Hello, my dear readers, we will be wrapping up the year 2020 in just a few days, how is your year goes by so far? Not much changes or a lot of things are changing in your life? the fact that we are still alive and healthy is something to be grateful for. I am going, to sum up, my version of the year 2020.
I was supposed to travel to Japan in March 2020, but obviously, I had to cancel my trip. It was so disappointing and I miss Japan so much. I am sure a lot of people experience the same thing as I do, canceling travel plans. I can’t travel anywhere this year, not even to the malls I used to visit at least 3 times a month. I feel the ultimate boredom without traveling and nothing can entertain my soul better than traveling. But I still survive, I can’t complain. On the bright side, the money I have prepared for traveling expenses is being used to set up a small online business.
My social life significantly declines. Well, to be honest, I am an introverted person. Even so, this “stays at home all the time” situation, makes my introverted soul suffer. I like to meet up with my friend occasionally, but now I haven’t seen them for almost a year. We all take the social meeting online through the Zoom app, WhatsApp call, and any other video call app. It just does not feel the same. It made me realize that some friends are not compatible with long video calls and some video calls just feel too awkward. Only a few friends that I can talk to for a long time without awkwardness, never running out of things to talk about, and have the same connection whether I see them offline or online. Some just say they miss me without any action. That is understandable, I have no hurt feelings over it. The lesson learns here is, I really treasure my friends that I have a real connection with even though we cannot meet each other in a real-life, we still communicate well. We care for each other and show real effort to maintain our friendship. After all, soulmates are rare.
Another aspect changes this year is homeschooling. I who have no patience in teaching anything to anyone is forced by the situation and start teaching my own son. To be his teacher at home. It was hard at first, as time goes by it turn out being a teacher is doable. Especially when I see my son have an improvement in the online school. My respect for elementary teachers increased. They surely have a quite tough job managing lots of active kids to learn at school. It also made me realize that my child’s education relies heavily on me, not his school or teachers. Kids can learn many things at school but without parents’ active participation in guiding their children’s education process, it will be hard to achieve the desired result. It is our responsibility as parents to teach and guide our kids, not the school.
Before covid 19 I was always busy. I like being busy, doing my job, joining seminars, attending gatherings, meeting friends, traveling, etc. As pandemic happens, no traveling allowed, no meeting other people, and work from home are mandatory in the first 4 months of covid 19. I suddenly have a lot of alone time; I don’t know how to deal with that at the beginning. Sometimes we are so used to distractions, it keeps us away from the real problem in our mind. We keep doing other things trying to forget the problem ever exists. We thought after a while running from the problem makes it go away. But when those distractions suddenly disappear and we are must face the problem once again. Turns out the problem is still there, you might forget it for a while but if you don’t try to solve it, the problem will never go away.
Eventually, I take the advantage of excess time to reflect on myself, doing meditation and journaling. It honestly brings mental clarity to me. I evaluate my personal mission in life and the things I need to improve in order to get me closer to my goals. Journaling helps me to dump my thoughts and ease my mind from overthinking. Writing helps me visualizing all the things I want to have and everything I want to achieve.
When there is extra time, I laso use it for exercising. Probably the highlight of my 2020 is the improvement of my fitness level. I start adding strength training into my workout regime to get a toned body. I start to pay attention to my nutrition intake which helps a lot with my health. Not only doing workouts, but I also start to learn more about health and fitness. I haven’t gone to the gym in February 2020. Surprisingly, I exercise even more at home compare to when I was still going to the gym. Workout at home is fun too. It is more convenient; you do not have to spend money on a gym membership and you can adjust the workout schedule as you want. The only downside perhaps is the lack of proper fitness advance equipment, more importantly, the willpower you have to motivate yourself to exercise. Just because it is at home, does not mean you can keep skipping your workout session. So, build self-discipline and creating the habit of exercising is key.
There is always a blessing in disguise, no matter how the bad situation is. For everything you have lost, you gain something else. I can’t travel to Japan this year, but I can create a side hustle that helps generate more income to help me cope with the covid 19 situations. I have more time to reflect on my goals, my problems, and my priorities in life. You may not see it at first, but when you take the time to evaluate yourself and the situation, you might be surprised by the blessing hide behind it. Goodbye 2020, thank you for the valuable lessons you’ve thought me this year.
ND PASSION 