A few reflections on what I’ve learned, gained and experienced from 2021, and how it may have a profound impact to the coming years ahead
Read as much as you can, but also make your own way to digest the takeaways.
I’m glad that finally I’ve found may comfort zone of having a routine reading habit after years of seeking and trying. The privilege of working-from-home arrangement save me tons of hours that are normally wasted during commuting, and I got much more time to finish some great books that I had always eager to complete. I will attach a list of the top 5 at the end of this essay. The language barrier at the beginning was tough, especially for those works of literature. I found myself more into non-fiction: biographies, journalist reports, psychology studies, technology and general science. Some of them are just informative, but others are more encouraging and inspiring.
“A good book makes people think, a great book makes people take actions.” I am extremely grateful from those great minds who helped me broaden my view of this world, and giving invaluable advices when I am facing the challenges of making decisions.
Days towards the end of this year, I started a personal project called letter advent, which basically uses the concept of traditional Christmas advent calendar. Instead of counting days towards Christmas, I counted the alphabet. Each day I would pick a book from the deck that I read this year, starting with that character, and create a nice cover and mockup of it, coming a few elements from the book itself. That project went for 26 days, and it practiced my knowledge of color, typography, and composition. Along the way, I’ve also discovered something new about those books, as there are still subtle details that I found hard to convey only via visual language–I guess that’s the magic and power of reading. I enjoyed that project so much.
Live a sustainable life with less physical possessions and more experiences.
It all started with getting to know what minimalism is and how it works from 2018. I had a big house moving that year, and I was shocked to see how many physical belongs I actually had to move. There were boxes of books, clothes, gadgets, things that I may not even touch after two or three years. I threw away or donate most of them and decided to start the new life light. It didn’t go well until the pandemic hit from the end of 2019, and it actually went pretty bad at the beginning of 2020. As people around me started panic buying and hoarding up daily needs, I followed the same trend, ending up in a nearly exploded storage room. Interestingly, I was quite aware that I might not even use these necessities up after 2 years, I just couldn’t stop buying and stocking them up, like getting ready for some apocalyptic attacks.
When the world stepped into the second year of pandemic, and I got all my vaccination shots as fast as I could (the booster shot was done a few days ago), I kept reminding myself to not over buying things that I don’t necessarily need at that moment. From time to time, I told myself to be very conscious and crystal clear about the difference between “need”, “want” and “like/love”. It worked, I managed to save a substantial amount of cash from this practice so that I can use them wisely, at the moments and occasions which will bring values to me and others.
When it comes to grocery shopping, I started to use my grocery tote bag, saying no to plastic as much as I could. When I prepared food, I tried to make the most use of ingredients, so eventually I would have little waste as much as possible. If I decided to go out alone, I’d choose trains over cars, walking for a short distance if train trip can be avoided too, and combining multiple trips into one by panning ahead. Those practices actually come not that tiring at all, all they need is just a bit of thoughts and mindfulness before executing.
Meanwhile, I am super proud that 100% of my Christmas gifts were in recycled, biodegradable or combustable materials, and zero plastic presented, even tape–yes, all of them are plastic tape-free.
Do what you love, but always stand for the right things.
Do you they always say, “Do what you love and love what you do”, that applies to mostly your work, but there’s also something you should keep in mind: we humans are biased easily by what we love, when facing a decision-to-be-made. Usually, such bias will never land us to the correct choice, and being human (as in part of the majority), we rarely learn from own mistakes. We make the same mistakes again and again, without realizing and understanding the cause, but always covering them up, making excuses in the name of “love”. That kind of fake love is very different from the love as we called passion. Such wrongful and blind decisions come more often when we are handling relationships, that we tend to side with someone we assume that we trust. The truth is, without being with the person 24/7, it’s hardly true to understand his thinkings and rationales behind his behaviors; and even if we did so, there may still be a gulf of misunderstanding between what we see and what we assume. Under such circumstance, we must remain observant and silent as much as we can, while only speak up when it’s absolutely necessary: but only speak up for the facts, not opinions.
Most of the time facts are inconveniently true, making it inevitable hard for some people to accept. If they are, however, wise enough to accept the facts, they would acknowledge their mistakes they had taken against someone, and hence learn from them. Though they are rare–after all, humans are animals with pride and ignorance, we must not always remind us not to incline to that path. This leads to my next lesson learned below.
Try not to be the judge in a conversation, if you are not one, legally.
Since humans are imperfect, biased, and emotional. Even the most senior and knowledge judge could also miss the change to make the rightful decision, no need to mention how many wrongful choices we had made in our lives.
The lesson therefore is that when you are involved in the middle of a debate or argument, try your best to get out from it as soon as possible. Don’t be the judge, or let people think that you are the judge because every decision–any one of them–will hurt someone’s feeling in the conversation, no matter how the good the agreed, negotiated outcome it may be. People tend to remember what’s taken from them more than what’s given to them, and they tend to remember that for a very long time. By any means, don’t take things or emotions from people, and get rid of that sort of conversation as soon as you can.
Love and loss
I lost my grandma last year, and granddad passed away in September this year. In the face of global travel restrictions due to pandemic, I was unable to send my very last farewell to them, which is sorrowful and regretful. I can understand part of the sorrow and difficult that my families were experiencing, especially my parents. However, I am not that emotional sad. I believe that they are resting in peace now, and they are happy to each other again in another world.
We are all going to die one day, and the greatest lesson I got from my grandparents is how to leave a spiritual legacy to the rest of the family. A good memory is all we need, after all. We should live every to the fullest, so that after we are gone, our families and friends will still see us in their dreams. They will remember how honest, responsible, trustworthy, countable and caring persons we were. That’s the legacy, our heritage. If we made the impact to many people throughout our entire lifespan, we are changing the world.
Since humans are imperfect, biased, and emotional. Even the most senior and knowledge judge could also miss the change to make the rightful decision, no need to mention how many wrongful choices we had made in our lives.
The lesson therefore is that when you are involved in the middle of a debate or argument, try your best to get out from it as soon as possible. Don’t be the judge, or let people think that you are the judge because every decision–any one of them–will hurt someone’s feeling in the conversation, no matter how the good the agreed, negotiated outcome it may be. People tend to remember what’s taken from them more than what’s given to them, and they tend to remember that for a very long time. By any means, don’t take things or emotions from people, and get rid of that sort of conversation as soon as you can.
Appendix: Top 5 book picks from the year
I am listing down and sharing five books that had great impact on me this year. These are great books that inspired me to think and take actions.
- “Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike” by Phil Knight
- “Love People, Use Things: Because the Opposite Never Works” by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus
- “Midnight Library” by Matt Haig
- “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari
- “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster” by Bill Gates
