This is a submission for the 2025 New Year Writing Challenge: Retro’ing and Debugging 2024.
The Year That Felt Like a Merge Conflict
2024 was the year I learned that personal growth and professional chaos can coexist—like trying to debug production code while your cat walks across your keyboard. It was messy, unpredictable, and oddly beautiful. Here’s my unfiltered retrospective.
Achievements: The Wins That Made Me Do a Keyboard Tap Dance
- Shipped My First Open-Source Tool: Built a CLI tool for automating API documentation. It has 12 GitHub stars (11 are mine, but still).
- Leveled Up in TypeScript: Finally understood generics. Mostly.
- Spoke at a Local Meetup: Talked about “Why Your Side Project Will Never Be Perfect.” Got heckled by a Python dev. 10/10 would do again.
- Wrote 30 Blog Posts: Including “How to Survive a Tech Interview Without Crying (Much).”
Challenges: The Bugs That Almost Broke Me
- Burnout After a Failed Launch: Spent 3 months building a habit-tracking app. It got 7 downloads (my mom, dad, and 5 burner accounts).
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Imposter Syndrome 2.0: Got promoted to “Senior Dev,” then spent weeks thinking, Do I even know how to
git push? -
The Great Dependency Disaster: Updated Next.js and broke 14 components. My commit message:
feat: suffering.
Lessons Learned: The Wisdom I’ll Carry Into 2025
- Done > Perfect: That side project collecting dust? Ship it. Let the internet roast you. You’ll learn more from failure than from endless tweaking.
- Ask for Help Sooner: Sliding into a senior dev’s DMs with “plz explain React Server Components” saved me 48 hours of Googling.
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Your Worth ≠ Your Code: That time I accidentally
rm -rf’d the staging environment? I’m still employed. Turns out humans > terminals.
Debugging My Mindset
The biggest shift? Letting go of the “hustle porn” mentality. I stopped glorifying 80-hour weeks and started celebrating small wins:
- Fixed a bug before the daily standup? Victory latte.
- Learned a new CLI shortcut? Treat yo’self to a meme break.
- Survived a PR review without crying? Professional growth unlocked.
Final Thought: 2024 Was My “Console.log” Year
I didn’t have all the answers, but I printed out enough progress to see the pattern. Here’s to 2025: fewer undefined moments, more 200 OK vibes.
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