Ending 2024
I can't complain about 2024, but I can't say that it was a great year. I was blessed with many good challenges at work, I was blessed to move into a new home with my lovely family. I am happy that we didn't lose any relatives. We celebrated the 100th birthday of my grandma-in-law.
My very first public training tanked and I learned good lessons. I was welcomed in many private training and consulting sessions. In some of these I felt that I learned more than I taught. I met amazing designers and had the opportunity to work side-by-side with them. I can't call them out publicly because they will probably be plucked immediately :)
I also met lame designers who don't see any issues with scamming their clients and then boasting about their "success" loudly on LinkedIn. The absolute low point: Junior self-taught graphic designer tricks big corporate client into hiring them as a UX design lead for a project. Designer finds a very detailed but fictional design case study in English done by an Indian designer, ChatGPT-translates this into Turkish, then copy-pastes the translated steps into Confluence titled under "Design strategy". In the meanwhile the global design community wonders where the profession is going...
All clients have paid their bills this year, which is quite an achievement 🙂 I didn't say that all of them paid on time, but they paid with the year, which is miraculous for Middle East and Balkans.
In some weeks stress and the desire to just feel some peace, some calmness obliterated my very healthy diet. Despite those weeks, I was able to keep my hypertension, cholesterol and weight relatively under control. I kinda sorta stuck with my gym routine, but I wasn't able to add daily meditation to it. I got enamored with Asian cooking techniques, especially with steam and wok. I can't believe the amount of fresh ginger I am going through every week. I am less surprised about the amount of garlic and chili.
I couldn't get into music as much as I wanted to. I played almost nothing on my clarinet, I failed at my routine in learning how to scratch. Despite that, I feel that I have refined my direction towards tech house and melodic progressive genres. I had the most amazing time playing at Kalpazankaya sunsets during summer, 1/3 due to my music selection, 1/3 due to the super humble cool crowd that showed up, and 1/3 due to İbrahim, the fascinating owner.
So thank you 2024 for everything you brought in and for every lesson you gave me.
For 2025
I have three wishes for 2025:
Health: Nothing is more important than health. Our own health matters, our family's health matters, our friends' health matters. The health of people who help us, the health of people who manage us matters. So if I get one wish for 2025, it's health💧
Bereket: Bereket translates to English as abundance, but it has a nuance that extends beyond just financial abundance. Having bereket is about having abundance in everything you do. When you have bereket, things you do multiply, people whom you interact with prosper, things you bring into your life get bigger and better. I guess this has been missing for me for quite a while, so I would welcome some bereket this year 🤗
Peace (of mind): Not being on the edge all the time is the best feeling, after being healthy. For me, doing less but better things without rushing brings this peace of mind. However, it is hard to keep this peace when I see the turmoil around: insane inflation rates in Türkiye robbing future generations of their potential, televised genocide and war crawling further out into where I live, rise of hatred regimes around the world, in places where close friends live, in places where I could see myself living in the future. We need a miracle to reverse this in short time and unfortunately, I don't think it's going to happen. I am hoping that there will be positive steps in 2025 🍊
Happy holidays and a magnificent year full of health, abundance and peace 🌟
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