My Photo Album: My Happiest Memories (Many of Which are Software Engineering Memories) -Part 1

My Buddhist teacher Ajahn Brahm whose works I still follow and adore to this day (in spite of not being a practising Buddhist myself) says that our memories should be like photo albums. 

We should only keep the happiest ones. So I wanted to go over the happiest memories of my life or some of them. A lot of them relate to software engineering. Spoiler alert. Okay here we go.

The day I got my first software engineering job offer

I was ecstatic. I was over the moon. 

I had the offer made in front of the whole product team. It was so surreal. I almost cried on the call. I was ecstatic. I was just the happiest I have ever been ever. I had to go to the cinema that night to celebrate to see avatar 2: the way of water for the second time lol. Because I was very happy. Because avatar is all about saving the earth. And I do software engineering to save the earth. 

I was elated. I don’t remember much anymore. 

I was over the moon. I was ECSTATIC.

The day I got lost in Stenner woods in Manchester 

After I got my kraken job offer (this was my second software engineering job and the offer came 1 year and 2 months after the last one) I unexpectedly got some money and I did the only logical thing to do; I went up to my favourite place in the world Manchester. I went straight to fletcher moss park where one of my favourite pylons in the world is in fact several of them are. I absolutely love the pylons up there.

I also saw so many internet towers. More than I had ever remembered. I saw so many towers and I loved them so much. I love the internet towers. 

I felt so totally and utterly inspired and there was a lot of water infrastructure and I love it too. I was so inspired. And then I got lost in the woods and I loved the woods and I could’ve stayed there forever. And then I got a taxi to an Indian restaurant called “Third Eye”.

And you don’t understand. I love Indian food. And I love anything spiritual. And I love all things chakras. 

And I loved third eye and theirs was honestly some of the best food that I have ever had in my entire life. 

That’s me in third eye! Pray for me that I will go back there.

I love prayer flags. 

If I see prayer flags in a restaurant then I have to go in. 

I absolutely love all things Tibetan and Buddhist. My meditation teacher once described non-duality. 

He said “if you take away everything that’s Tibetan and everything that’s Buddhist about Tibetan Buddhism then what’s left is non-duality.” I love that. It’s so beautiful. “You are the love in everything you love,” my teachers teacher, Francis Lucille, would say. I can’t hide who I am anymore. 

I can’t hide my love for god and for the universe and for love itself because it’s all the same thing really. 

I can’t hide my love which runs so deeply which is for who I really am because of course we are all one. We are all one at our core really. We are all “I am”. “I am” is who we all are really - and everything that has happened to me in my life has led to me understanding this. 

The night my little sister was born  

Little sis was born when I was 4. It was a summers night. Big sis and Polish grandma and I camped out in a makeshift tent in the garden until 11 pm. It was so magical. I went there today again to that village. The village is full of wind farms in the nearby vicinity. Little sis was born later that night. The greatest gift of my life. 

I still can smell the freshness of that summer’s night. And it makes me so happy that it was so near to where all my favourite pylons are.

My first days in the kraken office 

I will never forget those beautiful first days in the office. My sense of purpose was totally rekindled. I felt my sense of “I AM BORN TO BE A SOFTWARE ENGINEER” more than ever. And I really felt that there is something that I have to give to this world. I have many more but it’s getting late. I will leave it here as it’s almost midnight and it’s bedtime!