Every year on my birthday, I receive an email from myself, written the year before, via the FutureMe.org service (hattip to my friend Trapper for giving me the idea several year ago).
I just received the letter from 2010. It’s interesting to review it, and see how things have changed in a year:
Dear FutureMe,
Happy 37th birthday! Wow, you sure are getting old. I hope that 2011 was a great year for you. The boys are almost TWO YEARS OLD for you now…that blows my mind.
As a reminder, here are some of the things that happened to you almost exactly a year ago today (I’m writing this from Dec 8):
You are in the middle of High Performance Management training from CV. Since it’s now a year later, have you been able to actually do anything with what you learned?
Your wife is freaking out about the holidays and getting things ready for the boys’ first birthday party. I hope it worked out well and everyone had a great time.
You are going through RCIA at Old St. Pat’s. Do you remember what that was like?
You’re getting ready to have a sit-down with your boss about career direction. Has anything changed in the year between?
We are ALMOST about of beta for Redesign 5…and by the time you are reading this, 5.1 should be live as well. What does Apartments.com look like in Dec 2011?
Becky and Eric will be married by now. How was their wedding?
Happy birthday, old man!
Past Matt
Looking at this letter, it reminds me of the fact that on my birthday last year, we had no idea that Sophia would be a part of our family and our lives. 2011 was a truly challenging year for me, but it was also a year filled with amazing changes.
This letter also helps me really think about what happened in the past year. As implied, I completed the RCIA journey at Old St. Pat’s – a process that was a very important part of my life for the first half of 2011! My sister-in-law, Becky, had a wonderful wedding this summer. And the boys had a great first birthday party.
It’s amusing to look at some of the work-related items…item 5 is really probably only of interest to my co-workers, but for those of you who do not work with me, the reason it is somewhat funny is that in 2011, we went through a massive change in our methodology (for the better), but it means that certain terms don’t make sense in our world any more. Agile, baby.
Happy birthday to me!