Lessons from 2022
New year New me! Scratch than. New year, still the same person navigating adulthood.
I can comfortably say that I don’t make New year’s resolutions anymore because they became a string of mostly disappointments or it could be that I was doing them wrong, I will never know. There were even a couple of years when I went for new year’s eve overnights at Namboole stadium and put my resolutions in an “envelope”. One of my best friends had sworn by it saying she had a 100% success rate every year with everything she included on her list, (you know yourself…lol). Maybe her link to God was stronger than mine. This is not me making a mockery of new year’s overnights nights but I can joke about this today because I have learnt over time that there are no templates for doing life. We each find our unique ways of doing and pursuing our dreams. My not making resolutions does not mean I don’t plan for the year, I write down aspirations and dreams leaving room for magic to happen. Still sounds like resolutions but it could be the rephrasing that’s making all the difference for me.
As the year ended, I also found myself wondering if I from about 5 years ago envisioned that this is where I would be now. And friends this is not the life I had planned and when I think of it, I had not planned this far. With the many years I have now has come wisdom, and I have short and long term plans for my life, thank heavens. In my early 20s fresh out of the university with my undergraduate degree, finally working a full-time job at a prestigious media house I thought I had achieved enough. I was content with myself and was drifting through life without any outstanding plans. Like earlier mentioned, I had never been a meticulous planner with any future grand ideas. I was letting life take its course. However, this changed after I turned 25, went into the late 20s and over. I started wondering about life in general and then my own and wondering if there was more to it than I was experiencing. That is when the unraveling started. I left my job then in the newsroom for another opportunity I was lucky to get and that has set me on the exciting journey I am on today. I have learnt a lot along the way and since I started this blog I always endeavour to share my lessons from the previous year so here are my three lessons from 2022;
Timing is everything
I have had enough experiences now to tell why some things did not happen when I wished, prayed, and was dying for them to happen. It was because I was not ready for them and wouldn’t have appreciated them or made the best of how they presented had they come before their time. When things arrive at the correct timing, you have the resources and capacity; that even when ill-prepared, you will have the wisdom to receive and handle them accordingly. This learning is derived from experiences with relationships, jobs, finances, and all other aspects of my life. This lesson directly links to the 2nd lesson which is;
Appreciating the processes of life
We all have unique experiences in life and how we got from one place to another. Some people have it easier; for others, well, they must get from A to B, C, D …… (include the entire alphabet) through blood, sweat, and tears figuratively and literally. There have been tears and anxieties in some of my experiences, but I have come out on top and that’s why I can write this blog post. What I just described is what I define, as “processes of life” and they can be challenging while undergoing them at times, I have now learnt their importance. Back in 2019, the end of it was particularly difficult because of a heartbreak. It was painful. I wanted to sleep and wake up when I was healed from all of it, but this never happened. My healing came during the pandemic in 2020, imagine! This is just one example of life’s experiences you cannot will, pray or wish yourself out of. You have to go through it. I did not know this then and have since had to navigate other life challenges and triumph over them but I hadn’t learnt the lesson. I learnt it in 2022 and now as I go through 2023, I will not be seeking the easy way out of situations but instead to have the resilience to under go the experiences and the heart to pick the lessons I’m meant to learn. I have learned that every step counts of the journey (process) and when I achieve what I set out to get, I have earned it, when I arrive at the destination I set out to get to, I have the right to be there. In all this, to appreciate the process as much as the outcome and while this is easy to say than to do, it’s important to remember.
Being deserving of people’s kindness
This one came by surprise that it took me putting together patterns for it to properly register. This year and all my life, of course, I have had people show me kindness in both big and small ways, but this year was different almost as if I saw it in a new light. This must have come with growth, but I felt that I appreciated it better this time around. I had incidences where friends did things for me, and my initial reaction would be shock and surprise almost as if I was not deserving of what was being given or done for me. With this realization, I started probing and I still am on the origin of these feelings. I am mostly independent to a fault, and this is not to say that I do not need people or help because I do, always. But I mostly struggle to ask for personal help (outside of the work environment) and will ask when I am pressed against the wall. So, when someone offered something out of their own will or when I asked for something and it was granted, I would be surprised. Cue internal monologue “Oh my God, you would do this for me, really, are you serious…” I know I am certainly deserving all good things and all and I have made it a point to keep reminding myself of this. This year, I will have to keep digging until I get to the root cause of this, but most importantly, to pay it forward. I wonder if there are other people like me. Could I be having underlying trust issues, hmm, I’ll keep digging. If you have an idea about this tendency or know more about the psychology of this, I would love to hear about your experiences.
2022, what a year you have been, a great year! 2023, I am ready for you and believe you will equally be full of wonders. I wish you a bountiful new year.
What are your lessons from the previous year?
The featured image source: istockphotos
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