Thank you, next
Hi, 2023 👋
2022 was about transition, explorations, travelling, and becoming a little more mature. Every year I retrospect professionally and personally to know myself better, which helps me grow 🌱 and appreciate lovely people and great opportunities.
This year I am thankful for many people and opportunities which led me to explore myself and helped me have a better mental state. I will break down my highs and lows of 2022 in this blog.
Setting work-life boundaries 🧘♀️
It took me a year to accept and talk about how unhappy I was in my last job, which eventually affected my personal life. I am proud of my work there, but the culture significantly affected my mental health.
I was unable to set work-life boundaries. And when we talk about work-life boundaries, that doesn’t necessarily mean keeping work time separate from personal time. It also means not bringing your insecurities and frustrations of your work life into your personal life. My father always taught me to separate work and personal life. I could not understand it until the beginning of 2022 when I saw my mental health and personal relations worsening due to work.
I realized this year how important it is to set work-life boundaries. Your work is just a part of your life, not your whole life, and it does make sense to know when to stop and when to start.
Nemo Came into my life 🐈
This year Nemo 🐱 came into my life. He changed my perception of a lot of things. I could talk about him for hours, and I would love to talk about some of them here:
Love who takes care of you
We tend to take people who love and care about us for granted. And give so much damn to those who might not even remember us. But Nemo knows who feeds them, and he tends to provide them with extra love and likes snuggles, head butts, or just regular quiet companionship.
Live in the moment
Nemo lives in the moment — he loves to do whatever he likes, sits on my lap, bothers me, sometimes moves to another room, and sometimes likes to play alone. I think I will take a lot of time to achieve this 😂. But the presence of Nemo keeps reminding me to be a little stress-free and enjoy the moment. Whenever I feel anxious, I play with him and feel better.
Respect other’s boundaries
My cat doesn’t like to be touched a lot. Initially, it was weird because I wanted to hold and play with him for hours, but eventually, I understood he wanted to be respected the way he was. That’s the same with Humans, respect them for who they are.
Career Exploration ✨
This Year I changed my role from a Software engineer to a Developer Relations Engineer — I have always loved breaking down tech concepts into simpler forms and used to write tech blogs, speak about it in conferences and meetups and do blog gigs whenever I got one. Eventually, I stumbled upon an opportunity at Gitpod through Pauline, whom I met at Ladies in DevOps Community✨ I applied for the position at Gitpod, and here I am 🚀
This Year I started my journey with Gitpod. So how is it so far? Lots to brainstorm, create and produce — This is how I can sum up my experience so far 💙
I met amazing folks, got to suggest new ideas and implemented them end-to-end with the team. One of the best think about DevRel is — You get to work and collaborate with amazing people ✨
What’s next 🤔 ?
I am still trying to figure out this role — If I want to continue it or not, but I am sure that I would love to explore more, learn more and keep building and shipping great things — That is what I love the most. Cheers to what lies ahead 🥂
Conferences and Talks 📣
Wow! Back to in-person conferences and meetups again 🤗. This year I attended my first in-person conference in two years. Honestly, it was awkward, and I was afraid for some reason but excited as well, as I got to meet so many people I knew through open source and social media.
I made new friends and met amazing people at DevRelCon Prague. I added some of my favorite people to this collage. I have talked about my experience in detail here ✨
This year I also got to speak at two conferences about my work 🎉 — “Observability In Data Ingestion” and ”Ensuring Security best practices Using CI.”
Launched Women In Cloud Native Community 🚀
I launched Women in Cloud Native Community this year with my friend Vrukshali Torawane 🎉 This has been one of the best things of 2022. I have always loved sharing and building together. So much lies ahead in the community, and I look forward to working on it in 2023.
Exploring South India ⛰ 🌊
This Year I explored South India, and wow, I was speechless. South India is beautiful ✨
I also did a solo trip to Kerala. Solo trips are fun 😄. You get to meet new people and explore new places. Every year I go on one solo trip to spend time with myself and nature.
Thank you, next (2023) 🚂
I am thankful for 2022 and to all the people I met who helped and uplifted me. It was an amazing year for my mental health.
In 2023 I look forward to learning new skills in tech, building hands-on projects, and making women in cloud native a success 💪 I would love to dedicate the first half of my year to learning more about cloud and security. I would work on my anxiety — I get pretty anxious, which slows down my efficiency 😅
Thank you for reading. Wish you all a happy new year! ❤️
