2021 is nearly over

It has been quite an extraordinary year and it has gone by terribly quickly, but I suppose that's a natural part of the aging process.

So far this year has gone completely differently than I had originally planned but I am grateful for it, it has been quite fun.

Reflecting briefly at my goals, which as I listed in my previous blog post were:

11. Be a better husband
22. Talk less, listen more
33. Cook more intentionally
44. Speak more intentionally
55. Help others more effectively
66. Write at least 2x per month
77. Exercise ~5x per week

I tried to improve on all of these items over the past year (some significantly more than others), but I'm not where I wanted to be on them.

Regardless, I will say I learned a lot more this year by explicitly trying to improve these things. The goals I found most challengine were (1), (2), (5), and (6). I imagine this is because (1) is hard in general, (2) requires constant mental restraint from speaking up when I want to interject with a response or a thought, (5) doesn't truly realize its effectiveness in short time horizons, and (6) was simply not a priority.

I'm mostly okay with the realities of this except (6), since writing requires being more intentional about my time and thoughts, which disappoints me as it suggests I was more chaotic than I wanted to be. As I grow older I realize how much more important it is to be increasingly more deliberate with the allocation of my time but I always struggle with choosing things as I really do enjoy working on and learning new things.

Anyways, here's to hoping I'm more thoughtful with my time over the next couple of months and years.

Cheers, Francisco