Italian translation is here! 🇮🇹
The end of the year is usually time for balances and reviews of the last 12 months, a good question we should ask ourselves is: what did I learn this year? Here's 5 lessons I've learned in 2016, in totally random order.
1) You can always find time for the things you care
Managing time is one of the most difficult skills to work on. Expecially when you spend most of your time working or on a bus stucked in the traffic jam (public transport in Rome is a nightmare) you value as gold any minute of your spare time. But what to do when you don't have this spare time? I think that if something is really worth it, you can always find some time for it. Even in the most unexpected ways: the time you make for something is more valuable than the spare time you can dedicate to it, because it requires efforts and sacrifices. I think this time is the measure of how much you care to something.
(I took this pic in September, on a day when I gave up all my duties and my few hours of sleep to go and throw baloons in the air, it was a very special day!)
2) Never stop learning
In January I took my Master degree, thus my university days were ufficially done. For some people this means no more exams and studying stuff. I did so for some months: I mean, besides learning what I needed to know for work, but it was most a matter of getting used to how to do things and not college-like learning with homeworks and exercises and so on. I felt like I was missing something. Something big. So in July I subscribed to Duolingo, a free service for learning languages and started to learn German - Ja, Ich spreche wenig Deutsch! - and I try to do my excercises everyday, sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, still Ich lerne etwas Neues (I learn something new).
In September then I enrolled to the MongoDB University and started my first class (M101P) a basic course for MongoDB developers. I did it just out of curiosity, but I actually learn something new and finally I got myself some structured formation about this technology, that so far was just made of stuff I knew by googling and reading APIs. A couple of weeks ago I also got my certification for passing the course with the highest degree!
(I do not take selfies when I study German, so in the pic there's me on my graduation day, let's pretend it's me studying stuff)
3) Don't do it for the money
Yeah, money is good. Being paid for doing stuff is very good. But not everything is about money. Sharing your skills and expertise for free makes you earn something priceless: self-respect, love, appreciation, that feeling of doing something just because you want to and not because you're paid to do it. You do not work for free, you work and feel free. That's great.
(The pic was taken in October, at the Maker Faire Rome, when I spent an afternoon showing Arduino projects to kids for a free t-shirt)
4) Take some time off
You don't have to be struggling 365 days in a year. Take some days off: tell your parents you are fine and then turn off the phone for a whole day, go visit new places, meet new people, taste new cakes, try running in the park if you never did it or try sunbathing in the park if you always go running.
Divert totally from your usual self so that you do not get always trapped in your daily routine of emails, texts and german lessons.
(The pic was taken in August, in Puglia, on a few days I took off from my everyday life)
5) You may not be alone on a sinking boat
When you're having bad times you may think you're the only one in the world that is facing those times and that no one out there can understand you. Well, you may be wrong. If you look better there may be someone "on your same boat", facing exactly the same issues. A good talk can do miracles for all of you. Sometimes it's just a matter of finding yourselves all together.
(I took this pic in May, while I was having a really good talk with some people on my same... pool side)
Bonus: Sh*t happens
Perhaps this is a lesson I will never learn. But that is. It happens and you cannot do anything to avoid it: you have just to deal with it and hope next year it will happen less frequently.
Happy new year!
Mari
The end of the year is usually time for balances and reviews of the last 12 months, a good question we should ask ourselves is: what did I learn this year? Here's 5 lessons I've learned in 2016, in totally random order.
1) You can always find time for the things you care
Managing time is one of the most difficult skills to work on. Expecially when you spend most of your time working or on a bus stucked in the traffic jam (public transport in Rome is a nightmare) you value as gold any minute of your spare time. But what to do when you don't have this spare time? I think that if something is really worth it, you can always find some time for it. Even in the most unexpected ways: the time you make for something is more valuable than the spare time you can dedicate to it, because it requires efforts and sacrifices. I think this time is the measure of how much you care to something.
(I took this pic in September, on a day when I gave up all my duties and my few hours of sleep to go and throw baloons in the air, it was a very special day!)
2) Never stop learning
In January I took my Master degree, thus my university days were ufficially done. For some people this means no more exams and studying stuff. I did so for some months: I mean, besides learning what I needed to know for work, but it was most a matter of getting used to how to do things and not college-like learning with homeworks and exercises and so on. I felt like I was missing something. Something big. So in July I subscribed to Duolingo, a free service for learning languages and started to learn German - Ja, Ich spreche wenig Deutsch! - and I try to do my excercises everyday, sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, still Ich lerne etwas Neues (I learn something new).
In September then I enrolled to the MongoDB University and started my first class (M101P) a basic course for MongoDB developers. I did it just out of curiosity, but I actually learn something new and finally I got myself some structured formation about this technology, that so far was just made of stuff I knew by googling and reading APIs. A couple of weeks ago I also got my certification for passing the course with the highest degree!
(I do not take selfies when I study German, so in the pic there's me on my graduation day, let's pretend it's me studying stuff)
3) Don't do it for the money
Yeah, money is good. Being paid for doing stuff is very good. But not everything is about money. Sharing your skills and expertise for free makes you earn something priceless: self-respect, love, appreciation, that feeling of doing something just because you want to and not because you're paid to do it. You do not work for free, you work and feel free. That's great.
(The pic was taken in October, at the Maker Faire Rome, when I spent an afternoon showing Arduino projects to kids for a free t-shirt)
4) Take some time off
You don't have to be struggling 365 days in a year. Take some days off: tell your parents you are fine and then turn off the phone for a whole day, go visit new places, meet new people, taste new cakes, try running in the park if you never did it or try sunbathing in the park if you always go running.
Divert totally from your usual self so that you do not get always trapped in your daily routine of emails, texts and german lessons.
(The pic was taken in August, in Puglia, on a few days I took off from my everyday life)
5) You may not be alone on a sinking boat
When you're having bad times you may think you're the only one in the world that is facing those times and that no one out there can understand you. Well, you may be wrong. If you look better there may be someone "on your same boat", facing exactly the same issues. A good talk can do miracles for all of you. Sometimes it's just a matter of finding yourselves all together.
(I took this pic in May, while I was having a really good talk with some people on my same... pool side)
Bonus: Sh*t happens
Perhaps this is a lesson I will never learn. But that is. It happens and you cannot do anything to avoid it: you have just to deal with it and hope next year it will happen less frequently.
Happy new year!
Mari
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