The past is dim and cannot be chased; the road ahead is bright — to the already-arrived year 2024

I wrote two versions of my 2023 year-end review: one was straightforward, and the other was full of emotions. But one day, the sentence “The past is dim and cannot be chased; the road ahead is bright” suddenly came to mind. So up to now, I don’t plan to publish either version directly. Maybe, given enough time, they will appear in some other form.

In 2023, I tried too many things—one-person studio, self-media, freelancing, taking various certifications… If I break it down, it roughly includes:

• Trying to build my own studio, hoping to have a business besides my main job. The initial plan was: IT consulting first, software development second, and video editing & graphic design third.
• I decided to become a VUP at the beginning of the year, but my positioning was basically “wear a model skin” while streaming and making videos to improve the viewing experience, so the model fidelity was low. I kept streaming on Bilibili for a year, and started preparing to produce more video uploads and column writing, synchronizing one draft to multiple platforms. Video content was mainly on Bilibili, with uploads also to AcFun, Xiaohaihe, Douyin, and WeChat Channels; written content was mainly on my personal blog, synchronized to xLog, WeChat Official Account, Juejin, Bokeyuan, Zhihu, and CSDN.
• I tried several freelancing platforms for the first time. Eventually, I got a task from a UK employer on Upwork. Communication was smooth, delivery was quick, and I earned my first side income.
• I signed up for a data analysis certification and the PMP certification, and worked hard to prepare.

But apart from income from Bilibili, getting started on Upwork, and passing the CDA Level 1 certification, I didn’t make much progress. Overall, last year I blindly put in a lot of money and time but saw little return. Daily life trivialities also held me back from investing much energy into these things, so naturally there were no results that satisfied me. Thinking carefully, it’s not good to be timid and never take the first step, but blindly rushing forward isn’t good either. A person’s energy is limited, and there are so many other things. If I don’t control the scope and focus on a few specific areas with full effort, I’ll end up repeating the same mistakes.

In 2023, I deeply regretted not treating AI as a tool earlier to help me work and get things done. Thanks to the rapid development of AI technology, my productivity has increased significantly with AI tools, and my main job finally started to move out of the confusion of the previous two years and show some growth.

In 2024, I need clearer goals and a more realistic assessment of my time and energy. I should “cast the rod” rather than “scatter the net”, using technical growth and expanding social connections as the main axis, gradually improving my abilities and influence. To do this, I think the first step is subtraction: narrow down to a few specific platforms for content creation. For example, going forward I’ll only publish articles on my personal blog and xLog; publish videos only on Bilibili and YouTube; and livestream only on Twitch and YouTube. Then I’ll repost those contents to my Twitter and Telegram channel (maybe Meta platforms in the future, but not in the short term). I won’t try to occupy more platforms, and will focus on content creation and building the channel’s theme.

There’s another reason for doing this. From complaining back in 2018 to Zhihu and Bokeyuan about “my personal blog articles being plagiarized and reposted as original” with no results, to early 2024 when my tweets were reposted to Xiaohongshu without attribution and complaints still went nowhere—I’ve become very disappointed with some platforms. On the other hand, my WeChat Official Account only posted one article in 2023, and I barely posted videos on AcFun or Douyin anymore. I don’t seem to have the energy to synchronize content everywhere, so I might as well stop updating them all.

Besides subtraction, I also need to find a niche and keep cultivating it. Since I use Vue the most, even though many talented people have already made high-quality content, I’ll probably keep working on a specific application point of Vue. But this may not be something I can decide overnight. There are many other things I’m interested in too—I can find niche angles and dig into them carefully.

In addition, learning new knowledge, getting the certifications I failed last year, continuing to try freelancing, and tinkering with some “infrastructure” will probably all be woven throughout 2024. I hope 2024 will be a meaningful year for me, and I also hope it will be a happy year.

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