It feels a bit cliché to do a yearly review, but since it’s my first one, let’s do it anyway 😂

At the beginning of 2025, I made a list of goals I wanted to achieve. Now it’s time to see how much of that actually happened.

New Job #

This wasn’t originally on the list, but it ended up being the biggest change in my life last year.

I started my first full-time job as a developer at Ericsson Finland (hurayyy 🎉). The first year of working has been fun and challenging, and hopefully it stays that way!

CNCF Certificates #

As mentioned in the previous post, I earned both CKA and CKAD. The best part about it is that I now use Kubernetes every day at work. Preparing for the exams improved my fluency when navigating a cluster, and that paid off quickly.

Later in the year, I worked on introducing a new microservice to our product, and the experience certification prep definitely helped there!

Books Read #

My original plan was to read 6 technical books and 12 non-technical books. In reality, I finished 3.5 technical and 6 non-tech books. I’ll explain the “.5” in a moment, but overall that puts me at roughly a 52% completion rate.

Technical books #

During the first half of the year, most of my reading time went into certification prep. I read Kubernetes Best Practices, Production Kubernetes, and CKA Study Guide alongside my exam preparation.

Around October, I needed to implement a proof of concept for an algorithm in Go. Since I wasn’t very fluent in Go at the time, I picked upLearning Go. It’s an excellent book for getting started. I still come back to it from time to time as a reference while programming in Go, definitely recommend it!

For CKA Study Guide and Learning Go, I didn’t read them cover to cover, only the parts that I needed at the time. That’s where the “.5” comes from.

The interesting one is The Pragmatic Programmer. I didn’t read it for any immediate technical need, I picked it up simply because I found the topics genuinely interesting.

One idea that felt genuinely new to me is the concept of managing a knowledge portfolio, which the book compares to managing a financial portfolio. It frames learning as a long-term investment. Just like investing, learning benefits from regular effort, diversification across different areas, and a balance between safe, familiar topics (e.g. data structures and algorithms) and riskier, high-upside ones (e.g. AI or LLM nowadays and who knows what in the future). Thinking about learning this way was something I had never really done before, and I found it surprisingly helpful.

Non-tech books #

This part is much more interesting to me, so I will go into a bit more detail.

What Every BODY Says #

I honestly don’t remember most of the details from this book, but one idea really stuck with me: stress does not equal lying. Feeling uneasy doesn’t automatically mean someone is being dishonest; sometimes they’re just nervous, under pressure, or out of their comfort zone.

The book talks a lot about “pacifying behaviors.” Those small, often unconscious actions people use to calm themselves when they feel uncomfortable or stressed. Things like touching the neck, rubbing hands together, or subtly pulling the legs inward.

Overall, this was a fun book to read. It makes you more aware of body language. You start noticing these behaviors in yourself across different situations.

致富的特權 #

As the title suggests, this book is only available in Mandarin.

The biggest idea I took away from this book is tradeoffs. What we have today almost always comes at the cost of something else. It’s worth celebrating achievements, but it’s just as important to reflect on what we gave up along the way. There is no “all-you-can-eat” solution, especially when looking at large and hard problems.

One concept that really stuck with me is the Impossible Trinity in international finance: a country cannot simultaneously maintain a fixed exchange rate, allow free capital movement, and run an independent monetary policy. You can pick two, but never all three. Different countries make different choices, and each choice comes with consequences.

This idea strongly reminded me of the CAP theorem in distributed systems. Different domain, but same underlying lessons, every design is a compromise.

On a more personal level, this book also made me reflect on my own situation. Right now, I feel like I’m trading some financial upside, the ability to save more, for peace of mind. Whether that tradeoff is “worth it” is a big topic on its own. I might write about it in a separate article someday (or I might not, we’ll see 🤔).

Thinking, Fast and Slow #

What I remember most from this book is the distinction between System 1 and System 2 thinking. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and automatic. System 2 is slower, more deliberate, and analytical. Once I learn this model, it’s hard not to see it everywhere.

System 1 also reminded me of the limbic system mentioned in What Every BODY Says. Interestingly, I actually read Thinking, Fast and Slow first, so I learned about System 1 before encountering the limbic system, and it felt like seeing the same idea from a different angle.

This also brought back memories of another book I read a few years ago, Factfulness. It makes a similar point: people often misunderstand the world not because they are ignorant, but because we are all subject to biases like availability bias and the halo effect. Knowing these biases doesn’t magically remove them, but at least it helps me pause and question my own conclusions more often.

心流（Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience） #

For this book, I read the Mandarin-translated version. What I remember most clearly is the idea that to reach “flow,” the task must match your ability. Only when a challenge is slightly beyond your current skill level can you enter that state of deep focus and satisfaction.

I’ve seen this happen again and again at work. When a task is too trivial, it feels boring. I procrastinate and don’t even do it efficiently. When a task is too big and I don’t know where to start, I feel stuck and frustrated. But when a task lands right where my skills just meet the challenge, it feels amazing. I can see the big picture and navigate the details needed to get it done. It becomes one of those rare experiences where time seems to disappear and you’re just in it.

By the way, I have a funny memory tied to this book. I actually read part of it in the huge thermal baths in Budapest, the Széchenyi Thermal Bath. It had nothing to do with the book, but it’s one of those moments that stuck with me nonetheless. And the bath is amazing, with indoor and outdoor pools fed by natural hot springs, definitely worth visiting.

華頓商學院最受歡迎的談判課（Getting More: How to Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World） #

For this book, I also read the Mandarin translation.

The most important idea I took away is that in a negotiation, the other party is not your enemy. Instead of treating negotiation as a zero-sum game, we could try to think from the other side’s perspective. When you understand what they actually care about, there is often room for a more creative, win-win outcome.

This book also turned out to be very practical. When I started my current job, I applied some of the ideas from it during the negotiation process. In the end, I managed to get a higher salary and a few additional days of vacation 😆

The Psychology of Money #

This book felt a bit basic to me, mostly because I was already applying many of the ideas it talks about. Still, a few points resonated strongly and were worth being reminded of.

One idea I really liked is that good decisions are not always rational. At some point, you have to choose between being happy and being right. What looks suboptimal on paper can still be the right choice for a person, depending on their values and circumstances.

Another important theme is how much our personal experience shapes the way we view money and markets. The economic environment you grow up in, or the market conditions during your early career, can heavily influence your risk tolerance and beliefs. Because we are all limited by our own experiences, it is almost impossible to fairly judge how other people make financial decisions. We can share perspectives, but we should not be too quick to judge them. Of course, if something is clearly a scam, stopping your loved ones is still the right thing to do 😉

Running #

This was not on the list either, but it feels like a nice achievement worth sharing.

I used to be a very amateur runner. I ran occasionally over the years, nothing serious, but I could usually finish a 10K in around 55 minutes.

During the summer, Verkkokauppa had a very good discount on a Garmin watch (disclaimer: I am not sponsored). After getting the watch, I started pacing myself more consciously during training instead of just running by feel. That made a bigger difference than I expected. In September, I managed to complete a 10K in 51 minutes, which felt like a real milestone for me.

Looking forward, I hope I can complete a 10K in 50 minutes this year!

Language #

I put this section last because I did not accomplish much here.

At the beginning of the year, I somehow set French B1 and Finnish A1 as my goals. In hindsight, French B1 was very unrealistic. I no longer live in France, and I simply did not have enough motivation to push myself in that direction.

For Finnish A1, I did make some progress. I started a course in October, but due to personal reasons, I did not manage to complete it. As a result, my Finnish is still at a very basic level. I mostly know simple vocabulary and struggle to form complete sentences, which is honestly a bit embarrassing 😂

That said, I do hope I can achieve it this year. I already have the book, but whether I actually follow through with action is another story.

Conclusion #

2025 was a rewarding year for me. I started a new job and enjoyed it, earned certificates, read many books (not as many as I hoped but still).

Ticking boxes was never my intention. What mattered more was the process and experience along the way. Here’s to hoping that 2026 will be a shining year as well!