Frankly I am reluctant to lay my hands on this topic because I’m afraid I might send a wrong message to the people around me, I honestly do not want them to be worried, but I figure people who knew me well knows I have quite high Emotional Intelligence, so writing about this topic won’t be such a big deal. I am also worried that my current or future employer might stumble upon this blog post and found out all my weaknesses, I realized that no one is perfect in this world, if I am courageous enough to stand out and be vocal about my weaknesses, won’t be easier for me to overcome it and help me grow in the long run? Plus won’t be better for the employer to know all my strength and weaknesses first before they hire me? I already mentioned some of the following point during the annual performance review anyways.

In the past few days I felt absolutely terrible about myself, the reason is because next month, 16 September 2008 is my 2 year anniversary working as a professional Software Engineer, I’m sad and angry with myself because in the past 24 months I didn’t accomplish much in my professional life. I felt stagnant, I felt like a rotten vegetable. Although I have defined set of goals, I realized that majority of the baby goals I accomplished doesn’t reach maturity. I contemplated and realized a few things about my habit that landed myself on the current state:

Apparently I still fail in planning

Every time there is a major millstone coming up, I stop and stumbled because I am not prepared. I procrastinate because details overwhelmed me, then when I finally have the focus and energy to handle things that I am supposed to handle a few days ago, I am left with just enough time to shave my armpit. The funny thing is, I am fully aware that I am procrastinating, I know the repercussion of slacking off when I am supposed to do something more important, but at that point of time my mind is so overloaded with details I just failed to take action.

I burned off regularly, but luckily most of the time it is not due to my ignorance

Due to my high stress, short due date environment I tend to burned out once in a while. The scary part is, I really enjoy the fast paste long hours work day because I am doing what I love every single day. My point of failure is to know when enough is enough, I can punch a problem for more then 7 to 8 hours straight without skipping a beat. Although my method has its advantages, I learn things faster and I am stumbled upon new technological paradigm more often, my mental agility degrade more often then usual too, and when that happen, nothing can interrupt my mind during the state of recovery, luckily the time to took for me to reboot isn’t long.

I suck in managing money

Just look at my credit card statement and the problem is instantly apparent, I am thankful that my ignorance with money didn’t cause enough damage to make me broke, it is still not too late to recover although it will take me several months to clear off my debt. The root cause of the problem is I do not have a tiny bit of respect for money, I view money only as a tool for me to acquire stuff that I need, nothing more. I failed to understand the importance of having a solid financial future, because of that I did not pace my spending.

I didn’t exercise, because I am lazy

I am lazy because I didn’t exercise. I am getting fat, like 8 kg fatter, the BMI says I am mild overweight, some of my cloths doesn’t fit any more, I look like wrapped over burned bun if I wear a plain white T-shirt. Essentially I lost my mojo to my weight, but it is undeniable that I am cute now and not macho as I used to be. That is not good, not good at all.

I am very happy about my internal quality control because it make me feel sad and miserable for while, it is sort of a warning signal that let me know I am not on track with my life purpose. Has it not make me feel this way, I might drift further and further away from what I really want in my life, and before I knew it, I am laying in my coffin crying my heart out because I wasted my life.

How do you feel about your life?

If you don’t like it, change it, before it is too late.