There were many highlights in 2022 – spending quality time with family and friends, going to my official post-university graduation ceremony, witnessing friends get engaged and married, being the most active I’ve ever been, exploring the deserts and canyons in America’s national parks, and teaching a first-grade class full-time. Then, there were the smaller moments in between that I appreciated like hiking among mountains, whizzing through forests and smelling the ocean air on my bike, finding rest in my trail runs, reuniting with high school friends for our ten-year high school anniversary, chatting for hours on a friend’s couch, eating barbeque at the beach, visiting islands, and watching the first snow fall of the year through my window. And of course, with the highlights came the lowlights. These challenged me to stick to my values and to cling onto my faith.
Although a lot happened throughout 2022, I found myself comparing to other peoples’ highlights and milestones when the end of the year drew near, especially to those who seemed to be farther along than I was despite us being the same age. It made me question whether I was doing “enough” in my life or if I should be doing more – traveling more, going out more, making more friends, making more money, and so on. I even looked through my calendar to see what I did and where I hadn’t been doing the “more” that I felt like I should have. While critically scrolling through my day-to-day events though, I noticed that many of the memorable moments I made this past year involved conversations with others. The opportunity to converse with first grade students, other elementary students, young adults in their 20s, friends my age, those who are thinking of getting engaged, those who are entering married life, mentors who are in their 40s, parents, other older, retiring adults, and the death of a friend has given me a broad spectrum of how people perceive life (e.g., time, priorities), which has now shaped my perception of life too. Sadness comes and goes as happiness does. Entering a new relationship, hitting milestones and “new” life stages, career struggles, triumphs, and all the exciting moments we look forward to as well as the moments of heartbreak, disappointment, anxiety, or embarrassment that we dread all come and go very quickly, in a moment’s time. What mattered in the past may not seem to excite or worry us the same way it might now, and what we anticipate longingly for in the future will soon enough present themselves with new struggles and triumphs. While a first grader may complain that a month until Christmas is too long to wait for or that becoming a second grader feels like it will take forever, a parent is likely scrambling to finish running all their errands before a day ends. A young adult may deem the number of friends to be the most important, but an immigrant in their 40s to 60s may view that as less of a problem than how they can even make new friends again. Those in their 20s may dream about getting married to the love of their life and envy those who are in relationships, while some couples might be struggling to maintain the initial spark or with keeping their marriage from falling apart. This means that what what each of us fear, celebrate, and consider important differ because we see the world with the limited knowledge of where we are at in life and who we are as a person during that moment in time. The grass will always seem greener elsewhere, whether that’s the past or future. We are human beings who are quick to forget: we judge those younger than we are to be immature because we have forgotten how much of life hasn’t been experienced yet when we were that age ourselves, we idolize those who have “made it” in life without understanding how difficult their journey might have been, or we get caught up in the moment over the obstacles that we face and compare them to other peoples’ experiences. However, all obstacles are valid because they are unique and personal to the individual and hence, all milestones no matter the time frame in which they are achieved in should be treated the same.
Perhaps, it is this kind of comparison game that drives us to associate hitting certain milestones during a specific time frame, such as being well-traveled, achieving our goals, and being a part of many social events and gatherings, with “having a good year.” While those factors do contribute to a year well spent, I wonder if such evaluation is the only kind of evaluation we should consider. What about questions like “Did I experience contentment this year?” “Am I content with life despite not being where I want to be yet?” “Did I like who I was this year?” and “Do I find meaning in how I had spent my time?” Maybe what we really long for isn’t the next milestone, a new relationship status, reaching the pinnacle of the corporate ladder, gaining a larger social network, or having newer and bigger and better things but to be told that we are exactly where are meant to be. This doesn’t mean that we should discount effort, ambition, or goal setting; rather, it is to step back from comparing our progress with other peoples’ progresses and to change the way we view what makes a year meaningful. Maybe you weren’t as productive as you had anticipated to be, you are working on the same goal you have been working on in the past few years, or you felt like you backtracked in a certain area of your life. However, would that make the year you just lived meaningless?
Ups and downs are sure to happen each year, so to measure the success of our years solely in terms of the increase of things, statuses gained, and milestones reached would not be fair. Who are we independent of the ups and downs that inevitably happen each year? Are we making the most of what we have and do not have in this moment in time? Are we confident stepping into whatever is waiting for us ahead being the person who we have developed to become or are currently? Or will we lose ourselves playing the game that we’re all trying to win at – the game of success – and forget that the real game starts when we value the path we are currently on?
When I consider these questions, I see 2022 differently. Instead of analyzing my year against the common checkpoints, I tried to think about my personal development instead. This was a year I (finally) felt more confident and comfortable in my own skin. It made all the highlights that happened this year even better, the lowlights more bearable, and the moments in between more special. I was happy when I jammed to a good song in the corner of a room by myself at a party, I valued the time I got to spend with myself as much as I did with others, and I felt proud of myself when I saw progress in things I have been working on. I have been the one who has been with me all along, whether it be going to weddings of dear friends, to different schools for work, on long runs, waiting in between events, sitting in traffic… I showed up for myself – in the past and present. I used to wrestle with being an emotional person too, but after accepting the fact that perhaps, having strong emotions comes with embracing the present moment, I’ve also learned to lean into them. Feeling more comfortable in my own skin is a change that had felt insignificant when I first acknowledged it, but when I think back to my twelve-year-old self, I remember the girl who used to think that it would be near impossible to ever get here – to like herself for who she is – and I acknowledge that I have come a long way. The previous years made up of day-to-day moments which had seemed mundane and ordinary were, in retrospect, never truly mundane or ordinary. The friends who grew up with me and loved me in the mess, the quarrels with loved ones, the sleepless nights, the wrestling inside my mind, and the endless stream of journal writing which became my therapy are all puzzle pieces that had to happen over the past fifteen years to complete the bigger picture. God has been and is gracious in the way He is healing me. The seventh grade me wouldn’t have understood all this back then, but she would be relieved to see how everything is turning out.
Dear 2022, you are one of the biggest milestones in my life.
