Reflection of 2024

Reflection of the year:

2024 was as always eventful with exciting projects, travels, reunions; but this was overshadowed by all the twists and turns I had faced internally. I want to briefly go through how my thought process developed throughout the year in response to key events along the way. 

Shifting gears to a startup (January - April):

This time one year ago I wrote that I was working towards an academic career. While this was honest back then, it was never an extremely clear next step in my life and didn’t come naturally. During this period I was simultaneously ‘recruited’ by my friend/colleague, Francesco, alongside Max (another friend/colleague), to join the startup he has been planning and working on for a while – this is a lab spin off related to his research. How exactly I had felt at this point in time I had forgotten, but more or less I was strongly drawn by two ideas: to see a professional robotics world out of academia and to continue to work with Francesco and Max, two extremely talented people. I think this directly addressed two concerns I had about continuing in academia, which was the individuality nature of the industry and my lack of deep interest in science (as opposed to technology). We talked a lot while having coffee or beer and by April I was 70-80% convinced (I don’t like this word, I would like to believe that I have made an active choice, but anyway,) to work on this startup following my PhD. 

Questioning life as a whole (May - July):

Following my rapid shift in gears towards a startup, I was more excited than thinking anything practical or how this would pan out in the coming years. It was around this time when I was questioned whether this was really a good idea: not just if it was something I wanted to do but plans on the startup. These questions were fair and came at the right time. For better or worse, this affected me and where I was at the time, and kick started a few months of questioning my life as a whole. What came first was trying to understand the fundamentals of what I wanted in my life. For a very long time (and continuing) I have been ‘professionally’ driven. During my teenage years, the competitions meant everything and I gave it everything. Then came studious years for IB followed by Uni, and most recently my PhD. I always wanted to push for these goals and projects, and had got rewarded from the world. But there was never a moment to pause and think: is this what I want and how I want to spend my time? I also questioned, all of this for what? Went through all these studies, projects, etc (don’t get me wrong they were so exciting and helped me grow as a person), to then be here, away from home and family, while working on some crap while feeling confused about my life. 

Then came professional doubts: what do I really want to do? And it really can’t and shouldn’t be ‘I want to get a new job position x’ or ‘I want to achieve above x in metric y’. I think I write about this pretty much every year, but it resonated a lot stronger at this point. 

This didn’t help given my growing pessimism towards technology as a whole and in particular robotics and AI. Putting aside enthusiasm for the technology itself, these ‘new and cool’ tech I think practically have much larger negative consequences than positive. We spend millions of dollars to develop cutting edge AI having negative implications on education, politics, media, etc with the benefit of giving us somewhat informative ways to write an email. Humanoids are being developed and funded in absurd levels with the promise of improving efficiencies in various industries or even at homes, with implications on displacing people from jobs etc (in all honesty, I think these are false promises and the technologies to make actual impact in a way that makes sense from a cost/reliability perspective is not close at all… anyway). Why are we even doing this? Even worse, I'm directly part of this conversation based on what I do.

(I think this period in this year was my ‘quarter-life crisis’ (I was 25 so it checks out). Quite frankly I felt low and generally unhappy / unmotivated).

Getting back up (July - December):

The second half of 2024 I was slowly able to move out of this low phase through a combination of events and really thinking through by myself and with close friends. 

On life as a whole, I came to a (somewhat underwhelming and perhaps obvious) conclusion that I need to actively seek out balance that’s placed in the right order. I’m someone who’s very strongly geared towards what people call ‘work’ (a concept I’m slowly understanding), and I need to somewhat force myself or feel positively about stepping out of this at times; which I think in turn feeds back into being more productive etc etc. About the right order, this balance needs to come from highest priority: a) feeling good about myself and having good health, b) actively maintaining a fulfilling relationship with the people around me that I care about, c) my ‘work’. I think this isn’t something new and I’ve been more or less living this way until now, but it took time to write something like this down and have a concrete way of laying it out.

What does it mean practically in my life? Not much. But since then I have been more forward in prioritizing time towards myself, family/friends, and expanding my social circles. I believe this makes me more fulfilled and feel good about it.

On the aspect of professional life, my general resentment towards technology and its lack of actual positive impact still stands. However, one view that I have been told and I really believe now is that it’s meaningful to dream a bit. 

Yes a lot of what we (as a community) do is whole bs and have depressing consequences. Then again there ‘are’ ways in what we do can help the world and people. Robotics boils down to making smart mechanical machines, and I see human assistance (in elderly care, hospitals, care homes, etc) one ultimate goal. Can we do this now in a meaningful way? - no not at all. But should I dream of this? - yes. Might sound cocky but I am moving more towards the forefront of robotics as I continue to work on it, and feel that this is also what I should embrace and push forwards in the coming short and long term future.

In addition to this, in August two events took place which helped me positively in unexpected ways. 

The first is through following the Japanese men’s volleyball team in the olympics (FYI I’m deeply in the men’s vb world for the last few years). In summary, this team performed quite poorly during the pool plays and scraped through to the quarterfinals to play Italy (#1 seed). In particular Ishikiawa, the captain and core of the team, was pretty garbage given his standards. In the quarterfinals however, they showed up as a team, especially Ishikawa, and played one of the most exhilarating vb games I’ve watched. They lost the match in a heartbreaking fashion, but it left such a strong impression on me even days/weeks after this. Not just because I was invested in this event, but I really felt ‘inspired’ by the team and him specifically. Back in my teenage days I was so focused on my competitions with extremely concentrated passion. As I grow up I think this has gotten diluted because there’s a lot more than one object to optimize for. The vb game reintroduced me to the idea of living for and with a passion. Once again, it doesn’t change what I do day to day, but this display of passion served me as one role model and what kind of person I want to strive towards.

The second is a trip I went on with my mom for around three weeks around Europe. Aside from what we did on the trip, it was possibly the first time in 10+ years that I really actually didn’t do anything regarding my (broader) work. Everyday there would be quite a packed plan on travelling/sightseeing, and left no time really to think or do anything related to work. People say taking breaks is important… turns out it’s true. I came out of this trip with an actual reset and felt mentally rested, to live the last third of 2024 with a positive mindset and living by how I’ve reflected about myself and my life in and out of work.

Heading into 2025: 

In 2024 I struggled through uncertainty and personal conflicts and was able to slowly climb back up. While there are lots of uncertainties, I feel a lot more solid as an individual and also peaceful in my mind. 

Personally, I want to live by my desires and ideals as a balanced but passionate person: to always seek excitement and exciting directions in the robotics world while actively spending the time/attention/care towards myself and those around me.

Professionally, the year is divided into two phases. The first is to finish my PhD, which will be by May. This is coming up so quickly (scarily quickly), and I don’t want to just finish it but finish it with pride (i.e.: let’s get those unfinished projects done). The second is the startup. Right now as much as it’s exciting it still doesn't feel like ‘my project’ – because it has not been (I’ve simply tagged along Francesco et al who actually put in the work). But this will change. When this year ends, I want this to also be my project and really have it at the centerpiece of my attention (this will most likely happen by default but still important to have it). More on the actual startup I’m very excited about driving the growth of this project. I can’t put/announce how exactly we plan this at the moment but I want to make enough technical and non-technical growth by the end of this year to actually make this relevant (vague… yes.. But basically I want to really move forwards with this!).

Remarks:

This reflection became quite a long one compared to the last years with all that happened this year, also different in tone/content. I didn’t want to put names, but so much of this has come through conversation with the people around me that I care. I feel so blessed to be able to say that and to have these people around me and the liberty to just call/speak to them. Thank you so much. 

In 2025 I want to grow in all avenues of my life.

(Photo of the piste in Saas-Fee).