2021 in a Blogpost

Yet another end of a year, I quite like these cliche moments we take time to reflect a little harder of what happened in the year. I had a rather slow year as clearly seen from the inactivity of this blog. Yet, in the time taken to rest (as just Nathan would put it, "just CHILL") it manifested into epiphanies of perspectives I thought I already knew but I realise I couldn't quite get with all the noise by keeping myself busy - it's as if the dust had settled.

I made quite a few obvious changes in my life:

1. I changed my job. A "YOLO" moment for me to be in one of history's monumental events - the Great Reshuffling. I never really had any issues in my previous role, I liked my team & the opportunities I had been given. Yet as a young & single millennial stereotype of that point of time, the lingering thought of "what-if" really got the better of me and I made the switch. Then again, no regrets :)
2. I did not end the year single as a Pringle. LOL. An unexpected encounter from the past. I'm constantly apprehensive about boy-girl relationships after going through a whole lot of shit shows in the past. It's nice to know someone with a shared experience, who understands and accepts and have a shared idea of how we just want to grow up from all our childish tendencies. I'm really lucky lol. 
3. I took a step back trying to be extra productive all the time. Sounds silly to many but it really took me a juggernaut of effort to just CHILL lol. There's always this little voice in my mind "am I doing enough today", I decided to shut that off for a while and do absolutely nothing and dang it was liberating. It's a definitely balancing act to keep one in check time to time.

Additionally, 3 key lessons I learned more wholeheartedly this year:

1. Trust the process. Despite understanding the concept, I find myself constantly succumbing to the idea of instant gratification most times. Progress has to be obvious, it must be seen, like I'm chasing to show increased profits in each quarter of an annual report. Yet, some things takes time. I slowly grasp the concept on marginal gains that often go unnoticed, that when one allows things to progress slowly, things are not that hard and can be easily attainable. I understood what it meant by small wins. Small wins end up amounting to a milestone.
2. It's okay to fail. Sometimes failures are not obvious, especially personal failures - did I do enough today? Did I clean my room today? Did I eat proper meals today? it's easy to brush off these little things because it sounds silly or embarrassing but it meant something to you. Likewise, small failures brushed off amount to the detriment of your own personal self-worth - of not being good enough.
3. Life is not a binary. One of my biggest takeaways being with Nathan is that my emotional intelligence is not that great. Haha okay kidding but is that life is not binary. Life can be malleable, it's okay to have a change of thought, decisions made together as a team, failure is not a turn-off, different situations calls for different responses, the whole plethora of values and ideas. 

In some way, I admit I was pretty embarrassed & afraid to be that person who just gave up, that person who was a one-hit wonder, that person who was only good at school but can't do well in the working world; I always raised the expectation bar for myself. I guess I was afraid what society thought of me. But I guess once you learn to accept your failures properly, it's hard to be shaken by the words of what people have to say and in some way, it's easier to trust the process and mould life in a way that works best for oneself.

Happy New Year :)