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What Did 2022 Teach Me?

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What Did 2022 Teach Me?

Preface

Hey everyone! We're now approaching Lunar New Year, which makes this a perfect time to sit down and reflect on the year 2022.
Personally, 2022 wasn't a year in which I achieved anything particularly remarkable financially or professionally. However, I believe it was a year in which I gained a great deal of spiritual fulfillment and came to understand more about life.
Thank you, 2022, for giving me another chance to breathe, to live, and to contribute.
β€” Thanks, God, for everything. β€”
I'm naturally a rather dry and rigid IT Engineer. Fortunately, I started my journey at HCMUT (Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology), a university that, in my opinion, focuses less on imparting knowledge than on cultivating logical thinking, digging deep into the essence of things, and constantly asking β€œwhy?” about every problem.
Throughout my career, this way of thinking has continually pushed me to discover new insights and find my own answers to various questions about life.
Below are three lessons I've learned from my work and experiences throughout 2022. Let's look back together and explore what they are!

The Nature of Our World

In my view, the nature of our world revolves around two concepts: chaos and relativity.

Chaos

I'm sure most of us living in the 21st century have experienced just how chaotic life can be.
Who could have imagined that, in the most modern and technologically advanced era humanity has ever achieved, the COVID-19 pandemic would sweep across the entire world?
Or that even in what was considered one of the most peaceful eras in human history, the Russia–Ukraine war would break out? Economic recessions and crises that once seemed like things confined to history books could suddenly be looming over us at any moment.
The same applies to our individual lives. Chaos isn't necessarily negative. Sometimes, when we look back, we realize that we've achieved the salary and lifestyle we once dreamed ofβ€”things that used to seem almost impossible.
And yet, we may suddenly realize how fragile that life really is. Tomorrow, we could find ourselves out of a job amid the next wave of mass layoffs.
Everything can change in an instant.

Relativity

Just as the physicist Albert Einstein developed the theory of relativity, I've also experienced and observed a form of relativity in my day-to-day work.
Simply trying harder doesn't necessarily guarantee the results we expect.
Let's look at the following logical expression representing a cause-and-effect relationship:
πŸ’‘ A => B (If A, then B).
But is that always true?
In my opinion, this expression is valid in certain situations, but it doesn't adequately explain most real-world scenarios. Now, let's consider a revised expression:
πŸ’‘ A + A' => B (If A and A', then B).
Here, we can think of A as an internal factorβ€”something that originates from within you. A' represents external factorsβ€”objective circumstances beyond your control.
Achieving the desired outcome, B, depends on a combination of both.
That's why, at work or in life, you might feel that you've contributed a tremendous amount of effort, yet your manager doesn't notice or acknowledge it. The same thing happens in relationships.
What other people see and how they respond to you also depend on various external circumstances at that particular moment. Naturally, you can't fully control all of these factors.
And that's what makes so many things in life relative rather than absolute.

Looking at Things from the Opposite Perspective

Wait a minute... Don't we often assume that the world operates in an orderly, cyclical way? So why does it seem so contradictory?
Well, there's one mindset I believe everyone should cultivate to keep up with a constantly changing world: skepticism and the willingness to question our own assumptions.
In my view, the world is inherently chaotic and relative, yet it also displays remarkable order and recurring patterns through the way it operates. How we perceive this depends, in part, on our limited perspective.
Imagine looking at a Bitcoin price chartβ€”or a stock market chartβ€”from a distance. It might appear to follow a beautiful, almost perfect cycle.
But when you zoom into a smaller time frame, you'll clearly see a jagged line full of sharp ups and downs.
And perhaps that's the nature of our world: order emerging from chaos.

Three Types of People in Society

The second set of insights I gained came from interviewing with quite a few technology companies in Vietnam.
Through these experiences, I began thinking about three types of people in society in relation to a concept that was particularly trendy that year: psychological manipulation.
I use a 90/9/1 ratio to illustrate this idea. This is merely a conceptual model, not a statistically validated measurement.
  • 90% β€” The majority of people, ordinary folks like us, who are vulnerable and easily manipulated or influenced. They tend to remain heavily constrained by the pressures of making a living and meeting their daily financial needs.
  • 9% β€” A smaller group of people who are clever and know how to manipulate others to maximize their own benefits.
  • 1% β€” An extremely rare group of people who neither manipulate others nor can easily be manipulated themselves.
In my opinion, we all start out in that 90% group, without really having a choice in the matter.
However, I hope that one day, the readers of this article will have developed enough capability and resourcesβ€”financial means, influence, intelligence, and so onβ€”to exercise the power of choice.
And when that time comes, I hope you'll choose to belong to the remaining 1%: those who pursue outcomes that benefit both themselves and the wider communityβ€”a win-win situation rather than simply a win-lose one.

Debates and the Question of Right and Wrong

After discussing humanity in general and Vietnamese society, let me return to the personal level and something that comes up regularly in our daily work: debates.
Disagreements are a common part of life, especially in the workplace, where we need to find common ground.
I'm sure some of you have a strong ego, just like I used to. I've challenged my managers more than once, only to eventually realize that most debates can be categorized into three types.

Issues with a Definite Right or Wrong Answer

These are questions with objectively verifiable answers, grounded in scientific truth. They make up a relatively small proportion of debates. Examples include mathematical facts or computer science principles that have been proven and widely accepted.

Issues without a Definitive Right or Wrong Answer

Most heated arguments, especially those in which our egos get in the way of listening to others, arise from this type of issue.
These questions are often relative and depend heavily on each individual's perspective and experience. I encounter this kind of debate most frequently when exploring different solutions to a specific problem or designing a system architecture that best meets a given set of requirements.
In such situations, there may be several reasonable approaches, each with its own advantages and trade-offs. The goal shouldn't be to prove that one person is right and everyone else is wrong, but to find the most suitable solution.

Issues That Cannot Be Settled Through Debate

Finally, there are issues that are particularly difficult to resolve through debate, especially those involving deeply held beliefs and ideals concerning religion and politics.
These subjects are closely tied to people's identities, values, and worldviews. Disagreements over them have contributed to conflicts around the world for hundreds, even thousands, of years.

Conclusion

I was planning to write a few more lines to wrap up this 2022 retrospective, but it's already past 1 a.m. on Lunar New Year's Eve, and I'm getting sleepy. =))
I'll call it a night for now. Feel free to leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comments below. And don't forget to upvote and follow me for future posts!
Thank you all for reading. I wish you the strength and peace of mind to embrace all the challenges and opportunities that await you in the coming year.
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2023!
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Saigon, Vietnam β€” January 2023

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