From the 2023 me to the 2024 me.
No, not a New Year resolution.
Here’s the friend link to get behind the paywall!
Yet another reflection piece, Aswath?
Bear with me a bit, this one covers more ground.
I am not one for sentimentality, but given the impact this year had on me, I can’t help but write this post. So, to me next year, and hopefully some of you too, what are the main themes or lessons to carry forward?
1. There’s no such thing as “too late” or “no time”
This is a topic I pursued in some of my writing, be it poetry, or those about my taekwondo adventures. [Just a quick FYI, I got a green belt, yay me!]
But outside of that, this year also lit the fire in me, to finally get going about a lot of my milestones, like seeking knowledge with renewed passion, signing up for that online course on data analytics, restarting my old habit of buying and reading actual books, exposing my writing to the larger world on Medium, or restart taking long walks along the canal, just to name a few.
Only a few months ago, some of these things were under the “I am too busy for this” or the “I am too old for this” overheads. But as the months rolled by, my perspectives also started changing. And dare I say, for the better. I now look forward to expanding my skills and overall well-being and finding excuses to not make bad excuses.
This brings me to the next point.
2. Start one thing. The rest will surprisingly fall in place.
I never anticipated this chain of events, after all. I just wanted to not feel weak, and improve my physical fitness. But the more I did that, the more I also discovered my mental fitness getting better. This might sound very repetitive, but discipline births a good mind indeed. And the next piece of the ‘Me’ puzzle fit in serendipitously. (Quite a mouthful, eh)
And then there’s Medium. I always had a pipe dream of making money out of writing, but that did not quite happen until I did one thing — Actively push myself out there. If I were to plot my growth in this platform (which is not so great in the first place), most of it would happen in December. That’s saying something. Does this mean I am the next richest blogger? Not really. But it does mean that people read me, and can in turn teach me to get better.
Now, about the other 11 months…
3. Wait not, act always. Even if it is daunting.
This flows from both my vision as a writer and my workspace as a Solar PV Engineer. The former is about catching people’s attention in a world that has great talent. The latter is about butterfly effects, organizational structures, and sensitivity of markets. Someone sneezes in some part of a supply chain and the renewables market goes on a spin.
I had to see many people struggle, and I needed to stay ahead of my lethargic self to learn and grow as a professional. It’s not as if the world is going to wait for me, and the pace is only going to get much faster in the coming times. It is also much better to make a few mistakes and learn lessons from them, rather than play the perfectionist and keep preparing while everyone else moves on.
One of the aspects I had to confront this year, and suspect will do more so in the future, is the mental toll this takes. Change is beautiful, change is great, change is whatever, but change is stressful. And it is not a sin to talk about it, even as we adapt to the said change.
Speaking of talking.
4. Own your inner monologue before owning other conversations.
This year was also me telling myself to put a sock on it.
While it is very important to talk to people who matter, be they intellectually or emotionally, the most important one is the talk we have with ourselves. This was the year I finally managed to not let my imagination run wild, address my making inferences and assumptions that were rampantly emotional, and explore my mental space more healthily.
Writing helped. As did taking a moment to think. And taking breaks. These habits I have started to inculcate have given me a clear indication, that I am now making lesser knee-jerk responses.
And silence definitely helps.
Overall, this year has been about the beginnings of finding myself, and a spiritual journey I will continue in the future.
5. Criticism is not the same as cynicism.
On the note of monologuing, this theme deserves special mention.
There is a thin line between “anticipating something to go wrong” and “anticipating something to not go right”, and this distinguishes a world of change. As such, this is a line I freely crossed one too many times in the past, in my personal life, especially in the wild imaginations I believe some of you might relate to, as well.
Here’s a very relatable example — My thinking that Medium was not my thing because not enough people read it, versus me thinking that I was not read enough as I was lacking something. The former allowed me to scapegoat the platform, and offset blame. The latter put me at the center and showed the opportunity to grow.
It is essential to remain careful, or rather, vigilant, to be able to know when the mind goes from the position of ‘what-if’ to that of just ‘not’.
So, these are the things I tell myself again, as I get down to the other biggest challenge — To write 2024 correctly, instead of scratching out 2023.
What are your biggest take-home lessons from 2023? Do you find similar conclusions to some of those I listed above? Please drop a comment about your journey!
Happy New Year, everyone!
And I hope for your continued support and guidance in this coming year!
If you would like to read some of my other pieces on reflection or change, please find them here:
- A poem on why I think a calendar does not need to be the inspiration for change.
2. A poem on keeping the inner monologue in check.
3. A poem that shows my mental journey after encountering a low point in the last months of 2022.
4. A tale of sweat and pain (couldn’t help it haha)
