My 2021 in a Nutshell!

As 2021 wraps up, I again find myself sitting back and reflecting on this year, and some of my great takeaways.

2021 was the year where the world looked to return to normal, after a year of global upheaval. But we had to return to a NEW normal, as we still had to tackle the COVID-19 surges spurred by the Delta variant. While there’s still some turbulent times ahead, I have profound appreciation for what we’ve learned in 2021 and how we overcame the challenges and obstacles, by being there for one another and supporting one another.

Pulling out a few silver linings from what has been yet another tough year, this year for me started off really great! Building upon the foundation of skills that I acquired the year before, I transitioned to a Cloud Architect role within my company. I’m fortunate to have found this new team with amazing peers and managers – just like my previous team. This new role presented me an opportunity to have deeper engagements with our partners, collaborate more with our customers, and help them accelerate their cloud adoption journey. Being a cloud consultant is really exciting as every day brings its own challenges, workloads and real business problems to solve. There is nothing called a “typical day” in the life of a cloud consultant. As they say about consulting, once you take a step back and realize what you’ve accomplished, the knowledge you put together, the relationships that you’ve formed, what you’ve learned, and the assistance that you’ve hopefully provided, that everything makes sense.

One story that struck a chord with me, is that of the three bricklayers. One day, Christopher Wren, the world’s most famous architect, observed three bricklayers on a scaffold, one crouched, one half-standing and one standing tall, working very hard and fast. To the first bricklayer, Christopher Wren asked the question, “What are you doing?” to which the bricklayer replied, “I’m a bricklayer. I’m working hard laying bricks to feed my family.” The second bricklayer, responded, “I’m a builder. I’m building a wall.” But the third brick layer, the most productive of the three and the future leader of the group, when asked the question, “What are you doing?” replied with a gleam in his eye, “I’m a cathedral builder. I’m building a great cathedral to The Almighty.” All the three bricklayers were doing the same task, but what was different between them was their sense of purpose. One of the analogies that we can draw from this is, being able to Think the Big Picture and see the end result of your work. Having a positive attitude and taking pride in what we do, and connecting with the organization’s mission, vision, values and goals. I hope we are all able to find purpose in what we are doing, and help and support each other.

In the second half of the year, I moved from east coast back to the west coast. I am fortunate enough to have found a great group of people, yet again. It is always a magical feeling to move to Pacific North West where the cities, mountains and sea come together to create spectacular views. You’ll feel at home anywhere in the PNW. I was also able to reconnect with a lot of people and have meaningful conversations.

In all, 2021 was again a year of extremes for the world, as we are still fighting the deadly pandemic, but this time we are stronger than ever before. Yet again, I’d like to thank to everyone who helped each other through these unique times.

Let's hope 2022 will be better! Looking forward to the new experiences and more challenges that 2022 has in store for me. Namaste 2022!

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