I know a "year in review" of 2023 may be coming late now but I feel like it's still necessary that I do it. The year 2023 was a memorable one. It came with unique challenges, fun, wins, losses, bad times, and great times. Personally, one of the important parts of my experience in 2023 was the lessons I learned and that is what this article is all about.

At the beginning of the year, I worked full-time as a Front-end Engineer at a De-Fi startup in Nigeria. Then, I was still in my second year at the university (as a Pharmacy student). My experience at the beginning of the year was filled with anxiety and depression. Mehn, I was struggling to balance my academics and my engineering career. It was tough for me because Nigerian universities lost almost a year due to a nationwide strike in 2022. This nationwide strike lasted about nine months. The universities were eager to recover the time they lost so, there was a lot of pressure in school. They were rushing every academic activity. To tell you how bad it was, a semester lasted about two months. This means that students were writing exams or quizzes every two months.

In all these, I was trying to be sane and do well both at work and at school. The worst part of it is that I needed more money so I had to work extra jobs so I could sustain myself in school. I trained myself in school so I had to stack up money for my rent, school fees, and other expenses. I had no reason not to work hard and I did work hard.

Around April, communications at the startup I worked at paused for almost a month. This was when big tech companies were on a layoff spree so I had a reason to know my status and fate at work. I tried reaching out to the CEO and the CTO but I was ghosted for about 3 weeks. One random day, I got a call from the CEO and he told me the company was having financial issues. Long story short, I was going to be let go.

For the first time, I experienced what it meant to be laid off. I understood the reality of being an employee(highly paid or not). It was a tough time cos then I had to put in extra effort to manage my finances so I wouldn't go penniless. Also, I had to start making plans for a new source of income before I ran out of money. I was lucky that I saved up a significant amount of money before this time. When I was working, at some point I was saving more than 70% of my salary. This saving habit saved me because, with my savings then, I could last 7-8 months without working and be fine.

While reflecting on my life in this period, I had to accept the fact that I was "incompetent". That was a hard pill to swallow and I'm glad I did it (at least nobody was gonna fire me then you know 😄). After I became aware of my "incompetence", I was so sure that I did not want to continue that way. I decided that I wanted to become a competent engineer so I started thinking of ways to help myself. I thought and realized that the only way I could do this was through active learning and practice. Even though I wasn't happy then with my incompetence, I was glad that I had chosen the path of competence. It was a bitter-sweet experience.

I was now aware of my skill gaps and was eager to fill them to level up in my career and I got hit by another issue — time. There was little time to learn as much as I wanted since each semester lasted about 2 months. I was either writing exams or quizzes almost all the time. My school did two academic sessions in 2023 so you can imagine what the stress would be like. I had no other option than to learn proper time management. I learned to design a timetable for myself and stick to it. This way I was able to do fine while balancing schoolwork, improving my skills, and working on side gigs.

On several occasions, I was so depressed. I always felt like I was stuck and I needed to move but I was either not moving or moving in the wrong direction. I felt like I wasn't supposed to be in school in the first place; I mean I should be facing my career full-time. I felt like every other person or thing was moving fast except me. I always had this feeling that I had to catch up to something but I couldn't figure out what exactly I had to catch up to. All these ill feelings always lead me to cycles of depression and anxiety.

As time went on, I was sure I didn't want to continue living with low energy. I figured out that most times I got depressed were a result of me avoiding doing the right thing at the right time. This simple lesson made me learn how to manage my time and learn to operate with high agency. It also pushed me to focus on spending my time on activities I find to be rewarding.

I stayed for months without working or applying for any job (I felt like I needed to rest and learn a ton of stuff). I had more time for my schoolwork then and also more time to sharpen my skills. I enrolled in Harvard's Introductory Computer Science course (CS50). Since I wasn't working for hours anymore, I was always learning and coding to sharpen my skills.

Another lesson I learned in 2023 is that there is a solution to almost every problem. The challenge usually lies in finding the solution. This is a simple lesson and I don't intend to expand on it. The truth is that unless you're faced with some kind of "P vs NP" problem, there is a solution to every problem. Most times, the issue with some problems is that you haven't given them enough attention. Having this lesson at the back of my mind has helped me stick with some problems long enough to solve them in 2023. This is the default mindset of every great engineer I've known so I adopted this mindset too.

Another lesson that I learned in 2023 was the importance of clear communication. Clear communication as a skill isn't domain-specific. Clear communication is a vital component of every form of collaboration among humans. Most times, I see some technical people try to write it off from the list of skills they need to excel in their careers. 2023 is the year where clarity in communication saved me a lot of money and time. Clear communication has also helped me to win the trust of some people.

I've lost count of how many times I screamed in my head "Stand up for yourself man!". An important lesson in 2023 for me was the importance of having a spine. As someone who didn't have the best self-esteem as a kid, I used to struggle to stand up for myself and even my loved ones. I learned the hard way that some people are willing and eager to advantage of you even for no reason. And chances are that you'd end up in bad shape if you don't negotiate for better treatment. Sometimes, you have to allow yourself to get angry and act to stop any form of maltreatment from people. These people can be your boss, client, acquaintances, close friends, or even family.

You should have it in mind that life is too short to allow people to treat you with disrespect. Most times, all you need is the courage to confront your source of frustration. You have to ensure to not get disrespectful or unprofessional in corporate settings. This may make you come off as too aggressive and scare people away from you.

In the year 2023, I understood the meaning of agency and how it played a vital role in every history of greatness. In the past, I used to think of high agency as a rare genetic trait, but boy I was so wrong. Now, I've come to understand that high agency is a skill and anyone can learn it.

High agency is a personality trait that involves having a sense of control over your life. It can also mean having the self-belief to overcome almost any circumstance. It is easy to spot high-agency individuals by the way they make decisions and act on them. These individuals try to take complete accountability for anything they engage in. You see them working and you get inspired, you see their works and your jaw drops. Working with them means you'd get to learn a lot of critical skills and operate beyond your limits. They inspire you to do more.

High agency appeals to me because it is a common trait in high-performing individuals. It is what makes them choose to make things happen and break the perceived limits when necessary. Coupled with mastery, high-agency individuals make difficult things look too easy. Since I've chosen to be a competent software engineer, I had to become a high-agency person too.

2023 also came with fun moments with my friends and family, personal wins, and career progress. I worked with bleeding-edge technology like the Hyperbridge protocol by Polytope Labs. I worked with the engineers at Polytope Labs to build an app (Gateway) on top of the Hyperbridge protocol. It was an important experience for me and I'm glad I was part of the team that delivered the first version of the app. I'm grateful to Seun and David for their support and guidance while working on the project.

I have a dozen other important lessons from the year 2023 that I couldn't fit into this article. Some of them include the importance of kindness, integrity, self-reflection, and human relationships.

I'm glad that I learned a ton of important lessons that helped me become a better person in 2023. While I'm far from my final form, I'm brutally optimistic about the year 2024.

To you, the reader, thank you for allowing me to share my experience with you. If you're aiming for greatness and competence, I'm rooting for you too. Cheers!