Journey Through Years: Reflecting on Growth, Principles, and Future Aspirations (2024)

Since the year 2020, I have shared my reflections on the year and my expectations for the upcoming one. It’s interesting to review these notes.

I would say the main difference between the older and newer reflections is that my thoughts and ideas have become more structured. In the first one or two years, I discussed specific goals I had achieved or missed and what I wanted to achieve the following year. These diverse goals showed that I was still exploring the world. Since 2022, I’ve focused more on forming my own principles to navigate life. I still have goals and aspirations, but they are now part of a larger framework.

Reflection shouldn’t be done only once a year because humans tend to forget. We often overestimate the lasting effects of both happiness and pain. Given enough time, our feelings weaken. That’s why it’s important to reflect regularly. This year, I attempted to write weekly/monthly reflections, and the yearly reflection is essentially a summary of these. (I must confess that I didn’t write every week.)

I listed seven guiding principles in my 2022 year-end reflection. I believe there is no need for change, as adhering to these principles will at least prevent me from failing:

1. High moral standards, righteousness, and trustworthiness
2. Humility
3. Usefulness to the world
4. Healthiness
5. A drive to understand the world
6. Long-term thinking and being a friend of time
7. Focus

Reviewing my weekly/monthly reflections, I felt proud of maintaining high moral standards and being trustworthy. However, the inner battle between good and evil is real. It doesn’t mean I won’t defend my interests if someone tries to harm them. It’s a struggle over whether to become that person on the other side, as the immediate gain is tempting, and I feel angry each time. I’ve concluded it’s not worth being that person; one cannot cheat their way to the top, and I must stand up for my interests. Being good doesn’t mean being weak.

I also felt proud of my curiosity to better understand the world. As previously mentioned, I think the world can be divided into the Physical, Psychological, and Logical realms. I’ve read extensively on these subjects, completing books such as “Calculus” by Michael Spivak (an introduction to Analysis), “價值” by 張磊, “心” by 稻盛和夫, “Pioneering Portfolio Management” by David F. Swensen, “Difficult Conversations” by Douglas Stone, “What Color Is Your Parachute?” by Richard N. Bolles, “Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction” by Philip Tetlock, and “Bold Vision: The Untold Story of Singapore’s Reserves and Its Sovereign Wealth Fund” by Freddy Orchard. Alongside these books, I’ve also been actively reading about Linear Algebra, Causal Inference, Reinforcement Learning, and the Credit Card Industry later this year. Apart from books, I mainly read articles on science, artificial intelligence, and finance through Medium and Feedly, following various RSS feeds. I tried reading the WSJ and Financial Times, but the information overload led me to unsubscribe. I think I’ll focus on materials with higher information density for now.

I need to improve in humility. There are two aspects to this issue. First, overconfidence may hinder progress. Second, even if I’m right, the way I express my understanding and confidence may hurt others’ feelings. In my reflections, I consistently ponder these aspects. I’m not overly concerned about overconfidence, as I’m aware of many unknowns. My main concern is how quickly I judge right from wrong, which often intensifies conflicts in conversations. I need to improve my persuasion techniques, but first, I must control the urge to prove things right or wrong.

Another area for improvement is health. I’m still very healthy according to my health screenings, but I want to develop a consistent exercise habit, including both aerobic and anaerobic exercises. The main obstacle is time. To develop a habit, consistency is key. However, routines can be disrupted by holidays, overtime work, fatigue, illness, etc. Another issue is that I mainly do aerobic exercises. Incorporating weight training is important for preventing muscle loss and improving appearance.

For the remaining three principles – usefulness to the world, long-term thinking and being a friend of time, and focus – I don’t have much to say for now. Perhaps it’s because I’m still young. However, they will become increasingly important as I age, so it’s better to incorporate these factors into my decision-making going forward.

Looking ahead to 2024, I will continue to follow these seven principles and have outlined some areas of focus below:

In conclusion, I hope that sharing these reflections publicly will not only serve as a personal reminder to me but also provide enlightenment and inspiration to all my readers