January 16, 2026

2025

This was one crazy year. I was overloaded. I was so busy that I almost gave up on writing this post. I almost brought myself to my knees with all the things I tried to squeeze into this year.

---

This year, the hacker inside me returned.

Making things has been a part of my identity since childhood. I loved making things out of cardboard, jumper wires, keyboard strokes, strings or springs.

This part of me peaked when I was in college building robots, winning hackathons, making IoT projects, hacking university's systems and building a maker community.

After I settled down and started a family, I thought I outgrew making "silly" things. I had real jobs and a real life where adult Safa had to remove the word "maker" from his Twitter bio a few years ago. However this identity was so deep in me that I always found myself watching videos of people making and building and hacking things.

This year, when my father suggested that we buy a 3d printer, the hacker in me raised from its ashes. It started a chain reaction so powerful that I watched myself buy bunch of equipment, set up an electronics lab in the office, learn bunch of new skills and lastly open a hackerspace in my city.

---

I built things, this year, of all scales.

I started building a house this year. It's a long and tiring process but going well so far. When finishes, inshaallah, it will be my first house.

I have an architect friend from high-school who helps me hire contractors, do all the construction stuff that I don't understand much. Although I delegate most of the work to him, the remaining work of planning, deciding and tracking things is a huge time and effort.

So many people warned me against this project, but you know me, I had to do it and see how hard it is with my own eyes.

I also built a cellar area in the basement of my office, the landlord doesn't know about it yet and I don't think I'll tell him, haha.

I built a workshop room in my office from scratch. It's my favorite room in the office and if I love to spend time on projects in there.

I built a community of local hackers with a few friends. Konya Hackerspace was born in 2025. The Whatsapp community has more than 70 people in it and we hit 30 members at the end of 2025. We rented a 150 sqm space and we are still building that place into a hackerspace.

I built websites, wikis, I built an MDM system at work from scratch. I designed and built 3d printed gadgets. I built a Home Assistant based smart home system in the office.

So, yeah, scales do not matter, 2025 was full of building things: even buildings.

---

I kept working hard on my body.

Although I still don't like weightlifting, I didn't quit.

Yes, it goes slow. Yes, I cheat frequently. But I didn't give up lifting weights and I don't plan to. 

This year I took running more seriously than last years. In the spring and summer of 2025, I kept a streak of running 3 times a week averaging around 10kms in a week. 

I hit my personal best on the annual 10K run for Konya Yarımaratonu: 77 minutes. It was 93 minutes in 2024. I am hoping to shave more minutes from it in 2026.

I rode my bike, skateboard and rarely my kick scooter.

I walked a lot but not as much as last year.

I hit daily steps of 11500 on average which makes more than a whopping 4 million steps this years.

---

I kept my weight off, kinda.

This year was the adaptation year to my new 30 kgs lighter body.

I witnessed the scale went up and down throughout the year. When I saw 95 kgs on the scale, I actively and painfully worked on my lifestyle and brought it back to 90.

This repeated a few times and at the time of writing this post, I am still struggling to lose a few kgs, yet again.

---

I kept learning Arabic, 150+ hours.

Through out the year, I kept taking 3 lessons per week on Preply. I didn't do much extra work, it's hard to even find for these lessons in my crazy schedule.

At this point, I started feeling conversational in Arabic but I can see that I still have years ahead of me to get fluent in Arabic.

---

I kept reading books but failed to study them as before.

Reading for me meant, highlighting some parts from books, taking notes, transferring them to a database, marking the new vocabulary and studying them, etc.

This year I barely did any of them. To make time for reading, I relaxed the procedure around how I read books and I just read them: better than nothing, huh?

This year I read:

I understood that reading is done best when your current ambitions aligns with what book is about. Otherwise it's a painful context switch.

---

I tested my limits on how busy I can be.

All of these obligations and undertakings made me feel like I want some slack. I want to relax for a few hours in the office, with my book in my hand, steaming hot coffee in my mug, watching outside. I miss when I have no notifications, no alarms and no surprises.

I think in 2026, I owe myself some slack.