Growth on Og Maciel's Journal

Questions for a Happier 2026

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Questions for a Happier 2026

Not resolutions, but reflections on what actually mattered

Questions for a Happier 2026

This is my final post of 2025.

I want to start by saying thank you. Truly.Life in Rough Draft exists because you read, reply, reflect, and occasionally tell me that something here landed at the right moment. That quiet exchange—writer to reader—is what keeps this space alive.

If these essays have resonated with you this year, the simplest way to support this work is also the easiest: share a post with a friend, tap the ❤️, or restack it with a few words of your own. Those small gestures help these pieces find the people who might need them—and they let me know what’s connecting.

The Gift You Don't Open Right Away

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Gift You Don’t Open Right Away

Finding the truth inside hard feedback

I’ve noticed a slight increase in the number of people reaching out to me for “one last call” before the end of the year. It wouldn’t quite qualify as a surge, but it’s definitely a shift—not just in volume, but in who is reaching out and why.

My calendar is usually full of the expected things: project meetings, team conversations, or discussions with people interested in using the work we’re building. That’s normal. But lately, more people have been asking to talk about something else entirely.

Finding My Feet Again

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Finding My Feet Again

Photo by Japheth Mast on Unsplash

Dear reader and friends,

It’s been a chaotic last three days at work, the kind where I can barely find time to breathe or do anything personal beyond being with my family. Work has consumed every single minute, and I’ve faced challenges that pushed me to the brink more than once. I’d be lying if I said the easier route — throwing in the towel — didn’t cross my mind. The comfort of giving up can be surprisingly tempting. There were moments when I had to talk myself off the ledge, reminding myself not to stop caring, not to disconnect, not to shut down.

When the Armor Slips

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

When the Armor Slips

Photo by Nik Shuliahin 💛💙 on Unsplash

Yesterday, I wrote about how my day began with the very difficult task of letting someone go. Even though that meeting lasted only fifteen minutes, it took a lot out of me. Little did I know, that was just the beginning of what turned into a chaotic day filled with multitasking, back-to-back calls (both scheduled and ad hoc), and trying to balance competing priorities and distractions from morning to night.

No Is a Complete Sentence

Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by Park Troopers on Unsplash

Google Calendar says I spend an average of 20 hours a week in meetings. Add to that the fact that I have to block my own lunch just to prevent people from scheduling over it, and suddenly 25 hours of a 40-hour week are already spoken for. Then there are the ad-hoc calls that pop up out of nowhere and don’t even show up on the calendar. So I’m pretty convinced I actually spend close to 30 hours a week on Zoom/Meet/Teams/whatever-video-conferencing-platform-is-ruining-my-neck-that-day.

My Origin Story: Baptism by Fire

Mon, 27 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by Hannah Gibbs on Unsplash

When I walked into Synaptic Pharmaceuticals for my first official software developer job interview, I had never written a line of professional code. I had no GitHub profile (it didn’t even exist yet), no computer science degree, and just a vague idea of what a design pattern was.

But I had something far more dangerous: momentum and an unlimited supply of hubris.

A few weeks earlier, I had built a working software system from scratch in a pharmaceutical lab despite having zero formal training. If I could do that, what couldn’t I do?

If You Want to Grow, Get on the Bull

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by Dulcey Lima on Unsplash

I can’t remember exactly when I first heard the advice about taking ownership of your own career and destiny instead of leaving it up to chance. Maybe it came from a book, maybe a talk—I can’t remember. But I do know the exact day when it finally hit me.

It was around 2008, during a really hard phase at work. Back then, I blamed all my career woes on external forces—unsupportive teammates, bad leadership decisions, bad luck. None of it was ever my fault, of course. I was convinced I was doing everything right and the universe was conspiring against me.

My Origin Story: From Syringes to Software

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by Ousa Chea on Unsplash

“Sometimes the path finds you long before you recognize you’re walking it.”

I didn’t plan on becoming a software engineer. In fact, if you had met me as a teenager in Brazil—hunched over one of the many Encyclopedia Britannica volumes we had at home or scribbling chemical equations on scratch paper—I would have told you I was going to cure genetic diseases and start my own research lab in Australia. People from all over the world would fly there to be treated. All free of charge. That was the dream. Technology wasn’t even in the picture.