The Year I Caught Up With Life

Hellos & hellos!

It’s that time of the year again when I pick my favorite coffee shop (at the moment), festive décor is everywhere, the weather is getting colder and I make the mistake of ordering a cold coffee instead of a hot chocolate.

But it’s also when early mornings feel fresh and crisp, the mood all around feels more positive, self-help videos on goals and fitness are trending, and everyone is recapping and reflecting on their year.

The cold air sings of both satisfied accomplishments and productivity guilt.

Yes, it is also the time for my end-of-year recap posts. Lovely.

Whenever I write a new one, I always make it a point to re-read my older posts. It’s amazing to see how much we have changed in a year. How interesting the journey has been. How in the moment nothing makes sense but when you look at it from a wider perspective, everything works out for the better.

This is one of the main reasons why I have kept this habit every passing year. People say your self-growth and evolution seem to slow down as you age. You become set in your ways with very little room for change.

But with reflective habits like this, I feel like you are able to understand and asses yourself better as you grow. So in fact, the pace may slow down, but the quality of growth feels deeper and more life-altering.

Isn’t it incredible what writing as a habit can do for you? It gives you the ability to really look at yourself in new ways, that inspire you to live a better quality of life.

And this year was no different.

Having more time vs. what to do with it

This year was all about time. Or at least the illusion of it.

Too much time. Not enough time. Productive time. Lazy time. The best time. The worst time. Moments for time to stop. Moments for time to go as quickly as possible.

You know how people say how much they would accomplish if only they had the time?

You would do this, achieve this and accomplish this. Each ‘this’ promising a better life on its fulfilment. And usually the ‘this & this’ are goals, dreams and general wishes, thinking its completion would make you happier. If only, you had the time.

And trust me when I say this, I had either too much of it, or too little of it and neither made me happy. Not as much as I thought it would.

Because the freedom of having time doesn’t mean much unless you have the clarity to do something with it.

Take your time, it’s all you have

As I always say, sometime the universe gives you things that you didn’t even know you needed. 2024 turned out to be the year, where for the first time in my life, I had so much time that I could either drive myself insane with it, or find ways to make it work. Make it productive. And then drive myself insane with how it wasn’t productive enough.

Ah, fun.

This year was a nontraditional gap year of my life. I was still working, I was still existing, but the gift of time forced me to confront certain things about myself that I really did not even think was possible. Things I didn’t even know existed, or needed to be addresses because I never had the time to discover what they were in the first place.  

Somehow everything felt like it was on a soft pause no matter how hard I tried to press the fast forward button.

And I don’t think I accomplished anything that I would consider a life bucket list in a conventional way. But somewhere deep inside, I know that I am not the same person I started 2024 with. And I think that deserves to be an achievement in its own way. Especially if the change is for the better.

I realized a completely different trajectory of goals. So here is me trying to articulate them in the best way I know how and share some of my favorites with you:

Your inside reflects your outside

How you feel, think, process emotions and situations will eventually show. If your thinking, sense of clarity and emotional portfolio is organized, then you will reflect the same. And people will feel that positive (or negative) energy around you. It will find a way to come out of you in one way or another.

So try as much and as hard as you can to be aware of your thoughts. Whether they are repetitive negative patterns, thoughts that feed your ego, or past unfortunate situations you use as an excuse to not recognize your faults.

Its hard to be happy all the time, sure, but even the awareness of your thoughts will help you control the quality of what you feed into your brain in the first place.

 

Learn how to deeply process what you are feeling

In case you do feel heavy emotions, learn to process them first. Its hard to be objective with your emotions, but understanding them will help filter out the biases you have. It will help you get more technical your feelings and study them to know where they are coming from. And accordingly resolve the issue from the root of the problem. Hopefully permanently.

I have been guilty of venting & complaining a lot this year. And I think I have been reciprocated with the same energy. So, situations are never resolved, but their negativity is just being tosses around in your head like a ping-pong ball. And that’s where journaling here really, really helps (I should do a blog post about it.)

Give yourself time and space to think through your emotions. How you portray them to other people and even to yourself will help solve the issues for good, or be carried around as a grudge for the rest of your life. You decide.

 

You are only limited by the excuses you give yourself

I think we all like developing narratives about ourselves where we like to blame others for the misfortunes caused to us. Of course in some situations, that may be the case. But self-awareness here will help you determine whether you are genuinely handicapped, or you’re just giving yourself excuses to pacify your ego.

Spoiler: it’s usually the latter.  

Very few things in life are not doable. But before you discard a goal as unachievable, its good to sit down with yourself and be honest how much effort you have put into it. And despite that if you are still not able to achieve something, and you are facing the same issues over and over again, maybe effort is not the problem here.

Repetitive problems are a bigger sign of something else

And most of that still starts from you. What is it about your approach that you don’t realize that you need to change? Whether it’s a trait, a routine, a habit, a thought pattern. If the same thing keeps happening to you over and over, what is it that you are doing wrong? What is this telling you?

In the wise words: “You cant control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond to it.” And that is achievable only if you are really honest with yourself. You are willing to put aside your false sense of self to truly understand the nuances of your approach.

And hopefully break out of cyclic issues once and for all.

Accepting things as they are vs. Letting them go

Okay, how do you know how much to keep pursuing versus just letting it go because its not meant to be? The answer is actually genuine effort and intention. You will reach a point where you are able to recognize the maximum capacity of your genuine effort. Once you know this is all I could have done and can do, if it still doesn’t work out, then maybe its time to let it go.  

Again, this only happens when you are truly honest with yourself to know what your best effort looks like. There is also a fine line between excuses you give yourself and things just not meant for you.

Learning to live life is perfecting this balance. And probably the biggest lesson I have learned this year. Its hard to give up on something you’ve spent so much time and effort on. But there is also some freedom in knowing that you did your best given the circumstances and not getting what you want usually makes space for something better. Even though you cant see it yet. And you know its right because there are no bitter regrets. Just clarity of thought and genuine peaceful acceptance of the situation.

Nothing is good or bad, it just is

This is something I am still really working on. It’s a little too elevated for me to not label situations as good or bad. Or learning how to find a lesson in everything that happens to you. But its so hard to stop forming opinions about things, even in your mind.

And we label EVERYTHING. We judge the food we are eating while we are eating it. We comment on how we look, what we said, what we see. We criticise everything wrong that happens. And we don’t realize that there is a constant stream of negative thoughts just shuffling from one thing to another.

I think I’ve gotten better at learning not to comment unnecessarily on things that don’t concern me, but not being able to categorize things as good or bad will take time.

This philosophy helps calm down knee-jerk reactions we have to events. It also helps placate the fears we have towards extremes. Don’t be too happy, else something bad will happen. When will this misery end? Will I ever be happy? And the like.

Nothing is good, so you accept it with humility and be present in the moment to enjoy it while it lasts.

Nothing is bad, so you are optimistic that better things are coming and you’ll never feel this way forever.

Not gonna lie, 2024 wasn’t easy. But it wasn’t bad. There were a lot of opportunities to label this as the worst year ever, but also in some ways this turned out to be a truly, deeply resonating year on the kind of person I want to be.

To learn how to love my own company, and know myself so deeply that I am able to judge whether another person’s opinion of me is valid or disregarded. I want to be in a position where I can tell whether I need to genuinely improve on a trait or whether a passing negative remark will not make me question myself. And oftentimes, whether what someone says is feedback or a reflection of their own insecurities. I want to get better at knowing when to set boundaries and when to showcase a level of vulnerability for genuine inputs.

Call it self-development, call it self-love. But this in extension helps you love others better, because you love yourself enough.

So here is thanking 2024 for confronting me with a lot of questions that I probably would not have entertained in other circumstances. And that brought on its own set realizations and epiphanies, which I feel so grateful to have learned in better circumstances.

This year has truly taught me the essence of being so present that you are able to uncover different facets to your life. Parts that inspires you, that makes you want to be the best version of you-for you, that makes you equally excited for small things as much as the bigger accomplishments.

There is no more a sense of reserving or denying yourself happiness for special occasions. There is some satisfaction that you can choose to be happy with the way your life is right now. And be so so grateful for what you have.

And as for the new year?

Oddly, I have don’t have expectations from 2025. I don’t have this hectic list of targets. I have visions attached to what I think I deserve to feel. Emotional accomplishments.

I now have feelings I want to chase instead. Those feelings that can either be achieved through goals, or just learning to find moments and things that make you happy. Its not dependant on anything. Its in tandem with everything.

If I achieve that, then I think I’ll feel satisfied in knowing that I’m living life in the best way possible.

I mean, wasn’t that the point all along?

PLUSBTSOT7ISBACKIN2025ANDTHATSWHYITSALREADYGOINGTOBEAGOODYEAROK.

To finding new ways to live a good life,

Niki :)