2022 flew by so fast it was only on an 8 hour flight to Singapore in late December that I could take stock of the milestones that made the year so colourful. It wasn’t just the feeling of time moving faster the older I get, but waking up to the pace of post-COVID Business As Usual, and playing catchup in many areas of our lives – hitting the gym twice as hard, revenge travelling, doubling down on making in-person memories with loved ones.
Looking back, it really was a wonderful year. Busy, but wonderful. I moved to Melbourne with my partner in February, setting up next to the glorious Fitzroy Gardens I get to walk through on the way home after work. We adopted Chester from Homeless Hounds, our little tabby who loves nothing more than spending time with humans (and pretending to be a Predator of the Savannah on slices of dehydrated chicken he’ll flick and chase around the house). I saw my little brother graduate from ANU and had a fun celebratory weekend my family. I got to explore the Angkor Wat complex and its surrounds in Siem Reap. And I got an Xbox, and yes, Tomb Raider was one of my first downloads 🤠.
I read over 20 books last year despite having one of the busiest, growth-infused years of my career. I managed to read this much partly by building reliable, time- and sanity-saving knowledge management and productivity infrastructure (Getting Things Done/Building a Second Brain/Zettlekasten), partly thanks to kindle book deals and audiobooks, and mostly thanks to many flights which served as both transport and sensory deprivation.
Fiction highlights include ‘A Deadly Eduction’, the first of Naomi Novik’s Magic School Fantasy novel about a half-Welsh, half-Indian sorceress, and Max Brooks’s ‘Devolution’, which finds a tech-infused community of city folk – calling the side of a volcano home – completely incapacitated when their beloved tech epically fails following an eruption, with sneaky Sasquatches making their worst nightmare much, much worse. Non-fiction highlights including Trevor Noah’s moving and hilarious and inspiring memoir ‘Born a Crime’, Tina Brown’s thrilling ‘Vanity Fair Diaries’, James Dyson’s ‘Invention’, giving me an injection of faith in human ingenuity, ‘Arriving Today’ by Christopher Mims, revealing, in layman-speak, how insanely complex getting goods from A to B is, and Guy Hands’s ‘The Dealmaker’, an honest and vulnerable account on a dyslexic kid’s journey to becoming a powerhouse in the high-stakes private equity world.
I watched some insanely good TV! White Lotus 😍 Breaking Bad (better late than never) 🤯.
Any year Beyoncé releases new music is a great year for music, but I racked up 3 hours and 53 minutes on my 2022 Best of playlist.
It was, in short, a great year.
But I wish I had swum more. I wish I had written more, recorded a new podcast episode or four, created and made more. I wished I’d ventured more outside my inner-Melbourne bubble to explore more of what the city offers. There were occasions with worthy excuses, like the newness to my role at work taking up most of my mental and creative energy, or Melbourne’s sharp winters making the thought of swimming bring on hypothermia. Mostly though, I just didn’t do these things because of inertia and distractions. No excuses.
Thankfully, I left (most of) my overachieving side behind in my 20s, and so any scuff marks on my year that I might have previously been annoyed at, I now cheerily ignore by shifting my viewing angle slightly, knowing that what’s done is done, and lots more satisfaction came from the year than dissatisfaction. And so this is a reminder to myself and wish for others – enjoy 2023. Take care of your health. Savour quality time with loved ones. Be kind in the many nuanced ways one can be kind at work, at home, in overcrowded buses and trams and trains. Dream boldly and when your imaginings end up being vastly different to reality, be okay with it, maybe even blown away by it.
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