2024

There are less than 20 days left for 2024 and yet i feel like this year has been one of the heaviest years of my 31 years of life. 

It was a year of loss. 

Despite not being a full time staff, I've been working extra time in many instances - I don't love what I do if we are to compare this with my journalism career, but I couldn't stop myself going above and beyond in order to deliver the tasks. Mainly because I know I wasn't formally trained in finance, so I had to spend extra time educating myself and aimed to deliver the same quality of work as any associate or analyst that were formally trained in the field. This led to me starting to feel burnout again. 

My favourite aunt got cancer. Prognosis is not entirely good but she's started chemo. 

Another breakup. 

A death of a dear friend. 

But as I woke up this morning and making mental notes that I'm on standby to travel for a funeral and an extraordinary board meeting, it hit me that it was also a year of gain.

I learned a lot from my current role. Again, I may not like it, but we all got to suck it up sometimes. I've learned how to build and analyse captables, how to better support and empathise founders (because they too, are humans), how to deal with senior management without blowing up. I even learned how to travel better because I travel so often for work. 

Leaving the relationship was one of the best things I've done for myself this year. Sometimes we got to accept that people can't and won't change. That I should stop holding out for a person's potential and clinging on to memories. There were plenty of good times, but I knew it was on borrowed time and refused to let go because of the sunk cost fallacy. I cannot control the other person (and I should never have to) but I can control how I deal with what they chose to do to me. Mentally, I've never felt better.

I've also realised that despite everything, diving is becoming a core part of my life. I picked it up not expecting much except to at least experience it once in life but it became a constant. I love the simple lifestyle that it brings, and I definitely enjoyed being offline while diving. It also led many different and interesting people into my realm, people that I wouldn't otherwise have met in my current professional setting. 

Death is a part of life. I can only hope that when he left this world, he wasn't in pain and that it was quicker than he could realise. I can only accept that his time is up in this universe and yet he managed to leave an indelible mark in many people's lives, including mine. The world is definitely a better place because he lived. I feel extremely honoured that we crossed paths. That is all that matters. 

Not entirely sure what I wanted from writing this post, but I just want to remind myself that the universe giveth and taketh away. And I humbly accept this circle of life. 

Happy New Year.