickly without my permission. I'm not ready yet to sit down, reflect and review everything in one go. When I decided to write-up this post, I almost lost it, but here we go, my 2023 In review.

In my honest opinion. 2023 is a "very challenging" year that I have ever faced in my life, alongside the 2020 and 2021, where we acknowledge that as covid-19 era.

I have always remember that time that 2020 is way too terrible, 2021 is quite better. And 2022 is the actual recovery-transition phase, I would say that as pre-new normal.

I'm not sure if everyone else will feel the same way as I do, what do you think?

Nonetheless, 2023, this year is kinda weird. I recognised, sometimes I was really grateful that everything goes back to normal, it is like we are currently in a truly new-normal condition. It is almost a perfect phase, now we can meet again our colleagues at our office, mask is not needed anymore in public space or public transportation, or even at office, the economy is far more better and considerably improved at all sectors.

To me, this is a transformation year, where we can step-up our delayed potential and give an effort to get a better result. Just try to fill the empty space of our personal growth to the actual value that supposed to be. And yes, this was just happening.

Started a new responsibility

In early 2023, higher-ups at my company assigned me to oversee a new operating unit. At first, I was pessimistic, believing it wouldn't benefit me. I knew there were no incentives, neither a promotion nor a salary increase. I will not explain further.

However, this leads me with negative thought everyday, half motivated to work, but obviously I realised that I need always to keep my professionalism. Because at first time, I was alone. They assigned me and were hoping me as a single fighter. Impossible. I was almost signed my resignation letter. However, I was just thinking that, ok, atleast great knowledge and experience in return so I will label this as my personal growth, and that is for me, not for company. I work for myself, and I don't give a shit with that. I don't want to ask for any single appreciation from company to me, not at all. At least, I got everything in my CV, and jump out to better opportunities.

There are lots of work has been done and well accomplished with high quality in the end, and I am proud of myself. I surrounded by lots of positive people who always beside me and I appreciate for their dedication to help me grow this far. It is like, colleagues > companies. Even though colleagues and I was part of company, but there is a layer that we are completely separated with company thing (you probably feel the same way, don't you?) That is why, I feel grateful to have them all and I am proud of them. We shared the same feeling and condition when we met, and It made us solid to tackle all the problems.

2023 is our progress to success. 📈

Write-up is a thing

In 2023, I started building this website to practice and improve my English writing skills. My spoken English is good from years of conducting meetings at a company and my private game server community but my writing leaves much to be desired. So I'm learning through doing. This website serves as my training ground, and I appreciate readers pointing out any mistakes.

And this site was also my achievement. I cannot imagine for how many times I have dreamed of owning a site with my own domain, but never actualise it.

Sometimes we can only dream without actualise it to come true. So, in this phase, I have learnt that I need to convert my dream to a plan, and a plan to a "doing", and celebrate my current progress. At least, I am in a doing progress, and as time goes by, it would work.

Now, it worked! And this is the time to celebrate it to myself 🎉

Thinking outside the box

God set my destiny in a mysterious way. In the early of 2023, April, If I haven't mistaken. I found a mysterious call inside my head that I need to pursue for next level education. I found lots of country problem for cybersecurity, such as government platform that containing hundreds of million Indonesian PII data leaked by some cyber actors. And it is getting worse now. I wanted to act on this.

Along with it, many friends are doing the same thing, I don't know what does it call, maybe I was experiencing a FOMO, but in a positive way(?). Hahaha, but honestly, I wanted to bring more value to my life, my family and directly contribute to small things for this planet, with education, wait.. why does it sound too naive. 😄

Since I was in highscool, I dreamed of studying in Germany. Because Germany, in terms of quality of engineering education is totally advanced. That is why I have watched Gita Savitri Devi most of the time back in 2015 and 2016. She inspired me since day one she created her youtube channel. However, now I am being a jerk. Since Germany is different, I mean, it requires to learn germany language 101, I am very lazy to take a german certification. And also, there is nothing fit with my topics: IoT, Cloud and Cybersecurity in Germany, I couldn't find it.

However, I found suitable programs in Northern Europe or Nordic countries. The quality? Don't ask me, you can find it on google. Finland, sweden and norway are very high quality country. Remember bluetooth radio technology? Ericsson from sweden invented it. Remember Nokia 3010 The strongest phone all the time in history 🤣?

Finland invented it.

A car's seatbelt? Volvo sweden invented it.

I intend to invent something. And to actualise it, I need a supportive environment.

That is what I thought. I have skepticism that pursuing education in my home country won't allow me to reach the level of value I desire. It also related with the metric where the most of successful startup/company's founders are pursued their education overseas. It somehow increased the success opportunity. My decision to study abroad wasn't solely influenced by FOMO. But I view it as luck. That I surrounded by a good people that can help me in this phase. I got inspired by them, that is all. I outlined my reasons in my motivation letter, which is currently part of my ongoing admissions process. I hope for a positive outcome. It took me an eight months to refine and validate a letter. It was sooo challenging and hard. But I'm confident my motivation is way better now, especially as this post is being published. I have also lowering my expectation, that because I am thinking at least I tried everything to come out from the comfort zone, so myself in the future won't regret it and grateful. In addition, with the help of my friends, both local and international, now I am available to put an effort in this phase.

I observed that determination is a key to revolutionise my surroundings, including my life.