Hi there ๐
I thought about it quite a lot over the past few months, it took me a while to get ready, but after 6 months of graduation, I have finally decided to live my life at my own terms. This is a bold move for me - someone who was at an edge of depression and had existential crisis couple of years back.
This is a big ol' list of things / decisions / events happened to me in from 2019 - 2020:
- Graduated from college ๐
- Joined in Zartek Technologies under Kerala Startup Mission
- Made ๐ฝ Postwoman
- Turned 24 ๐ผ
- Joined โ Buy me a coffee
- Traveling ๐ became my favorite thing
- Stopped ๐ using Facebook and Instagram
- I spend more time drawing โ๏ธ and playing guitar ๐ธ
- Had my first ๐ข Tech talk at Technopark - India's largest IT zone
- Participated in Hacktoberfest ๐
- 1,000+ followers on ๐ Twitter
- 11,400+ followers on Dev ๐จโ๐ป๐ฉโ๐ป
- Made a Bucket list ๐ฅ
- Adele, Taylor swift, Eminem and Post Malone became my favorite artists ๐ถ
- Listened lot of music ๐ต
- Became an โ๏ธ Atheist
- Read around ~50 books ๐
- Read more on Philosophy, money, finance and life ๐
- Postwoman won Tyk.io Side Project Fund
- Started my next project ๐
- I got an offer for a Senior react developer post in Berlin in which I failed miserably โจ
- Postwoman rebranded to Hoppscotch ๐ฏ
- Paid off educational loan - became debt free
- Got interviewed for Facebook Solutions Engineer role in which the recruiter never replied after first round ๐
- Joined ๐ Sensibull
- My mom googled my name and called crying to tell me how proud she was of me because of all the wonderful things she found - I've officially made it โค
- Relived from day job to start working on side hustles ๐ฏ
- Won Contributor of the Year - TESTING and Contributor of the Year - FUNDRAISING Hacker Noon - Noonies 2020 awards ๐
- Project ebb won FOSS India Hackathon โ๏ธ
- Participated in dozens of podcasts and blogs
- Participated in ๐ GitHub Open Source Friday
- Hopscotch got featured in GitHub's Made in India Collection ๐ฎ๐ณ
- Started contributing to appwrite on part-time
- Building a crib ๐ก
- Building Kooli ๐ต
- Won 2 hackathons organized by Hashnode
- Spoke at GitHub satellite
- Hoppscotch crossed over 180k+ users and 28,000 GitHub stars
- Project Lvr won Tyk Side Project Fund - I won Tyk Side Project Fund 2nd time in a row. First one was for Hoppscotch - the initial investment.
- Hoppscotch now has 500k+ users and 34,000 GitHub stars
- Raised $3m seed round for Hoppscotch
- Interviewed at GitHub README project
I don't want to spend the rest of my 20's consumed trying to reach a level of success other people defined. I want to travel, form great bonds, go to meditation retreats, ride on hot air balloons, go to raves, etc. To me life should be full of adventures.
If you want to succeed in your life, remember this phrase. The past does not equal the future. Because you failed yesterday; or all day today, or a moment ago, or for the last six months; the last 16 years, or the last fifty years of life doesnโt mean anythingโฆ all that matters is what are you going to do, right now.
I'll be updating this list as I recall them.
So that basically means I'll be less active on dev.to and other platforms including OSS, but will be having a lot of time with my loved ones and open source community.
If you want a heads up on my next projects, or just want to chat about the web, life and happiness make sure to follow me @liyasthomas on Twitter ๐.
Top comments (38)
You never fail to impress <3
I'm realising that life is all about pursuing happiness. May you have a happy life ๐
Very true.
Thanks budd
Exactly ๐ค
You've achieved quite a lot during 2019. Sounds like you've found what makes you happy. May 2020 be even better for you!
I've also been thinking about the fact that we're more than just developers. Wrote a post about it a few months ago. :)
On being more than just a developer
Dzhavat Ushev ใป Jul 28 '19
Your article is gold โจ
Inspirational post ๐
Work life balance is so important. If you are miserable then coding and tech work can be life draining. Finding a balance is essential. I hope you find a way to do the things you want and also feel successful at your chosen career.
Thank you sir.
I'm a very non-creative junior developer at a YC company (BuyMeACoffee.com)
wow I respect you for stopping Facebook and Instagram
Well, here's a funny thing.
He might've read this post in between the phone screening and second round ๐คฃ
haaaaa
You have 11,300 followers here at dev?
Actually, the feed works in a way that your post will be prioritized in their feeds. So, it gives an equal chance to beginners and people who have lots of followers.
Nothing to flex, just pointing out that it's normal.
11,400 to be exact.
And your last articles received only 90 / 50 / 20 reactions?
Yes
With 20 post?
Yes
Hey Liyas, you literally inspired me even though I guess you are younger than me just from reading your article that you turned 23 last year. but hey, I respected that you are great in what you're doing. even in my office, I'm promoting postwoman.io for testing APIs , well done my friend. Keep up the good work!
Thank you for your encouragement ๐
This really means a lot to me. The Postwoman project's success is shared with our team ๐
May you have a happy life.
Wow, what an amazing journey that will inspire thousands.
By the way, I didn't know about the Made in India collection ๐
I've heard somewhere:
Do this every day for 2 years, and you will have a brand, business, and career that grants you the possibility to never work a job another day in your life.
Congrats man, this is a very impressive list! You really got it going and we hope you will find whatever you're looking for.
Thanks, I wish you a happy life.
You'll always be in the list of top 5 people who have inspired me !
And I've learnt a lot of best practises from your code on GitHub. :)
Thanks. I'm glad you are making use of some of my project.
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