Hindsight 2020 (Obligatory New Year Post 6)

Hi again readers! Back with the Obligatory New Year Post series, and this time with a funny title I came up with myself (har har har). I'm actually surprised how hasn't anyone thought of this great pun that I came up with (har har har) but anyway here goes.

So obviously, last year didn't go very well. I must say this must've come out as unexpected if I were to tell my previous year's self. Not even my 1-year-ago self, but also my 6-months-ago self. I remember quite vividly how I thought to myself, "2020 is going to be a very tough year for most people. But for me, it is probably going to be one of the best year of my life." Writing this reminds me of a pattern that I noticed when I was much younger that whatever that I think is going to happen, the exact opposite is going to happen instead, but if I were to tell someone about it, that exact thing is going to happen instead. I probably should've said that to someone so that it happened instead lol.

The pun in the title (har har) is not really just for jokes, but it is really the overarching theme of the year for me, at least that's how I'm trying to see it. It's still hard to believe that I actually made the choices I made, but I have reflected on what happened and on hindsight, I can understand why I ended up making those poor choices. Also, you never know how good you have it until you actually lose it and on hindsight, it was probably the best it could ever be. Coming to terms with those are hard but I'm trying; every time I thought I'm already past it, I'd still break down every time I have to retell the story. Last episode of this being the new year's eve gathering I went to - which fortunately was only a relatively small group of friends, some of which are people I trust enough even though we meet ever so rarely, and others are people who I'm not so close with that I don't really care what they think.

Some interesting thing came out of it - not directly, but it's still one of the contributing factors on why it happened anyway - I went for a retreat at the end of the year, and got to know some interesting people. They are interesting in the sense that they are about the same age as me and have a strong passion on spirituality - even stronger than mine, which doesn't really say much in terms of the degree of the passion but in Singapore, it's really hard to find such kind of people. Even though the retreat itself was kinda meh for me due to various reasons (no noble silence, the retreat site is at some hotel just outside the main Orchard Rd, the schedule is very sparse, and the sessions are lead by the instructors via Zoom), it still gives me some joy to see that I'm not so alone spiritually. I think I might've written before that one of the reasons I got together with her was that she's also a Buddhist that seems to have a similar level of understanding and practice, and that's precious to me because I haven't found a single person that matches that description in Singapore (and I forgot about this when I made some of the poor choices - hindsight alert), until that last retreat.

I don't think I'll come up with some resolution or whatever - I think I'm too old for that (or I'm just too emotionally tired) but anyway I already do some of what I'd have written anyway - I've been exercising at least once a week nowadays on average, just because it helps in calming down my mind when one of those depressive/anxiety episode hits (I think this actually means the episode comes at least once a week on average, which is not a very good sign lol). Progress spiritually - I've been meditating almost everyday lately and I don't see myself stopping unless something major happens. Progress in career - I believe it's just going to happen naturally if you keep a good attitude towards work - and progressing spiritually will help here, I feel. Same for seizing opportunities - if you keep a good attitude towards life in general, you'd naturally go for opportunities that is fulfilling for you.

So I'm starting to be also physically tired now so I'm going to end this post with magnificently punny title (har har) here. Best wishes in your life's endeavours! And I hope you'll find your happiness. Happy new year!

PS. Incidentally, it turns out that this is the 100th published post in this blog lol. Nothing particularly significant, just found it interesting and worth mentioning :p