2020: The year that made history in present

Well, it has finally ended. The year that many would label as the worst year in ages has finally ended. The year that probably put a few pounds on a lot of people's bellies, the year that has seen it all pretty much - from catastrophic natural disasters and epidemics to massive geo-political and socio-political events, both of domestic and international scales in all parts of the world. 

With so much going around, I thought it would be unwise if I skipped my annual tradition of writing the year-end blog. As usual, I'll be summing up my year, and making plans for the next one. 

Looking back at 2020

When I started writing this post, I looked up what I wrote about my plans for 2020 at the end of last year, just to see what I managed to achieve. Oddly enough, I had absolutely no plans for this year, which surprisingly makes this year one of the most successful years of my life. Since 2020 was the year when literally every person's every major plan ended up going through a cosmic shift, having no plan and actually following up with it was probably the most successful achievement I could've hoped for. 

I entered 2020 with nothing but faith, in myself, to be able to handle any curve-ball life would throw at me, and life indeed threw a bunch of them. Despite all that, I did manage to do a bunch of things. I mentioned some of them in my birthday blog but I'll summarize the major events of this year: 

• I learned how to swim
• I figured how to ski
• I got my second tattoo
• My team won the Budapest Tennis Championship for the 2nd time in a row
• I managed to travel quite a bit as well - Barcelona, Salzburg, the Croatian coastline, and Prague (twice).  

Given how the year has been, I think I managed to be just about productive enough, both, in my professional as well as personal life. However, there are indeed things I wish I could've done better. 

One thing that I wish I could've done better was to just maintain my balance - mental as well as physical. I had to work from home for much of the year, and I struggled to find balance and have a lifestyle that was as organized and sorted as it was before. Staying in the house for long periods screwed up my sleep and work schedules as well as my exercise and diet. I did end up having a couple of periods of mental exhaustion and I've become about 4-5 Kgs heavier than I was at the start of the year. So I wish to improve upon that this year.

Plans for 2021

While things do seem to be on the up and up this year, it's going to be a while before life gets "normal", for lack of a better word. While I do hope for things to get better, this year is going to be about cautious short-term planning and improving upon the failures of last year. 

It's impossible to predict what this year holds, but I hope to get 3 things done this year at the very least: 

Focus on a balanced lifestyle 

As I mentioned before, one area that I struggled in last year was in maintaining a balanced lifestyle. I plan to be more mindful of it this year and make a conscious effort towards it. Last year has helped me to at least recognize patterns/triggers that tend to push me off balance, be it mentally, or even in terms of lifestyle. I plan to make a conscious effort to recognize them early and work on correcting them. 

Learn something new 

In the past couple of years, I've focused on trying to learn something new outside my work and it has really helped me a lot. In 2019, I focused on learning and improving my Hungarian. In 2020, I learned how to swim and ski. I still haven't decided upon what I'm planning to learn this year. There are a couple of promising options, but I'm still working on them. 

Meet my family

One of the biggest challenges of 2020 has been an impact on international travel. I live in Budapest while my family is back in India, and I haven't been able to meet them since the summer of 2019. If the situation allows for it, I'd like to go back home and see my family and friends for a bit. 2 of my closes friends got married this year and due to the pandemic, I couldn't attend their weddings. I just hope I manage to get an opportunity to travel back home and see them. 

Drink better coffee 

I drink instant coffee, which apparently, doesn't have enough coffee content and has a bunch of additives that are harmful to our body if ingested in large amounts. Based on my coffee consumption, I did manage to estimate that there is virtually no health risk for me from consuming instant coffee. However, I do miss the well-brewed coffee that I had in my office. Since it's likely that I'll still be working from home for a while, and I got a packet of ground coffee as a gift recently, I figured I'd give coffee making a try. I've ordered a French press and I'll work on drinking better coffee over this year.