2021 Year-In Review

It's that time of the year again! From last year I decided to post my year-in review in my blog and honestly it just feels like yesterday since I posted the one for last year. 2021 was a very wierd year, lot of lows and few highs and honestly the most confusing one for me at least. Here's three highs and three lows from my reflections on everything that happened this year.

The highs :-)

• Unexpected travel and new beginnings

  I know travel and 2021 don't go well together but I actually travelled quite a bit this year (I only travelled for official purposes, only when I absolutely needed to!). Mainly, I got to visit Delhi and meet a close friend and explore it a bit for the first time and I also moved to Stockholm, Sweden for a new job! I left my corporate job in a company with close to 100 years legacy as a tech consultant who had just become a Senior Analyst and joined a 4 year old startup here in Stockholm as a Full-stack Developer. So far, except for the sub-zero winters here which i'm still getting used coming from a place like Bengaluru, things are going great!

• Routine, routine, routine

  This year, it was a lot sticking to the schedules and routines I had chalked out in 2020 when all we could do was stay at home for the most part of the year. I continued my Spanish learning, writing tech blogs (though I wish I could have written more), learning and working with new tech stacks and the regular sports and chores. The main thing out of the ordinary was preparing for job interviews after almost 4 years.

• Changes

  Lot of things around me changed this year and most of them were for the better unlike 2020. Many of my really close friends got into universities across the globe for their higher studies and many moved to other countries and started new jobs. I started living away from family for the first time and as a side effect had to start taking care of everything from cooking to cleaning to doing laundry on my own!

The lows :-(

• Unexpected ends I lost one of my close cousins who I grew up with and a couple of close relatives. Had immense agony. Don't think I can say more 😞

• Growing pains With more lockdowns, restrictions and constant bad news pouring in, the pains just kept growing. From lack of social gatherings for better part of the year to not being able to travel and explore, health started to worsen both physically and mentally. Health was not great for the family members either. Added to this, work became way more hectic and longer since we had no travel or office commute to account for! Just made me think more deeper about "WHY AM I DOING THIS" about everything I was up to and did make me take some good decisions although a bit late. I guess better late than never 🤷

• Unfulfilled dreams Having realized from 2020 how important it is to focus on things that matter, I had quite some high aspiration on what I can achieve in 2021. Life is not always as we plan and this was very true in the fact that most of the things I wished to achieve like getting a good score in a competitive exam to rolling out more tech blogs never became successful. None of my planned travel happened as well though I guess I was way too optimistic about travel becoming normal again 😅

To conclude, like any other year, 2021 had lots of lows and highs and it was a year of contemplation and reorganizing life.

Hoping for lot more positivity, happiness and back to normal life in 2022!