Year 2020 in Review
With every year that comes to an end, we tend to review ourselves. Look at our yearly resolutions, look at those gruesome or embarrassing situations we were in, events that helped shaped the year and people who helped us get through with it.
With every year that comes to an end, we gather our power and strength to look forward with optimism and new hopes. We make new resolutions, or just renew the old unfinished ones. Or, sometimes we just want to survive the next chapter of our lives with bare minimum.
2020 was a lot to handle. It was unprecedented. It was eventful. It was a year full of changes. Every month brought in new challenges, new worries to all of us — be it the pandemic, racial inequality, climate crisis, farmer’s protest in India, and so on. This year tested us emotionally, physically and mentally. Without getting into the details of this year’s events, I’d like to give sometime to focus on how last year has impacted me. I am doing this kind of exercise for the first time; wherein I would review my year to reflect upon my personal growth, failures, lessons, and so on however small it may be.
With no idea on how to proceed with this exercise, I did what we do best. Google how others did it! I read few articles on how to review my year, some templates which I can use to effectively get structure to my year!
Two great articles which helped me are: The year 2020 in review and My 2020 in review. I believe the structure they followed will help me combine the events in my year effectively and see the impact it had on me.
Events, growth, and changes in 2020:
(The points below might seem small or big, depending on a person’s viewpoint. But these are highly significant to me and has helped me shaped myself.)
- I welcomed this year with my family after almost 3 years. Spent some quality time with them, enjoyed several family meals and played games in the month of January.
- Attending my best-friend’s wedding. It was a surreal experience to see her enter into a new life journey. I stepped out of my comfort zone by initiating conversations, befriending a whole bunch of new people and enjoying every function at the wedding. Looking back to those days, I am glad to have taken risks, be vulnerable and be present in the moment. (Yeeeep!)
- I started my professional career as a full-time Transportation Engineer. Learned my ways to interact professionally, develop relationships, crunch in deadlines and mold my lifestyle accordingly. Well, this step came in with a lot of challenges and struggles which I still face, but I am glad to have entered a new phase in my life.
- When the pandemic hit, I was away from my family and friends in United States. All my family was together in India while I was in the States alone. I found ways to express myself to my family (still a long way to go) and connect with them more often!
- I worked on finding the things I love! I realized I’d truly enjoy working on mental health issues or on addressing crucial climate issues. I learned how much I would be happy with creating some impact in these arenas, and trying since June to work out something. (Not quite happy/satisfied with my progress, but something to look forward to.)
- This was the first year where I learned and enjoyed things to do: Sketching, puzzles, cooking and gardening (plants are my babies! ❤). I have learned to be more present, calm and focus on enjoying the process. These are my treasures of 2020, and something I am quite proud of.
- I watched serious number of TV series and movies this year. Some of my favorites being: Schitt’s Creek, Parks and Recreation, Queen’s Gambit. It was an absolute joy to watch them.
- At the beginning of May 2020, I transitioned to being vegan. There are still about 4 or 5 days where I consume dairy such as paneer and cheese. But I am happy to shift most of my meals to be plant-based and be more conscious of what I eat in a day.
- Virtual meals, movie nights, dancing and cooking with Ajit during lockdown. Those days are treasured, and helped me realize the importance and need to take time out to spend with each other.
- Weekly conversations on current affairs, feminism, dreams, psychology and many more such topics with Vrushali. These long conversations are so very close to me. I also made few close friends in this year.
- I practiced being grateful, vulnerable, and focus on my needs and mental health. Honestly, I am proud to stand up for myself and being able to vocalize myself. (To give a context: Until the start of this year, I didn’t know how to do it. I’d say yes to things I didn’t wish to and stayed within my comfort zone.) I patted myself on the back every time I vocalized my feelings. I learned its ok to be selfish and its ok to be not okay.
Some of the ‘fails’ last year (I don’t like the word ‘fail’. Its actually something that I couldn’t work on as much as I wanted to and things that I am hopeful to amp up this year. But, I couldn’t find another word to ‘fail’…so):
- I read only 2 books this year! Started with many books, but couldn’t complete them. I am still struggling to seed in a reading habit in my daily routine. Hopefully, I will make some progress this year.
- Working towards my professional career. Earlier this year, I realized I would want to work in some other field. I didn’t spend enough time on it.
- I wish to develop stronger relations with my family and be more candid with them.
- I gained about 10 pounds this year.
- I didn’t set aside time for meditation and self-reflection.
Rereading these points gave me the boost to move forward in this year with optimism and hope. It helped me realize how grateful I am to have a place to stay, means to stay connected with family and friends, focus on my health and develop new skills.
I know how hard this year has been on all of us. A lot of us experienced personal loss, survived this year with taking it one day at a time and doing just the bare minimum. One of the hardest and most devastating experience for me was to lose my grandfather to COVID-19 and not being with my family. Every day I think of him and pray for good health of my family.
There were so many days where I gave up on myself and thought I was failing. I know I have been hard on myself on many many days in this year. But, I started doing this exercise of writing one thing I am grateful of. This helped me pass through the worst of my days.
It was a year with many changes, self-growth and awareness. It has filled me with hope to do many things, strength to try, succeed and fails at things and trust in the greatness this world can offer.
To sum up, this year was a lot. Full of changes. Full of hardships. Full of just every emotion. I haven’t been very kind to myself before this year, but I am learning to.
I am unlearning and learning every day. I am practicing being grateful and joyful every day. I am learning to appreciate myself. I am learning to provide the pampering I deserve. I am being kind to myself. I am learning to be a little selfish. I am learning that its okay to not be okay.
Before penning this down, I thought I didn’t achieve anything in the year. I was looking at many things I could have done. But, instead of being hard this year, I decided to see the positives in this year. It didn’t matter how small it was, I just wrote it down. And honestly, I am very happy with it. There is still a small voice saying ‘oh, but you didn’t do this’, ‘but, you could’ve been here’ and so on. I am choosing this time to ignore it.
This was all. I didn’t even get to the other article’s template. Maybe I would be able to write in a week, or maybe I won’t ever write it. Let’s see.
Moving forward, I am hoping to be grateful for every day. I am hoping to be kind to myself. I am hoping to fail but get up when I am ready.