2021: A Year for Discovering New Things, Cherishing the Constants, and Removing the Unnecessary

"For last year's words belong to last year's language, and next year's words await another voice. To make an end is to make a beginning."

This is a famous line by T. S. Eliot. The past year has been everything but predictable. A lot of things happened and a lot of other things didn't. Personally, I'm grateful that my family, friends and I are still alive after 2020. This 2021, I want to do three things that I think will be able to help me become a better version of myself.

Removing the Unnecessary

For most people, including my past self, cutting ties with people and habits is a very difficult thing to do. But as I have learned from the past year, my own sanity and peace of mind are more important than what other people will say.

Fake friends. I am embarrassed to admit this but having a lot of friends was one of the things that defined my self-worth before, even the number of my Facebook friends. Getting through the last quarter of 2019 and through 2020, I realized that only the people who care for me are the ones who should matter. And yes, I also unfriended a lot of my Facebook friends. Being connected to just few select friends also helps me to easily interact with them. Now, I no longer need to think who among my "friends" are available for lunch or dinner, badminton sesh, or just a nice chat over coffee. All I need is to simply reach out.

Toxic relatives. Those relatives who have always something to say about what I said, posted, bought, ate, and how I looked like. I don't need those kind of nagging and negativities in my life. So, to permanently shut their negativities out of my life, I decided to just stop communicating with them and just focus on my relatives who really care about me, not just because they could get something from me.

Too much screen time. Being alone in the middle of a pandemic has spiked up my screen time, be it on my phone, personal computer, and even TV. Marami sa atin ang talagang ito lang ang paraan para maka-cope up with the pandemic. In my case, ito lang ang pinaka-safe at pinakamadaling paraan to keep my sanity. But I think it has to be left in 2020. I can think of other things na pwede ko nang gawin this 2021, aside from playing badminton.

Cherishing the Constants

Being with people who are important to me and doing the things that I love are the most rewarding life experiences for me. This year, I'll make sure that I get to spend more time with these people and commit to get better at doing the things that I love.

Best buddies. Shout out to my constant buddies in lakwatsya, badminton sesh, at kain. You guys have always been my rock during the difficult times of my life. I cannot find the right words with the appropriate intensity to say how much I'm grateful to have you in my life. Basta all I can say is, I LOVE YOU ALL. Basta let's have more lakwatsya, game days, and food trips.

Sunday gameday. In the last few years, I've been playing badminton every Sunday since I already have a circle of fellow badminton enthusiasts. I'm committing myself to playing badminton at least once a week starting February, I just have to fix some things in my schedule for the first month of the year. Yes, I also plan to constantly play on Wednesdays. I want to improve further my skills in the court. Probably, I'll be watching more tutorial videos on YouTube and enroll in training camps.

Reading time. Lately, I've been struggling to finish a book in a month. In 2021, I'm allotting at least an hour a day reading a book. I still have plenty of unread books in my To Read shelves so I'll just focus on finishing all of them first before buying new books. I also want to publish my reviews of these books here on my blog.

Discovering New Things

I think I am a person who can be called an adventurer. Well, at least 'yan ang gusto kong paniwalaan. To a lot of us, a new year can offer a lot of things, the perfect time to start new things, and most of the time, just simply an excuse to do the things that we're not able to do in the previous year. HAHAHA.

Investing in stocks. Last year, I already started investing in mutual funds and saving for some of my other financial goals. This year, I want to invest in the stock market, at least those stocks that offer dividends since I'm not planning on trading stocks on a daily basis. My simple strategy is to buy 5 shares of three stocks per quarter for the next five years. Also, I'll sweep YouTube for the best investing strategies and probably be able to share them here.

Acquiring new skills. Professionally, I want to explore new avenues where I can gain some extra income. To be able to do this, I will enroll myself to free online courses offered by some universities abroad. And perhaps take advantage of the trainings that my current employer offers. I goal to have another income stream once I hit my 30s and acquiring new skills will pretty much pave the way to this goal.

Healthy cooking. This year, I want to focus on having more vegetables and fish in the dishes that I will cook and further explore recipes for chicken breast. Last year was more of a pasta year. Though I was able to cook and come up with variety of pasta dishes, I still feel that I need to do more to achieve a healthy cooking style.

I'm ending this goal setting here to make sure that I'll be able to focus on them and be able to master them in 2021. Here's to hoping that we'll all have an improved and productive 2021. Cheers!!!