July was an incredibly busy month.
Diet
The three-month diet bet I had with a friend finally came to an end. There was a significant amount of money at stake, and I lost about 12 kg.
This time, I did not simply want to lose weight. I wanted to prove to myself that I am someone who follows through when I decide to do something. I am proudest of setting a goal and seeing it through to the end.
My new goal is to keep managing my weight so I do not gain it back.
Moving
I moved. This is my second home since moving to Seoul. I now live a five-minute walk from the office. The quality of my life improved a lot simply because my commute got shorter. Now that I have more time to use each day, I want to keep thinking about how to use it more meaningfully.
Recording
As soon as July began, I bought a disposable film camera because I wanted to preserve the moments of the month.
I took more photos than I expected. I have not developed them yet, but I think I took around 30. I pressed the shutter whenever I felt “This is good” while looking at food I liked, places I enjoyed, and people I care about.
If a photograph keeps a moment, I think writing keeps the thoughts from that moment.
That made me want to leave more than just photos behind, so I joined a blog-writing study group and Memoire too.
I want to keep recording what I studied, thought about, and experienced in everyday life every week.
If I do not write things down, I seem to forget surprisingly quickly what I was thinking about, why I made a choice, and how my thinking changed along the way.
I also want to keep leaving both photos and writing in forms I can share with other people.
Work
The last week of July was truly chaotic.
Work came pouring in ahead of the product relaunch, and the move happened at the same time. Leaving work at midnight was normal, and I went home at 3 a.m. several times.
Strangely, I felt more excited than exhausted.
I enjoyed making things and watching the product gradually come together. Even if I had gone home, I probably would have ended up doing similar work or studying.
But my body clearly could not keep up when I continued working while cutting back on sleep. I barely exercised, and my focus and condition kept declining as I got less sleep.
I felt again that spending a long time on something and immersing yourself deeply while in good condition are clearly different things. I cannot keep putting sleep and health last just because there is a lot of work.
Thoughts from July
These days, my hobby is playing with AI, studying it, and filling in my gaps one by one.
AI helped me get a tremendous amount of work done this month too. At the same time, I realized that my dependence on AI had grown more than I expected.
At some point, it started to feel as if I was handing over areas I could no longer control. The amount of work I produced grew enormously, but when I asked myself whether I had grown just as much, I could not readily say yes.
I started to think that understanding what I made and why I made it matters much more than making a lot. I need to do this properly.
The size of my dreams
I also thought a lot about dreams this month.
Looking back, I think I had unknowingly set a standard for myself that said, “Maybe this is enough.”
My goals felt vague because I had not made the why and how concrete. Even a big goal becomes startable when you break it down into actions you can take today.
From now on, rather than assuming something is difficult just because the goal is big, I want to become someone who first thinks about what I need to do now to reach it.
I also want to know precisely what I know and what I do not know. Let’s not pretend to be good at something, and let’s not put ourselves down too much either. Let’s keep building metacognition.
In August
In August, I want to start recording my time in a little more detail.
Rather than just leaving behind the fact that I worked for a long time, I want to record what I focused on, for how long, what I finished, and what I learned. Even while using AI, let’s turn the questions and experiences I had into my own digital assets.
Let’s keep recording why I implemented something this way, what experiments I ran, why they failed, and what criteria I used to decide. I want to leave not only the result, but also the process that led to it.
Let’s also keep thinking about the life I want. Do not set limits for yourself; dream bigger, break that dream into actions you can take today, and execute them one by one.
I believe that in a time like this, the people who take action ultimately go the farthest.
The life I want to build
I have a lot of interests, and I currently work as a developer, but someday I think I will become more like a creator or builder who uses development as a tool to make and express things.
Someone who develops, loves music, takes photos, writes, and uses AI to make new things?
Rather than chasing efficiency alone, I want to live a life where I keep loving the things I like for a long time and use them to share something with people.
Closing out July
July was physically difficult, and it was also a month in which I discovered many areas where I still have room to grow.