I left 2021 feeling content, and I would not trade places and live any other life. I know that for a lot of people 2021 was a tough ride – I’m a comrade on your journey, I wish you pushed through, and I am here if you need me. It has become a tradition for me to share my biggest lessons for 2021 and here they are.
1.) Embrace hard
“There’s nothing worth getting in this world that you can get easily,”
Old man in Murakami’s 2021 short “Cream”
Despite the busyness, anxiety, travel restrictions, we managed to travel half the world away to the arctic circle. We rented a car – drove out through the dark and cold lengthen night covered with snowfall for a probability of seeing the northern lights. Meaningful relationship, good health, a calm mind, like the faint green light in the sky are hard things. And hard things are worth living for.
2.) Live important things urgently
We got roughly 4000 weeks in our life. I probably have 2450 weeks left (almost at the half way mark) assuming I live til 80. Life is like a blink of a firefly in the night, we are barely here. It’s a painful realisation – but its an important one. I can’t do everything I’ve said “later” to, and I won’t be able to live all the possible “one day” dreams. What I can do, is to prioritize – and do the important things urgently. Play long term games and make long term plans, but when it comes to the most important things, don’t sacrifice today for an imaginary tomorrow.
“It’s painful to confront how limited your time is, because it means that tough choices are inevitable and that you won’t have time for all you once dreamed you might do.”
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortal, Oliver Burkeman
3.) Life is what you make of it
Given the finitude and how life start and end at the same place, life is kind of absurd. You may stumble upon a question of what is the point of all this? How does one know what are the important and hard things to take on ?
If you start and end at the same place then it must be the journey that matters. For me the most important are things that make me feel like I’m busy living. I found the quote below a good compass on how to find those next important things. At the end of the day, it’s all an internal scorecard and the only one who will grade your paper is yourself. Be kind in grading that paper.
If you start and end at the same place then it must be the journey that matters. For me the most important are things that make me feel like I’m busy living. I found the quote below a good compass on how to find those next important things. At the end of the day, it’s all an internal scorecard and the only one who will grade your paper is yourself. Be kind in grading that paper.
“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.”
1975 Commencement Address at the University of California, Riverside
Joan Didion
Joan Didion
I wish you a fulfilling 2022.
