The year end blog: 2024

 I'm probably late in publishing this, but better late than never. Writing is like playing tennis. Putting your thoughts into words gets harder if you haven't been practising it, and 2024 was certainly a year where I wish I had more time. 

2024: A year that just...passed 

If I had to summarize 2024 in one sentence, it was a year when I just went through the motions, and never felt like I lived it. 

It was a year of facing failures, getting back up, or at least trying to, and falling back again. 

1. I failed the UK driving test, twice. 
2. I failed the CFA Level 2 exam, twice. 

About 10 months of the year were spent studying for CFA exams. A good amount of time went into practising for the driving tests too. Add to this, a job that pushes you to the limit, year after year. So overall, I'm just glad that the year ended. 

Despite the madness, I found little pockets of joy. A trip to Mexico and driving around tiny towns in southern France and Spain were memorable times. Equally amazing were the concerts of John Mayer and Justin Timberlake. I also attended the stand-up performances of a few of my favourite artists. 

Lastly, my dad gave me the best Christmas present - 3 Yonex Ezone rackets. While the year was gruelling, a present like that was the perfect ending I could've hoped for. 

2025: The year to maybe breathe a bit

That's the motto. Although, given how the past few weeks have gone, that might need to be revisited. Overall, I plan to keep things simple this year. The key bucket list items I want to tick this year: 

1. Travel - I want to explore more of the Americas and Africa. That's where I'll attempt to travel whenever I get time off. 
2. Tennis -  This has to be the biggest change in racket I've done in a while. I'm switching from Babolat Pure Strike 100 to Yonex Ezone 98. It's a big transition and it's going to take some time. 
3. Finding a new challenge - this is something that's going to take some introspection. The biggest lesson of last year was learning to fail and accepting it. The next challenge is to figure out how to deal with it and bounce back better. It will take some psychological re-wiring, and picking something where I can, in Samuel Beckett's words, fail again, fail better.