It has been more than a year since this whole debacle began and tipped the balance for most of us. Working from home, masks and lock-downs have taken a toll, to say the least.

But, eventually we all had to come out of the shock and rearrange our lives to the new normal. On the other hand, we also had time, to find new hobbies, embrace existing ones, learn something new, etc. My method of coping primarily involved writing articles, reading the books that I never thought I had time to before and learning some new technologies.

Writing Articles. Sort of...

On April 6, 2020, after the start of lock-down in India, I published my first article on LinkedIn. Then another on the next week and then another and so on, which of course lead to the 52 (53 including this one) articles in the end.

To be honest, I thought, I may drop this one article per week like any other "new year resolution" and just move on. But somehow, I did not. My team, especially my manager, was one of the reason I had started this and went on. Without the feedback and encouragement from them, my friends and my LinkedIn network, this would not have been possible.

I think, going forward, even if the frequency of publishing articles might get reduced, I am not planning to stop. Granted, these articles were mostly comprised of content from other articles, blogs and YouTube videos, I had to do little research on most of these topics. But, by doing this and engaging myself, I was guaranteed to learn something new every single week.

At first, it was very easy to find the topics for the articles. But I too faced the "writer's block" - if I may be so bold to call myself a writer, even though there there were plenty of topics - old and new, to write about. But somehow, every week, I turned up with a topic resulting from random web browsing or conversation with my friends.

Building a personal website.

Even before all of this, I was working on building myself an online portfolio. After all, I am a software developer, who happens to know how to build a website and have worked on several. This would be a testimony of my ability to do the same.

I would be lying if I said I had done it all by myself. So many people helped me create and modify the design, choosing the technologies to build, where to host etc. I used GitHub Pages and Heroku at first and eventually, as per suggestion from most of my friends and I decided to buy a domain. I did get help in choosing the best possible option for that as well.

And just like that AghilJose.com came to existence and my personal blog - which has all the articles that I publish here on LinkedIn.

Assembling a custom PC.

I have had used many desktops and laptops in the past, but not once anything with the components which I have chosen and built from scratch. It was always a laptop on sale or a configuration which was determined to be the a good build, by somebody else. Now, I had time (a lot of it) and money to do so.

So as a result of a month long research and help, I was able to buy necessary components and build my desktop PC myself.

Learning

As long as there are open online course providers to get me courses for free or on a good deal, I was and am ready to learn something new anytime. YouTube, LinkedIn Learning and Udemy were extremely helpful in fulfilling these requirements.

Books. Books. Books...

Reading to me was habit, that eventually turned in to a hobby, with time. And now, I had lots of time. I am proud to say that, I changed the hobby to a routine now. For most of last year, I was busy building my PC and my website among other things. But now, I find at least, 1 hour to read, everyday. Just this year, I was able to read 6 (7 including last year) books and on my 7th book this year.

Some of the books include

• Sapiens – A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari.
• Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari.
• 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Yuval Noah Harari.
• Poor Economics, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo.
• Art of War, Sun Tzu.

All of these insightful books has helped me to gain a new outlook towards the world.

New Networks

During this time, I was able to connect, interact and talk with a lot of remarkable people on LinkedIn. These connections eventually lead to fruitful discussions, lot of webinars and helped me to learn many things that I would otherwise not have.

It helped me gain more insights to the realms of Extended Reality(XR), automotive industry and computer hardwares to name a few.

Take care of yourselves.

All these pandemic inevitably got me thinking about my own mortality and got me to take care of myself more. So many people have talked about this on various platforms and especially on LinkedIn and I do agree with them. Everybody has to take care of themselves for a change. Sleepless nights and working longer hours is not something to be appreciated. Everything has its limits and everybody needs a break. After all, we are still human beings. Getting good sleep, working out regularly and eating healthy food should also be part of the new normal(at least, it is my new normal).

Almost everybody goes through the imposter syndrome(Again, so many have spoken about this). You may think you are not as good as someone else. Trust me, I have been there. Well guess what? There was, is and will be someone better at something that you do (not necessarily always and at everything). But what we can do (or what i do), is try to learn something new whenever possible and better ourselves gradually. Everybody has their own pace.

The world is not in your books and maps, it's out there.

And when finally when the lock-downs were over and it was relatively safe to go out, I was lucky to go on some short trips with my friends as well.

The pandemic is still not over and we still cannot let our guard down. So, until things get back to what it was (also after), hopefully sooner than later, take care of yourselves, learn and explore new things and places and stay safe.

Disclaimer : The views and opinions expressed in the article belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author's employer, organisation, committee or other group or individual.