2019 review

This review wont be my typical yearly review. This one will be about how one event can change your life perspective and priorities.

By the end of 2018 I was at the point of absolute satisfaction with myself. I have worked hard (at multiple projects), I was building company where I played crucial role, I have trained hard, I was learning a lot and I felt great. I was earning money I have always dreamed of, had a great girlfriend and good friends around me. Then by end of November 2018 I got food poisoning from the salad and duck we made with our girlfriend and it impacted me like nothing else. Since then I started to have regular digestive problems from bloating, abdominal pain throughout the day, reflux to cramps in the middle of the night. Like any computer engineer I have approached it pragmatically. After a month I decided to go through thorough “modern” medical procedures to identify root cause of my problem. After three weeks of testing, nothing was found. That was puzzling but I decided that time and good nutrition will heal me. Only if I would know that this experience will totally twist my perspective on everything I have done in my life up to this day and will be the most transformative event of my life. Why? Because my adulthood was based always on plans that sooner or later worked out, procedures and principles that got me to the target but suddenly no plan seemed to work, situation of my health was getting worse and for the first time in my life, I did not know what to do, there was suddenly no plan I can think of. I felt like I am running out of options and don’t know what to do. It all escalated by my complete breakdown with intensive pain in my stomach and neck and I ended up in the hospital. From that point the journey of transformation truly started. I will not go anymore into the details but I will summarise the list of things that my health condition (that to this day it has not been resolved) taught me about myself and life. I am not sure how much these things are transferable to someone else who did not experience similar setback in life but they are at least worth reminding

1. everybody is wishing you health first but until you lose it, you have no idea what it means – this one is hard since you never know what will happen to you, but it is important to have people around you who support you. Find those people and have them by your side. Explain them what you need from them and ask them what they need from you.
2. mindset and self-awareness is the strongest thing you gonna have in this journey – dark thoughts will be around you a lot and you must find the way how to spend as minimum time as possible with them. You must accept they will be around (see prehistoricOs post). For me meditation practice helped a lot because it enabled me to be much more an observer rather than person who identified with them. It is very hard but it can be done over time. Just be patient and build this skill. It will serve you for the rest of your life.
3. patience – the new drug, new procedure, new doctor, new shamanic process, new chiropractic. I tried that all. We simply dwell too much on the next thing that will definitely will be the cure. If you do that you will be on the emotional rollercoaster of disappointments. Start accepting that nobody knows and your only goal is  to keep searching/fighting (process) and stop dwelling on the outcome (nobody knows the future anyway)
4. acceptance – accept it, don’t fight it. Embrace it. The worst thing you can do whenever the pain or dark thoughts appear is to fight it. Remember, what you resist, persist. To hate it, to become sad, to wish to be healthy again and on and on. All of this will make you even more sad, more weak. Learning to accept any state/condition I am in was one of the hardest thing because as you know I have always been the guy with the plan. How?
5. know your why – I have written about this short post. Understand your motives so you spend your life doing the right things.
6. even batman had a bat-cave – with pain usually throughout the day and mental suffering your prehistoricOS is constantly imposing on you, you become very tired by the end of the day. My old routine was to juggle with multiple projects after work or doing intensive workout or reading until going to bed. I had to unlearn this and find things that can ease the pain and get me ready for bed. I created routine around bath time with magnesium salts, tea, stretching and meditation that set me up well for the night.
7. hack your sleep – in the times likes this, do everything you can to have the best sleep conditions possible. I mean everything. From red lights starting at 8PM, correct temperature in the room, darkness, regular time and length of sleep, no screen time prior to bed, sleep mask, serotonin supplements, etc. Whatever it takes because in sleep the healing magic happens and your capacity to deal with your daemons the next day increases with the good amount of sleep
8. your body has unbelievable power to heal, if you let it – healthy body, healthy mind. Eat well, think the way that makes you happy, do things that make sense, move, sleep well and be with right people. Body will use all that energy and heal all your wounds if you let it,
9. find help – find a psychotherapist who will be able to work with you and help you in your mental journey as well. This has been very important thing to first accept it and then do it. It has helped me tremendously because sometimes I don’t have the mindset to fight it nor the energy, you hate everything and everyone and you start to question what is the point of doing anything.
10. share it – share what you are going through with your loved ones and tell them what you need. Ask them how they feel because they are going through struggle as well not knowing how they can help you. Regularly tell them how they can help and express gratitude when they do. They will feel less helpless next to you.

Given what I have described above, here is the list of things that make so much sense to me when living my own life. Even now more then ever, they recharge me and I will continue to believe in them as long as they will serve me well. They are not goals, but systems, lifestyle that makes me happy and they are described in a way so it is written for myself:

• Focus on internals > externals – your internals, your inner voice defines your self worth. Love yourself, accept any mistake you have/make and define your virtues. Live by those virtues because nobody can take those from you.
• You are human being, not human doing – Stop doing things for the sake of doing something. Don’t beat yourself up for doing nothing. Learn to just be. Losen up. Life is a dance, not a sprint nor marathon. On the contrary, learn the skill of just being but seek balance.
• Less – Dieter Rams calls it “less but better”. I prefer it “less but with depth”. Try to focus more on depth rather then broad shallowness (as you used to). It brings more satisfaction. It produces less dopamine spikes, but the point is not to be dopamine junkie. The point is to learn something meaningful to truly understand the subject and enjoy the journey of learning it.
• Enough – truly define what “enough” means for you. Define when you feel rich. Rich emotionally, monetarily, mentally and relationship wise. That enough can change (for example with children) but it is important to clearly define it.
• Seek creativity over money that speaks to your strengths –  seeking patterns, figuring stuff out, making sense of data and building connections in them while building system is a craft I enjoy. Follow it.
• Multidisciplinary craftmanship – anything what requires multidisciplinary combination of skills that takes longer time to learn is what I call craftsmanship. It can be basically anything you do over and over and over and over again and you get better at it over time. Being a CEO, Software architect or being a trader is in my words a multidisciplinary craft.
• Void – learn to be alone, learn to be alone without distractions, learn the art of “just sitting”, learn to just observe. Learn to just be. Seek forest and nature to learn this skill.
• Seek balance – any extreme is not healthy. Seek your balance and don’t stay too long in one extreme, because if you do, you are losing in other aspects on the opposite side. See quick memento I have written.
• Process > Outcome – this has been theme and principle I believe in for some time. Goals come and go. They make out of you unhappy dopamine junkie that is never done. Process is about building systems that stick. Systems form healthy habits for life that focus on lifestyle rather then unpredictable future and goals.
• Build principles and virtues – they help you to simplify your life that has become over the years much more about convenience rather then just the hard earned output.
• Essential convenience – do the essential, automate the rest. Be smart about what and who you spent time with. Time is your scarcest resource, don’t waste it on things and people that are not absolutely necessary.
• Coaching > managing – You can either give person a fish or teach them how to fish. Always seek coaching first but be on alert when it is important to manage. Sometimes you have to switch between those two (zoom in/zoom out) to get things going, but your weapon of first choice is coaching. It used to be managing, but you did it mainly to seek approval of others.
• Context first – understand the context first before you start giving advices or proceed with a plan. We all live in our small bubbles and create stereotypes based on our small sample size. Dig deep to earn an opinion. Then lead with that opinion and stay open-mined.
• People – people are driven by their kernel (prehistoricOS). Around that kernel there are their beliefs (past), dreams (future), motives and personality (skills, abilities, strengths, weaknesses). Unconditionally love people, share your vulnerabilities, ask for theirs and believe in the reciprocity of the universe. Dont expect anything back, lead by example.
• Meaningful work, meaningful relationship – seek smart heart minded people who complement your weaknesses and can have thoughtful disagreement. These domains will bring you tremendous amount of satisfaction.
• Respect ^2 – respect yourself, respect others. By respecting yourself, understand your limits, give love to your weaknesses and welcome fears with love and acceptance. Respect others and their journey. It is not your journey so you have no right to control them. Listen to them and share your experience, nothing else.
• Share experience unconditionally – share your experience, but never expect people to follow it. Their reality is not yours and they are in no way oblige to follow your advice. Be an inspiration but never expect anything back.
• Love always beats fear – fear will never go away but it can become your friend. Don’t fear the fear, just gently welcome it whenever it appears and ask yourself what belief triggered this fear. Change the belief and fear will fade out overtime. Accept you can afford to feel the fear. You are human, mammal with all its limite so don’t do something more from yourself then you actually are 🙂
• Become your own observer – be continuous observer of your beliefs – observe situations and emotions it triggers. Become observer who can truly relax, observe and replace old beliefs that no longer serve me with new beliefs that make me more happy, more self-aware.
• loosen up – you have been obsessed with control. You did not seek balance. It is time to change it a little. Allow yourself the uncomfortable situations when you do not have control, where you are led. Relax and enjoy it and if fear appears, do what you have said above you will do.
• express clearly your needs – don’t expect others will decode your needs that sometimes even you are to confused to decrypt. Clearly articulate what you want and what you need.
• never stop being curious – no words needed. Curiosity is one of the most important elements on your journey of learning. The reason why you are here.
• return regularly back to past to clear your fears 

I look forward what 2020 will bring. I believe that we have a strong decade ahead of us full of new adventures and learning. Lets build beliefs that will make us more courages, more relaxed, more curious and more happy people who can enjoy the journey we have been given.

Carpe diem.

JK