Looking forward to 2021 After A Bad 2020?

 Hi there

Mask wearing is compulsory and part of the new normal

Recently, I wrote a whole blogpost in draft but there was some worldwide power outage and I was not able to save and now it's gone, lol. So there is some delay in posting up a new post. I actually have a written draft but I think I wanna write about a completely different thing. so we are barely two weeks into 2021 and for most of us, 2020 had been one heck of a ride. There are also people who gained from the whole pandemic fiasco by starting new businesses but some started out of necessity. Basically we need to be in survival mode even if the odds are against us because we still need to live as life goes on, pandemic or not.

I have also tried to make changes in my life by knowing what are important and what are not. Sometimes it takes a life changing event to happen before we become more self aware and take the necessary baby steps to make our life better. It's not a process that takes a day to accomplish but can take a few years even. The main thing is to set the right intentions. Even if it's over something small, say having the intention to save in order to have a cushy emergency fund, should things happen if there is anything 2020 has taught us, is to expect the unexpected.

While I am not entirely carefree in living my life, there is still room for improvement. Next year, I would reach my next milestone which is turning 40. I don't have big goals in life but I just like to live meaningfully each day. It's not easy though. Perhaps this should be my daily goal, lol. I always aim to live a life better than it was yesterday but I have not been laser focused on it. 

Anyway, 2021 may turn about the same but I don't want to look too much into the future because we don't have much control over it. It's more important, to me at least, to show up, be more present and focusing on our daily wins. It's ok to have future goals and working towards them because it gives us hope when we have a direction in life, while still being grounded in the present, rather than just being lost all the time. 

So the plans I have right now are more personal, rather than family oriented. My close friends have their own families and their life goals are obviously different from mine. Sometimes I observe other families and then have these thoughts about what kind of family goals they have. How they save up for their children, plan their family budget such as groceries, children's schooling needs and how they juggle work and family etc. 

As though I have plans for a married life, lol...I was just being curious, or more like bored as I was queuing in the supermarket and then being a kepo (busybody) how they budget for the groceries they bought for their family of three. It must be difficult and if they have a partner, it's also important that they discuss often to make their marriage work while taking care of the family's needs as well. 

When I was a single income earner, I had to plan everyday by thinking through first before making purchases. I have to be very prudent because my income wasn't very much. Now I have a slight leeway where I can buy things for myself, rather than just solely focused on the family's needs. But I still try to be money conscious.

Recently I was queuing behind a well dressed man whom I assumed just got off from work, who bought quite a few boxes of chocolate, probably for Christmas. Then again a silly thought popped up like what if I get married to a guy who earns a pretty cushy salary and quite generous with me and the people he knows. How will my life be? I don't always have to be worried about money, I suppose. 

But these days, who can guarantee the 'cushy' job that you have will last? In fact our life can take on a different trajectory even. I read an email who shared about how she lost her many of her paid subscribers due to Covid and she was afraid that her online business would be badly affected as these payments helped her business of content creation to stay afloat.

But she became creative and made use of the new normal of virtual meet ups through Zoom to her advantage. Her objective was to bring the community of her paid subscribers together to discuss on the latest contents her company put up online and the lessons they learnt from them through sharing sessions. As a result of such interactions, going beyond podcasts and online lessons, her number of subscribers grew even more than the number that she lost. So her business managed to stay afloat.

So I actually liked reading about these success stories of people trying their best to survive. Of course there were sad stories as well like how they had to close their long time businesses due to poor sales or lose their freelance jobs based on their passion from lack of demands or events.

Everyday as we mingle among the crowds, we are at risk and there were groups of people who still assume that seeing crowds everywhere mean that they can afford to break the rules. And now in some countries, death tolls keep increasing and recently they found a new strain of virus. So countries are scrambling to manage the spread by closing off the borders. 

Whatever the circumstances, 2021 is still going to come. Whether it will be better, we don't know for sure. Perhaps we will be wiser and learn to live life with lesser expectations while still remaining hopeful. This is a year that we will never forget and looking back, there are many stories to share from our personal experiences.