2022: Year in Review
4 min readJan 5, 2023
2022 was one of my most memorable years yet. I’m sharing a few highlights, lessons & my favourite works of media from the year below.
In 2022, I:
- Joined 0x as a product manager. Working remotely as part of a global team has been fulfilling. It has also made it more evident that I want to build something that makes remote work more ubiquitous.
- Got to meet my co-workers in person during our team offsite.
- Lived and worked in a few cities during the year. Yay, remote work!
- Made a LOT of great memories with my friends and family. Including adding two new family members!
- Saw some of my favourite musicians live. Shoutout to Asa & Adekunle Gold for the beautiful, beautiful performances I witnessed.
- Got endorsed for the UK Global Talent Visa by Tech Nation.
- Experienced a lot of personal and emotional growth. I felt myself become more self-aware and introspective throughout the year.
I’ve gone back and forth on including lowlights, and decided against it for personal reasons. But I’m including this here so whoever reads it knows that there were, infact, lowlights.
Lessons I internalized this year.
I say internalized because these aren’t novel, they just became more ingrained in me:
- A lot of things are out of my control: A good outcome doesn’t always stem from good decision-making, and a bad outcome isn’t always evidence of bad decision-making. There are a lot of factors outside of my control that can impact the eventual outcome of a decision e.g., the weather, the actions of other people, etc. Knowing this helps me to give grace to others as well as myself. It also helps me value repeatable processes over one-off results.
- A lot of things are within my control: Identifying what is in my control helps me take responsibility for those things to increase my chances of success. It pushes me to be responsible for my preparedness, mistakes, and joy. When something doesn’t go my way, I force myself to identify what parts I had to play. I ask myself questions like, “Could I have advocated for what I wanted more?”, “Could I have been more proactive?”, “Could my tone have been kinder?” etc.
- Most of the world as I know it was created by humans just like me. And it is still being shaped and built: This means that I can take action and create the world I want — both physically and ideologically. While rules about the current state of the world are often time-tested shortcuts, they can also be entirely based on the thoughts of others and not rooted in my reality. This reminds me to evaluate canons on their own merit and consider that disobedience can also be a virtue.
- The future isn’t pre-written. In most cases, I can course-correct, pivot, or simply pause: This helps me avoid analysis paralysis and gives me the courage to turn around even in the face of sunk costs. Of course, this doesn’t mean that everything can be undone. It simply means that even then, I can adapt and find my way around.
- Ẹlẹ́kún sunkún Aláyọ̀ n yọ̀ . Grief & joy often co-dwell. Good & bad too: This helps me cope with the constant barrage of good and bad news — often all at once — in the world. It also reminds me that there’s a lot of grey in real life, and that people and situations are usually not all good or bad. It reminds me to give and take grace and relieves me of the need to always have straightforward answers.
There are probably a few more, but these specifically came to mind as I wrote this.
To conclude, here are five pieces of media (books, music, shows, etc.) that made 2022 extra special for me:
I hope 2023 is even more adventurous and beautiful.
