2024 in review, photo-edition

December, the month to do all sorts of reflections and exercises in thankfulness. The year wasn't extraordinarily busy, just as I like it. I spent my time wisely, and didn't travel a lot. Let's go over the year with some photos!

In the beginning of the year, the Domtower in Utrecht (my city), still looked like this:

At around September, the renovation was finally in its finishing stages. It took years to restore this church tower. Since it's our most iconic building, it was more meaningful than I expected to see it in its full glory again!

Other cityscapes that I captured on my iPhone:

Hobbies

I enjoyed: handwriting, playing music on my record player, biking

Life

Still went to the gym 4x per week, have kept that up since 2020! Not planning on stopping, ever! Honestly, if I'm 80 years old and still physically capable of going, you will find me at the gym.

I went out of the country just a few times. We went to Wales for a peer conference, to Portugal for a week and to Sweden for a conference.

Misc.

I'll write a separate post to reflect on work this year, but on a personal level it has been a good year. Not a lot of stress, and I did plenty of things that brought me joy. Most importantly, I learned to give fewer shits about stuff that is outside my circle of influence.

Also, for the longest time, I thought other people were smarter than me when it came to "wisdom" or "facts" that are taken for granted, but that I had other opinions about. I was doubting myself a lot. This year, I've learned that it's also a possibility that my ideas and thoughts about these things aren't invalid at all! I'm less of an idiot than I think. Is this trying to be more like a mediocre white man (full of confidence, often incorrect)? Perhaps. To me, it feels more like finally undoing years of imposter syndrome, and putting my foot down to protect myself. I'm not super vocal about this, it's more of an internal thing. Less self-doubt, more confidence that I could be correct. I feel this is an important skill to learn, as the real world turns more into a meme with every passing day.

What were your personal highlights this year?