Hellos,

There is this quote that immediately came to mind when I started thinking of what my 2023 round-up blog post is going to be about.

“Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing seems to change, but when you look back, everything is different.” -CS Lewis

This is precisely how I feel about 2023. I started the year with a new job, a different mindset to health, an alterative approach to relationships and over-all a whole new thought process to what I want from life.

To a certain extent, till the middle of 2023, I got almost everything I thought I wanted but…

I wasn’t happy.

And not because I wanted more. But suddenly when I got most of what I thought I wanted in a different way, all of those things just lost their appeal. Did I really want these things? Or was it expected of me to want them because of the age I was in, or the influence of the people I was surrounding myself with?

And here is the funny part, the moment I partially decided that maybe I don’t really want these things, the universe decided to gently just nudge them out of my way.

So as existential dread kicks in, I started questioning my career, how I wanted to be perceived by others, what a healthy partnership looks like and finally, and most importantly…

What makes me happy?

The title of this piece is my theme of 2023. A question that I think sounds simple, but the answer has to be one of the most difficult ones I had to find out for myself this year.

(Also how am I going to survive 2024 with majority of BTS being in the military, but that’s for another time.)

Seriously though, what really makes you happy? And how do you guarantee that you will continue to be happy once you get it?

You don’t have a job, you are unhappy. You get a job, but its stressful and you can’t make time for anything else, you are still unhappy.

You gain weight, you are unhappy. You lose weight but not at the rate you want to lose weight in time for a special event, you are still unhappy.

You are single, you are unhappy. You are in a relationship out of forced loneliness that doesn’t match your expectations, you are still unhappy.

You don’t get what you want, you are unhappy. You get what you think you want but not in the manner you wanted it, you are still unhappy.

What makes you happy? And how do you keep it? How do you stop yourself from wanting more? When does contentment settle in? When do you just learn to enjoy what you have and stop looking for the next best thing?

What genuinely, truly, soulfully makes you happy?

Well, for starters I realized in the long run that it will never always be about the bigger milestones, but the smaller epiphanies that compile themselves into something more significant.

Let me show you how.

What makes me happy about myself

For the longest time I thought I would feel my most confident self when I lost weight. And significant amounts of it.

I am going to start dressing well once I get to XYZ. I am going to start wearing all these styles I thought I could never pull off with a chubby tummy. I would start taking more pictures of myself and not be camera shy because I’ll feel so much more confident once I lost the weight.

Always waiting, always storing clothes, always idealizing things but never bringing them into reality.

Now here is the funny part.

I started the year with one weight, gained a whole lot more, lost a whole lot more to end up with the same weight I started the year with.

And I’m SO happy!

Ironic isn’t it? I am happy with the exact thing that I thought wasn’t enough when I had it. And I realized I have been feeling this way my ENTIRE life.

And finally at one point, I didn’t want to wait anymore. I was tired of it.

So I just started having fun with way I look right now.

I overhauled my closet to see what works and started wearing things that I thought looks great. Definitely no where near a Princes Diaries Mia Thermopolis Makeover Scene (Iykyk) but I just made do with what I had and genuinely started to enjoy it.

And before I knew it, I accepted the chub, accepted there will be some days I will workout for 2 hours and some days where I will just PMS eat all the sushi in the world.

After that, the mental liberation I felt was just next level. Like I cant even explain it. Do I care if I look good to you or to the standards you expect me to? Nope. Do I care if I look good to me and I found a pair of pants that touch the floor on my 6ft self? Oh god, yes.

Is this what all those self-love things were going on about? Wow, I think I finally get it.

So what makes me happy about myself is that I can still want to have an ideal body, but I don’t have to wait to get it before I can finally be happy with myself.

What makes me happy about my career

Oh boy. Where do I even begin.

So I work in digital marketing right? Content & copy to be specific. And have been working in this line for most of my career. But post pandemic and the arrival of the infamous ChatGPT, I cant help but feel replaceable.

When you finish a decade of your career, most people expect you to have a fancy portfolio and name drop celebs you have had the chance to work with. But there are very few projects in my career do I want to show off and say, I did this! Look, aint I creative and clever?

And I realized that none of that made me happy.

What made me comparatively happier in my career were the learning curves I came across and the knowledge exchange I had from the people I was working with. Some of them involved things I did for work, some of them were culture related, and some of them was just extra information I found interesting.

I enjoy doing new things. It was as simple as that.

But I had this false perception of what a senior role is suppose to comply with. I am supposed to want managerial and senior strategy roles. I am supposed to want more guidance roles than doing and learning roles.

But… why can I have both? Why can’t I have the senior guidance role because I love organizing and planning things, but still get involved in doing things myself? Why can't I use my experience as guardrails of what not to do and help younger people navigate ships to avoid choppy waters? And at the same time I can learn about new tech and how to do things better using that technology.

Is my age stopping me or my career perception what I think people my age are supposed to be like?

Truth is, being laid off (twice) and working as a freelancer for 6 months turned out to be exactly what I needed. But at that time, I didn’t know I needed it. I was just wallowing in self-doubt and financial regret.

So here is yet another funny realization.

What makes me happy about my career is that I have finally found what I enjoy doing. And that includes me being a part of different learning ecosystems, working with new people, talking to people from all sorts of backgrounds and gathering new learnings to things that I find interesting. Which mostly involves technology.

Gosh the irony. The very dislike for ChatGPT as a means of tech replacing my worth in a company, is the exact same thing I want to start learning more about. Who would have thunk it.

Yes, I may not be earning the highest amounts yet, and I still want to get there for sure. But right now, the newness and intrigue that I face with my smaller projects have felt more fulfilled than I have in a while. I don’t know how long this phase is going to last, but I want to do what I can to enjoy it.

And for now, that makes me happy.

What makes me happy about my relationships

Just clarifying that important relationships to me as a concept is always more than just romantic relationships.

This includes familial, friendships & work relationships.

And what I have learned this year is that you will never get a 100% of everything you wanted from one relationship. So instead of being disappointed that your friend wasn’t there for you when you needed them the most, I think you should be asking yourself if they have the capacity to be there for you in the way you need them to.

Usually, we pile these expectations from our friends to be there for us, which is fair, but there are some friends who can complete parts of us in bits and pieces, and in different ways.

To put this pressure one person to fulfil all our wants emotionally I feel is a little unfair to them. Maybe they have their own life to worry about, maybe they are not capable of understanding you that deeply, or maybe they just don’t know.

And maybe you are doing that very same thing for some one else.

So yes, funny realization time.

What makes me happy about my relationships that I have learned to take them for what they are. Nothing more, nothing less. I have learned to identify which friend, family or colleague can understand different parts of me in different capacities and support me in the way I want to be supported.

And this, I think is quite a feat.

As far as romantic relationships go, this year I have learned that I like equality and partnerships. Where neither person is above or beneath the other person. There is this quiet comfort in equal understanding and being there for one another in a way that genuinely helps them. And not what you think is good for them.

Of course this year has been big on the pressure to “find someone so that you don’t end up alone forever.” But this year has also taught me that there is a big different in being alone and being lonely. Wanting someone out of loneliness is one thing, finding someone when you are alone is another.

Hmm… I think I’ll leave 2024 to teach me more about this. But for now, I found the relationships that make me happy.

And that’s all that matters.

What makes me happy about my life

Oh goodness, I think the answer to this will come with a complete sense of gratitude. For what I have, for what I don’t have because it wasn’t meant for me, for what I had and lost because again, it wasn’t meant to make me happy, and the optimism for what is to come.

Some other significant things that make me happy about my life include my new found joy in bringing genuine happiness to others. And not in a people pleasing way, but in a way that brings both of us connective joy.

Traveling and discovering new places makes mehappy. That foreign feeling of a new space and environment, the freshness of perspective a new environment brings, the excitement when preparing for a trip makes me very happy. I think I want to do more of that in 2024.

The last and most important thing, small moments make me happy.

Really resonating with a line in a book | A great KDrama that you pause and giggle over | Afternoon long reading sessions in the balcony | Being able to clearly communicate your thoughts and emotions | The anticipation of the first bite of food you know is going to be so yummy | Being in a state of flow while journalling, writing or working | Unexpected moments when people surprise you by just being there for you | Empty cafes and clear thoughts | That glimmer of insight when you finally realize why you didn’t get what you want, and in hindsight ended up with something so much better.

Future Niki, I hope you know that present Niki things this may be the best end of year review blog you have ever written. Funny thing is (lots of funnies in this blog ey), I share this on social media but I don’t expect anyone to really take the time to read it. I realized that I write my blog mostly for myself and for future me to take what it needs from past me when she needs it the most.

So 2023, here is to another great year of self-love, self-growth, self-realization and always anticipating that whatever happens, happens for the best and to make you happy. Even if you can’t see it yet.

In the wise words of Bangtan Sonyeondan:

Yeah, the past was honestly the best (…)

But my best is what comes next (…)

You and I, best moment is yet to come.

Always hoping for good things,

Niki :)