Running the Years

I will be in Los Angeles for my niece's wedding. Afterward, I will be in Oregon to visit my son. It will be a good vacation seeing my brother in California and revising my son. The wedding is a significant milestone in our clan's life as the first marriage of our children.  The years have gone by quickly with the challenges of life affecting our generation: 2 first cousins with a stroke, another dead with a stroke as well, and nieces and nephews growing up getting married and having kids.  

I also have my own challenges at work with the younger generation coming up and we struggle through the changes in the company, meeting new people, and adjusting to technology changes like artificial intelligence. Last week a project I managed went live with almost zero issues which is a rarity as people rush their projects to go live and meet deadlines without proper testing and preparation. Our team got a lot of praise, some from top management and I got credit for leading the project.

It is a welcome development for me as I am in my new or rather old role as project manager, surviving the last year as scrum manager without proper training and support and with our preparation from management. I survived the transition with meditation, reflection, and a little therapy; using this situation to get more training and learn new subjects like artificial intelligence.  AI is heralded to be a watershed like the coming of computers that will change all facets of life.

I have heard such stories before with blockchain, digital currencies like Bitcoin, and other new technologies that did not quite meet their potential. I will soon purchase an electric vehicle: a VW ID4 standard, the cheapest SUV that one could get, and claim the tax credit. Learning to live with an EV would be different and would be perfect with the solar panels I installed last year. In the twilight of my career, I still try to be relevant by keeping up with the latest trends and get the same feeling I got reading Alvin Toffler's 'Future Shock' which heralded a new world.

I just read the book about having a digital mindset, as if the mind can be molded into something new, to adapt to this new world of massive data and artificial intelligence that somehow would change one's life.  I reflected on the way my mind has worked all these years as I cleared out the stuff in my garage, my impulse buying of new gadgets, the chaotic way I tried to store these stuff and eventually donate or sell these items in the Facebook marketplace; realizing that my mind was working on impulses and daydreams perhaps with a touch of ADHD.

I realize that that type of mindset made me succeed in my role these past many years until it did not; I got overwhelmed; not realizing that I had sunk into a hole of my own making until I managed to crawl out. Management was not exactly the best and one had to accept and live with the situation. But I got out into the light with new technologies and ways of thinking to discover and thrive in.