From 2019 to 2020

2019 was a great year. I had a very specific goal, which I set at around February/March. And I made it.

I just read through the post I made at the beginning of the year, and I can say that my “plans” did not precisely mirror how the year went. And that is perhaps the most important lesson I learnt during the year:

GOALS >>>>> Plans.

First, to define what I mean by Goals and Plans.

Goal: This is a specific thing to achieve. A point to reach.

Plan: This is a specific sequence of things to be done. A specific path to follow.

2019 has taught me that life laughs at my plans. No matter how carefully planned, I (just like every human) am pitifully incapable of predicting the future. So any plans made based on that future will not go as planned.

A short term plan may work, the longer the plan stretches the more unlikely it is to work.

Goals on the other hand benefit from this uncertainty. While we cannot say how the goal will be achieved, we also have numerous ways to achieve it. If you think of it as a single point in the future, we have an unlimited number of ways to guide our future past that point.

However, we must be careful. As the number of goals we are trying to achieve at a single point in time increase, the difficulty of reaching any of those goals grow exponentially.

If we once again visualise it a several points in the future as we add more points and try to guide the flow of time past multiple points, the number of possibilities that satisfy those multiple goals reduce drastically, turning our “goal” into a “plan” once the number of satisfactory paths are too few.

Relationships are 🔑

Have good people around you. Nourish the important relationships to you. Family, friends. Time spent with them are precious.

In the search for all the things that come with adulthood, we sometimes neglect to find time to spend with those that are important to us. However, that time is the time we most remember.

Know yourself

Time spent knowing myself has been one of the best investments I’ve made. Some situations force us to do this, but those situations are not the only way to do it.

Be proactive, take time out to know yourself.

It’s very rewarding, and it never ends. Sometimes the mysteries of the world can be found within the individual. What you seek outside has always been inside.

2020

I have 1 primary goal. This is not the place to share it, but I have the goal. If that’s the only think I do in 2020, it will be a successful year nonetheless.

I also have a bunch of short term plans. These mostly revolve around self improvement. Noticing something in myself, making a 1-3 month regimen to work on it. I’ll see how that goes.

Appreciation

I really really love those around me. My family and friends. Everything feels worth it because of how amazing they are. Thank you for making my 2019, cheers to a better 2020.