We’re already a few hours into 2016 and I have been thinking past of how well 2015 has gone for me. The short version is that it went very well. It is easily one of my highlights for years to come. I am looking forward to many more eventful and memorable years but at this moment, it looks like it will be difficult to beat this one. I wrote about my work over the past year (and more) earlier. In this post, I will just be talking about myself, my travels, and my work with Drupal.
Personal Improvement
Let’s start with the topic most relevant to this blog – me. I like to think that every year I improve myself a little and try to help everyone else with whatever I can. This year, I came across several hard truths about myself and tried to deal with it. I also had to deal with some of my personal demons and realize my own limitations. However, the biggest change I had to deal with was discovering self-compassion.
I have always been a perfectionist, and always been miserable when things aren’t perfect. Of course, this means that I was miserable a lot of times and I am sure I made other’s lives miserable as well. It’s time I put an end to it. Self-compassion spoke to me in a word what many couldn’t and it showed me the stark reality of damage I was doing to myself. I don’t know if that makes me not a perfectionist. Let’s see how time rolls.
I also realized something more important – people are awesome. I was fortunate to travel a lot in 2015 (more about that later) and I met so many people. In my travels, I came to a remarkable conclusion that people cared about me. It didn’t matter if I was meeting them for the first time. They spoke to me like a friend, helped me kindly, and made me feel special. It is safe to say that I made a lot of friends this year and reinforced some older ones. If you are reading this, you have probably made some impact to me over the last year. Thank you!
Travel
To say I traveled a lot more than before in 2015 is an understatement. I had 13 trips this year, visited 15 cities and 7 countries. I traveled over 75,000 km and spent 81 days on the road (that’s slightly less than quarter of the year). I started off my year with DrupalCamp in Delhi and Mumbai, Axelerant Retreat in Goa, DrupalSouth in the lovely Melbourne, DrupalCon in Los Angeles, a DrupalCamp in Pune, then the next DrupalCon in Barcelona. I am very grateful to Axelerant who paid for all these trips.
In these trips, I met awesome people and saw amazing places.
I tried to get out of the city for a vacation but most of the time that wasn’t possible. I wish I got out more and explored more of the beautiful Karnataka and South India. That’s something I have to do more in 2016.
Drupal
2015 is a landmark year for Drupal and PHP community in general. We had the first major release of Drupal in five years, first major release of PHP in a decade, and major releases of many other platforms and frameworks like Symfony, Magento, etc… As a Drupaler, the release of Drupal 8 is something I identify with most.
I haven’t seen a more passionate community than Drupal and I feel honoured to be counted as one of the contributors. In 2015 alone, I contributed to about 140 core issues. I also contributed to various modules, particularly porting them to Drupal 8. I also spoke at DrupalCon Los Angeles, DrupalCon Barcelona, DrupalCamp Delhi, DrupalCamp Mumbai, and DrupalCamp Pune. I was also an organizer for DrupalCamp Bangalore and on session selection panels for DrupalCamps Mumbai and Pune. Oh, and I am the track chair for DrupalCon Asia coding and development track. Apart from this, I helped organize meetups (and spoke in a lot of them), mentored at sprints, and planned release celebrations for Drupal 8.
What’s Next?
I am all excited about DrupalCon Asia held in Mumbai this February. I am the track chair for the coding and development track and will also be speaking there. I am also hoping I get to travel this year but that remains to be seen. At the very least, I am looking forward to explore more of the beautiful South India on road.
With all this, 2015 is one of the busiest years I have had. With so much going on, I barely got time to write on my blogs. In fact, I have not written anything on this blog for the first 11 months of 2015. This is one of the things I am resolved to work on in this year. Another area where I fell short was photography. I clicked a fair few shots but hardly processed any of them.
I am hoping for a 2016 with more clicks, photos, and words. I am looking forward to all that and more in this awesome 2016 and I wish you the same. A very happy 2016 to you.
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