My Reminiscences of 2020..!!

 

"A marathon takes roughly 45,000 steps to complete. No matter how joyous, repetitive, monotonous or painful each step may be, it takes every one of those steps to reach the distance of 42.195 km. The marathon doesn’t care if a single step was powerful, weak, short, long or devoid of energy. The marathon is incomplete if even one step is missing. Every step taken, regardless of how reluctant, tired, energetic or lackluster it may be, cannot be retaken or repeated as the same version of oneself from that instance. Every step counts.

Similarly, an average person will live to 80 years of age, which is 4,160 weeks or 29,200 days. No matter how joyous, repetitive, monotonous or painful each day may be, it takes every one of those days to complete one’s life. Life doesn’t care if a single day was bad, sad, happy, productive or lazy. End of one’s life cannot be reached if even one day is missing. Every day lived, regardless of how disconnected, absent, lost, unfulfilled, unhappy, resentful or regretful it may be, cannot be replaced or re-lived as the same version of oneself from that day. Every day counts.

Every step taken is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, taken as a new version of oneself, with a slightly newer and different perspective than the one from the previous step.

Every day is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, waiting to be harnessed by a new version of oneself, one day wiser than the one from yesterday.

Every step. Every day. Let’s make it count."

*****


The year 2020, I must say, is once in a lifetime experience for almost everyone out there. The last time we came across such a situation was in 1918-1920, 100 years back.



As I write this post, it is almost 10 months for me in the lockdown. There has been no travels and no action around anywhere. Only actionable constant is the daily news pop-up in the morning flashing the number of new, active, recovered Covid-19 cases in the country along with number of lives it has claimed.

In the first few months, (especially March to June), it was a chaos everywhere. Companies were laying off employees all over the globe. Businesses were being shut down. Everyone became aggressive to defend themselves. But the life had to come back to normal eventually. People need food and money to survive. Government can't keep on providing the same to whole country. So situation started to ease out. But not before the situation hit the minds of people around. 

Everyone was forced to do work-from-home. Folks were forced to go into long-distance relationship. Many couldn't survive the pressure and broke-up. Those who were living with family had trouble managing work-from-home and family life. Teaching kids for online classes was another hassle for parents. It was all overwhelming. Overthinking became a new normal among people of all age-groups. Reports claimed a significant rise in divorce cases filed around the globe. Some were getting closed into their shells, and some were acting irritated.

However, as some say "Time heals everything"; some like to say "People get used to the situation as time passes"; few others say "Everything happens for good", eventually things did start to get smoothened. As soon as the flights started, people started to fly back to home from metro cities. In some cases, people got their parents from their home-town to their work cities. All-in-all, to quote the positive, family bonds improved in many households.

People started accepting things slowly and started to get used to it. Though it will take some more time for things to get exactly in the way they were before pandemic. In fact, it is a possibility that they will never be exactly the same. Either way, life just goes on. Traffic on roads is coming back to normal. Flights are slowly reaching its normal frequency. Shops and businesses have opened. Hotel industry is getting back to its normal routine. Few of the offices have opened. Few other companies are planning to open their offices. Weddings/marriages have started to happen. Birthday parties are happening. But all this has one thing in common, masks. Instead of happy faces around, now all you see is happy faces under a mask.

Well, either way, it was a different type of year to retrospect. There is a high chance that what has happened will not happen again in our lifetimes. There has been a lot of learning experiences from the year. Generally, I do this every year in my personal diary; but this time, as it has been a special year, and not much has happened in a room, so I thought why not sum up the events here. Obviously, not all things can be mentioned here (as some of them are too personal to me), but yeah, a broader picture, definitely yes. I think I'll keep the positives to the last. Let me start with negatives first.

Negatives:

  1. There were definitely off days, where I too felt down

  2. Managing cooking and household stuff along-with office was really tough

  3. Living full time with flat-mates with no office breaks, adjustment needs to be done. Made me think and plan on what will happen when I get married in future😂

  4. Screen time increased because of increased number of office hours (extra added hours were mostly meeting hours which were way less when I used to go to office)


Positives (Here is the section where I brag about my achievements):

  1. I read a lot this year. 39 completed books and 3 more on-going. (Further details on these, I'll be sharing in another post)


  2. Completed bunch of online courses

  3. Gained confidence on finance and market operations (mainly by online lectures and observations)

  4. Fitness wise it was also a great one. Finished 3 half marathons, including Tata Mumbai Marathon(India's biggest). Although couldn't complete my goal of a full marathon because of pandemic, but there is always time to that. No regrets there.

  5. As part of a regime to keep myself active and injury free, along with keeping myself isolated, I started a run/walk/cycle campaign. Ended up with a total of 5082.1 km (3742.9km run/walk and 1339.2 cycling) in the year.


  6. Managed to touch the milestone of a single 8 min plank.

  7. 121 crossfit-burpees at one go

  8. Hit a 10km personal best: 56min 30sec



  9. Expenditure reduced and savings increased on personal finance

  10. Experimented a lot with cooking, from Pizza, Momos, South Indian delicacies, North Indian dishes and and obviously cooking daily was the biggest achievement. Although I used to do it earlier, but finally my mom believes that I can cook, which is a bigger achievement.



  11. Cleared 1 out of 8 level of Spanish (Just wanted to explore something new... so started learning Spanish)

Well, that's all for the summary of 2020. That the most I could do with all the weird turn of events in the whole year. Let's see what 2021 serves us with. Not making any plans for 2021. Just plan to improve and build up on what's there right now.

Share your experiences in the comments. It's always interesting to know and learn from others' experiences.

See you soon. May the force be with you..!!






Comments

  1. "End of one’s life cannot be reached if even one day is missing."

    Hits quite differently. I absolutely loved the analogy of steps taken and days in our lives. Kudos for all your achievements and personal development. Am glad you sticked to your interests and continued to pursue them despite long days at work and tiresome daily cooking.

    For me, although it was a difficult year emotionally but it proved to be a fantastic one in terms of professional growth, personal development and perspective in general.

    Wishing you an amazing 2021! With lots of travel, marathon and fun filled experiences.

    Looking forward to next blog post :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad that it was a successful one in professional and personal fronts.
      I'm more glad that you successfully made it through the emotional front. Such moments later mean a lot in life..!!

      Wishing you a very happy and healthy new year..!!
      Take care :)

      Delete

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