Thank you 2020 (A Year In Review)

Photo by Vlad Bagacian on Unsplash

Before I start the new year, I’d like to reflect on how my 2020 went. I know most of us didn’t anticipate that this year would come out this way, and that includes me. Nonetheless, I would like to share how my version of 2020 went by, despite the chaos that the pandemic created worldwide.

I like to consider myself lucky, since the company I work with, and my client’s business went just fine, and not severely affected, which means life goes on for me in terms of cash flow. So, first, I’d like to write about how thankful I am this year.

What I’m grateful for this year:

• Starting the year with increased income. (Thank you Universe!)
• Having a stable internet at home, and less hassle ISP installation / relocation (Thank you to some good people I know locally)
• Having a safe job that I enjoy doing despite the economy’s trying times
• Living in a safe place, with slightly more sunlight coverage and open space, when the pandemic started. (We’re pretty sure no virus nor bacteria can stay alive at home in this setting.)
• Understanding nature more through gardening (I’ve observed in great detail how growth is so amazing and an inevitable built-in feature in nature. Just see how a plant blooms flowers exponentially day after day.)
• Still being able to motor-drive to nearby beaches on some Sundays, and smell the clean sea breeze, despite the quarantine restrictions (I met a beautiful blue fish one day while at sea on low-tide, and saw an orange-feathered bird in the sky too)
• Seeing a-few-to-sometimes-numerous Maya birds chirping and feasting on bird seeds and some plants at the balcony every single day (Yes, I intentionally put bird seeds and water for them to feed on. The cost of bird seeds is so little, compared to the value I get from seeing them daily.)
• Being able to spend more time with my daughter during her downtime (no classes), because I’m mostly at home. (She ended up learning more before the actual classes start, and that includes coding — Thank you Code.org)
• Having the energy to endure this year’s challenges at work
• Working with competitive and supportive team mates, and a kind manager who really knows how to lead and guide his people
• Given the opportunity to talk about design, and got paid by doing so.
• Attending a design conference (UX+) that I actually paid for
• Brutal honest conversations with friends (The kind that will hurt you a bit, but will also give you better insights about life)
• Celebrating different occasions by having a feast — In our culture this means, having a roasted pig (lechon), or roasted pig belly (lechon belly) — had 3 occasions with lechon belly package this year.
• Having more than enough that I was able to share some of my blessings to others (e.g. street kids & depressed people on the sidewalks)
• Able to buy my gadget needs and wants (2 IPS monitors, 2 tablets with drawing pen for me and my daughter, a windows gaming laptop — for backup and working away from home, v8 set and condenser mic, action cam, Bluetooth headsets, and a smart TV remote with multi-color led lights!)
• Having kind neighbors and good people around you.
• Moved to a better home before the year ended — from a studio apartment to a 2-BR apartment with more indoor space, and rooms with built-in closet & dresser (We are all girls in the house, so we definitely love this!)
• Having big trees near our new home — Other than fresh air, these trees make an attractive environment for city birds, so I see them to flying, chirping, and living their lives everyday through glass windows — such a pleasant view for a city home.
• Spent quality time (long conversations) with my long-time girlfriends (the constants) as a year-ender, and see how our friendship remained constant after many years — more than a decade I guess.
• Having a small yet very understanding family (They’ve been through my ups and downs — a lot!)
• Finally, being able to celebrate New Year’s Eve with my family — with a table full of food, a pitcher full of cocktail drink, and some fireworks! (The lighting of fireworks taught me that fear can indeed be conquered!)

My list above can go endless, yet my time is not. Apart from the above-mentioned blessings, I also want to share my failures & achievements — in that order, so I still feel good in the end. Don’t worry I won’t be sharing my 2020 life in a monthly/timeline fashion, so this will just be a short list.

What I failed to accomplish this year:

• Not reaching my savings goal for 2020 (Only saved half of my goal, not that bad)
• Not traveling out-of-country travel as planned (This is so understandable due to the current pandemic, nothing to feel bad about)
• Not finishing the collaboration projects discussed with friends (I can see 2–3 projects here — I’m so sorry for having a wandering mind, and a lousy schedule.)
• Not maintaining the daily study/practice routine with my daughter as planned (I keep on going back to my good old bad habits, which she follows too.)
• Not publishing UI/UX related stories on Medium once/twice a month as planned (I slack off starting mid 2020 — some stories are still on draft)
• Not adding more personal design work to my portfolio (This is a sin, I know)

Some of my shortcomings this year may be a bit embarrassing, but sharing them makes me more honest about myself, and making me more aware of where I’m at in life. I need to know where I’m at, so I know where to go next — just like finding your destination in Google Maps, you can’t get directions to get there unless you set your starting point.

Despite my failures this year, I was still able to achieve something, and I like to list them in an unordered fashion, since most of these happened concurrently, and not so sequential.

What I have achieved this year:

• Increased my monthly earnings by 40–50% compared to last year.
• Started my journey to minimalism, and essentialism. Trimmed downed my family’s belongings by more than 50%. I only own a few clothes now, and ditched (sold/ bartered / given) most unused material things in the house.
• Knowing the difference between minimalism and essentialism (Spending some time minimizing my stuff takes me away from doing what’s essential to me, which is why maintaining a minimalist lifestyle is important in the first place.)
• Published stories about UI/UX related design insights, as well as other topics on Medium (Got claps on some stories — Thank you for reading!)
• Became more empathic/sensitive towards other living things (people, animals, and plants included) — I think I’m one step higher in my spiritual journey — I finally understood what my paranormal friends talked about before.
• Becoming more selfless, and think of other people more, instead of myself. (This is a result of being influenced by other great people who have a service/sharing mindset. Learning more about design led me here as well.)
• Finished reading a few books (I’ll share about what I read in another post)
• Finished a significant number of challenges in Responsive Web Design & Javascript Algorithm Certifications in freeCodeCamp (Still have more to go on Front End Libraries)
• Learned more about UI/UX design from various sources without taking a proper Art / Design degree. (Thank you IDF, and to many other sources!)
• Created my own personal website to showcase my past projects and work experience, so future clients can reach me.
• Done 2 UI Overhaul projects with the same client — yes, overhaul, so its a design project, where I also did the front-end implementation. Few years back, I remember feeling a little envy on a co-worker who was entrusted to do some CSS tweaks on our web-app project — I so badly want to chime-in and do the work, but they want me on back-end , as I was part of the core dev team. Now, I’m finally doing what I wanted, and seeing things visually! I’m so thankful for this client for trusting me in this project, and I make sure not to let them down. (I know there’s still more features and changes come 2021 for sure, as software development doesn’t really end, just managed.)
• Finally did a talk about something I’m passionate about (Design & Psychology) — Shared some basic design topics to 2 audiences (The first was within the company’s monthly dev meetup. The second time was at a local dev group, ReactCebu . (Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. I now have a headstart on my public speaking journey. Being an introvert with stage fright, I consider this an achievement since this is my first time to speak in public as well.)
• Understanding the value of design, and how it can greatly affect the quality of life we can have.

So there we go. That’s how I like to end my year — by thanking the Universe for all the blessings that came into my life, good and bad. The year 2020 might not be that good for some of us, but that all depends on how we perceive things to be and what we do about the bad things that came into our lives. We can let them stay bad and be forgotten, or we can transform them into something better and even memorable. As the classic saying goes, “When life throws you lemons, go make some lemonade!”

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

Hope you had a wonderful 2020 as well. If not, let’s not forget that there’s so much to be thankful for. Just being alive is something to be grateful for. So, let’s continue on living, and be alive — this is a great blessing already. I’m now ready to let go of 2020, and start this new year right. This is my year-ender post on the first day of 2021. Happy New Year everyone! More blessings to us all this 2021!