Another One of Those Years
A long overdue year in review
I have always been fixated on the idea of writing yearly reviews. I have noticed the practise among many people I admire. Yet writing my own year in review has been surprisingly challenging.
After a lot of procrastination and self-denials, this is my initial attempt at writing my year in review of 2024. I hope to maintain writing these reviews in the coming years maybe it will be a great reminder for the future me. Its like going back to your diary and re-reading your past notes and the thoughts you had then. It makes you chuckle and jiggle about where you have come and make you see how much you have grown. This will be a long writeup so you’ll have to bear with me.
I’ll go through some happening through out the year and finally with some failures I encountered during the year.
Breaking the bad habits
Starting the year I had some to-do lists I thought would be good to tick them off at the end of the year. This included some habits I thought of dropping and adopting some good ones. Exercising, eating good and healthy food, contributing effectively to whatever I put my hands on, making meaningful friendships and general self-improvement were some of the stuffs on my bucket list for the year. While I fixed some stuff, I also failed terribly at some.
I found myself struggling a lot with most of these. I guess it’s due to my bad habits and lack of sticking to the good habits. While I managed to get some exercises done in some months, I failed overally in managing the consistency. At times I just thought I ain’t wired for this exercise thing. I am not yet convinced with my intuition but I believe I can improve.
I started managing a tech related newsletter at the start of December 2023 as a side project. It has been an adventure full of its own ups and downs. Maintaining consistency by sending out these emails has been challenging especially being that I am the only one managing it. It is challenging being solo and handling curation, editing, proofreading, Q/A e.t.c.
Putting all the pieces together, ensuring the best of quality of every email is no small feet. Especially when you write for programmers who value their time and will skip off anytime you send them an email that doesn’t peek their interest. I found myself messing up in some of the emails with typos, structures e.t.c that I think would have been caught when I had an extra pair of eyes.
That being said I managed to send out the newsletter and in some weeks I felt drained of the energy but I kept pushing it out. I have a few hundred subscribers considering that its a relatively new newsletter in a small niche. I surely have learnt a bunch of things with this side-project.
Worthy Buys
I think we humans mostly have desires of some stuff we wish if we had would improve our living condition or improve our general happiness. I am no exception in this.
I’d wanted to upgrade my bedding for ages. My old bedding set and mattress had served me well over the years, but they were starting to show their age. After saving up, I finally invested in a new bedframe and a high-quality foam mattress from Dr. Mattress.
I have to say since I got the foam mattress my sleep quality has been nothing short of awesome. From my Apple Watch sleep data, I spend more time in bed and wake up more rested. I rarely start the day grumpy anymore.
It’s also important to mention that the foam mattress is a bit pricey but its totally worth it. Since the bed is where we end and start the day, it’s great to begin and finish the day fully relaxed. I was able to get it on discount, which helped me save some cash. If you’re thinking of upgrading, I’d definitely recommend waiting for a discount.
Out of everything I bought this year, this has definitely been my best purchase.
Reads of the Year
At the start of the year, I made a resolution to read at least one book each month. It was tough at first, but I caught up by mid-year. In total, I read 14 books in 2024, which is a huge improvement compared to 2023, when I only managed to read 3
Here’s a list of all the books I read in 2024.
I started reading from the book at the bottom right and worked my way up to the top left, with the last book being at the top left. Some of these books really stuck with me, and I definitely have a few favourites.
I’m a bit impatient when it comes to books, if one doesn’t grab my attention, I drop it immediately and move on to something else. I believe there are so many amazing books out there that it’s better to skip the ones you’re not enjoying.
That said, here are some of my favourites from the list, in no particular order.
- Zero to One by Peter Thiel
- Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
- Genome by Matt Ridley
- Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
- Good to Great by Jim Collins
- And anything written by Dan Brown
If you probably love science fiction and history, I strongly suggest reading anything by Dan Brown. Brown is an amazing writer and he knows how to keep you turning the pages. His books are easy to read, with well-organized chapters and a way of hooking you right from the start.
I’d often find myself reading Dan Brown in the loo or late into the night. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond was also a great read. He talks about our human history and how nations grew and fell. It gives you a general world view from the ice-age era, to pre-colonial era. The book also talks about the origin of human civilisation as we know it today to domestication and how humans colonized various regions of the world.
Matt Ridely’s Genome is a good book on Science and Genetics in general. If your interested in the human Genome and genetics 🧬, this is a must-read. I learned some nuanced facts about human genome from this book. I’ll definitely be re-reading it in the future.
Viktor Franklin was also great at exploring human psychology in his Human’s search for meaning. He gives meaningful words of wisdom in navigating a world filled with chaos and uncertainty. I highly recommend this book.
I know everyone’s tastes are different, and if none of my favourite reads resonate with you, don’t worry — just find something else instead to read.
I don’t buy physical books, I would be financially crippled if I had to buy all of these books. I download epub version of these books instead and read those. They are all over the internet for free if you know how to search the web well. If you got some good read, please don’t hesitate and recommend them below so I can read them too. I cant wait to read some other amazing books in the coming year 2025.
Adventure
I got time during the year to visit a few great places. Some notable place that I visited that was amazing was Kitale Nature and Kitale Museum. The two places were amaxing with varying niceties. Kitale nature was more of a natural kind of place with preserved natural habitat of wild animals, plants and trees.
The animals there were unlike any I’d seen before. I saw a llama for the first time. Llamas are typically found in Peru and they were surprisingly friendly. I even got to touch one. I also got to see Ostrich for the first time. That bird is massive, with huge legs, but surprisingly gentle.
I also got to see other various birds and animal including some cranes, monkeys, lions, leopards together with some exotic types of plants I don’t remember their names. Kitale Nature is more of a preserved natural habitat with less of human interruption.
Kitale Museum was more of a traditional perspective on Kenyan communities, including its people, animals, and technology from the early 1900s and the pre-colonial era. I also had the chance to see various African snakes, including vipers, cobras, pythons, and others. It was fascinating to learn that pythons only eat once a week. And let me tell you, pythons are massive and intimidating to look at!
I also got to see how various communities traditionally built their homesteads, including the Giriama, Luhya, Kikuyu, and Luo. Along the way, I made some great friends.
While staying in Kisumu for my cousin’s wedding, I visited the Kisumu Museum, which was also amazing, though similar to the Kitale Museum with only a few differences. The only highlight at Kisumu museum was the aquarium. The aquarium was impressive with various kinds of fish. I guess they were over 20 different species of fish from various habitats.
I would suggest visiting this aquarium, the only downside is that visitors aren’t allowed to take videos or photos of the place or the fish, but it’s still worth the visit. The Shuka house was beautiful with colourful Shukas printed with swahili phrases. It was more of a showcase of the coastal life and cultures I guess.
If you get the chance to visit, definitely check out the aquarium and the Shuka House. There’s also a section dedicated to Luo culture and traditional ways of life, where you’ll find traditional houses and people dressed in authentic Luo attire.
The dancers are incredible and perform so beautifully. If you have some extra cash, a tip would really brighten their day. I didn’t manage to record their dance, though, since my phone died. They also have snakes, pythons, crocodiles, and tortoises. I learned that tortoises can live far longer than a human lifespan. In fact, the Kisumu Museum has the remains of the oldest tortoise ever recorded in Kenya.
In the last quarter of the year, I also visited Lake Naivasha. It was an amazing experience learning about how the lake serves the local community and just enjoying the peaceful surroundings. You should check my videos and photos about the place. I wish I got more money and time to visit some other amazing places. I know Kenya got some amazing places to visit and I’ll definitely try to visit them whenever I can. You can recommend me some amazing places you would want someone to visit too.
I document such expeditions in an instagram account. So if your interested in seeing some of these experiences and images together with some unedited videos you should check out unedited_scenes.
I’d also recommend buying souvenirs or artifacts from these places. They’re a great way to remember your trip and keep those memories alive when you’re back home. Plus, they make cool keepsakes.
Love Life
My love life is always a tricky thing to write about or explain, and I’m not even sure where to start. To keep it short, I broke up with my girlfriend toward the end of 2023 and have been on a bit of a love sabbatical since then.
This year, I’ve been meeting new people, but I’ve been careful not to get too caught up in anything serious. I think I need more time to figure out what I truly want, both for myself and in a partner. I’m feeling pretty skeptical about jumping into a relationship this year. It’s been more of a time for self-reflection, and honestly, I’m now more focused on getting my shit together.
My Failures
I didn’t follow through on some of the things I set out to do at the start of the year. One of those was writing a research paper. My goal was to write a peer-reviewed paper, and while I got it started, I never finished it or uploaded it to Academia.edu. I could make all kinds of excuses, but the truth is, I just didn’t follow through. I’m definitely planning to finish it next year and hopefully get it published. Watch for the next year in review.
I also failed at bringing a personal project to life. I have always wanted to build a useful product and build a great team around it but I failed. I thought through the project and looking at the business model I guess I needed to rethink it again cause the original idea wasn’t going to cut it. I managed to build the prototype for the initial product though.
As of now, I am rethinking a better business model and when it ticks I’ll give it another short and who knows. I hope in the coming year I could have a working MVP and onboard a few clients.
I also failed at getting into the gym and exercising. I terribly failed on this one, and at this point, I’m starting to think maybe I’m just not wired for it. But I know I can turn things around (hakuna mkate mgumu mbele ya chai 😆).
I love music a lot to the point that a weird thought convinced me I could make my own beats. Music really keeps me sane, especially since I spend most of my time alone and indoors. I did fail at this too.
I’ve also had some failures that I’m not going to put out here. I’m not proud of them, but the truth is I didn’t manage some things as well as I should have. I guess it happens to the best of us. All we can do is adjust, re-strategize, and come back stronger.
I also have some amazing people in my life who made this year worthwhile. Good friends are worth more than money.
I guess this is the end of this long-overdue year in review. Hopefully, next year will be filled with more wins and fewer failures. Thanks for reading this far, now go do something meaningful.
Yours truly,
