Highlights of 2021
I’ll keep this list fairly short, but know that there are many, many words I could put behind each of these highlights:
- Getting legally married (in a mini ceremony in a park in the middle of the Toronto winter, though thankfully it was a mild day)
- Settling into my new job and learning about myself through having the chance to really explore what I’m looking for out of my work, the role I want work to play in my life, etc.
- Spending a month in BC that fortunately avoided most of the wildfires, the landslides and the heat waves, enjoying Whistler, Vancouver, and Victoria
- Traveling to Europe and getting to fall in love with Nice, re-explore Paris, explore the Swiss Alps, and eat our way through Italy
- Meeting my work team in person, finally
- Spending a lot more time with my parents
The things I learned (in no particular order)
To me, money is not that important past a point.
I recognize that I am extremely fortunate and privileged to be able to even think this, as there are many who can’t financially meet their basic needs, let alone hope to acquire a few nice-to-have things. In the past year, I have spent a lot of time stepping back and examining my relationship with money. Having gone through years where money was a big source of stress and fear and constraint on opportunity, I used to conflate money with security. As I have grown into adulthood (shudder), I have realized that money does equal security, but only to a certain point. Beyond that threshold (which is going to be different for each person), money tends to turn into something quite toxic, as it opens up the potential for a whole new type of stress and fear. Most humans aren’t great at removing themselves from competition against others (I’m especially guilty of this), and as they start to accumulate wealth beyond the aforementioned threshold, it opens up the door to games of oneupmanship, golden handcuffs, and so many more complexities that threaten good human relationships. As I look to the rest of my life, I feel that I am a fork in the road where I am actively choosing to opt out of that game. I hope that despite all of the temptations that money offers, I will continue to keep my eye on the prize – on what matters the most to me – and remember that having enough to live well is more than enough, and that I don’t need to aspire to have magnitudes more to live “better,” as that notion of “better” is filled with incredible amounts of nuance that likely won’t make me any happier.
Time is worth everything
I’ll caveat again that this is obviously predicated on the idea of having enough money for my basic needs and more. It definitely takes having a privileged perspective on life to say that time is worth everything. For me, this refers to having time with loved ones, having time to do the things that bring me joy, and having the flexibility to take that time when it matters. Early on in working life, I felt that I could take the time back whenever it worked well around my work schedule – as an example, I scheduled vacation with my family around my work schedule. As the years have gone by, I’ve come to realize that I can do better, particularly with respect to how I balance work and the other aspects of my life. Again, will caveat that I am fortunate to be in a field where my work isn’t particularly tied to anyone else’s schedule, and also that I am incredibly fortunate to be able to make these choices without (too much) concern over my job security.
Nothing is for certain when it comes to logistics these days
This one kind of goes without saying, but I put it here to note that my planning side is continuously evolving. We didn’t finalize any of our travel plans this year until a few weeks before we were set to leave, and even changed our return flights from Europe after we got to Europe. We basically planned our Italy trip on the go, figuring out one week at a time. It feels thrilling to “live life on the edge” (it’s all relative, for the non-planners who are rolling their eyes at this). E will be very pleased to know that deep down, despite my love for planning, I’m starting to see the value of not planning too much in advance because of the flexibility and opportunity for new adventures that arise.
When things are out of my control, the best I can do is find what is within my control and do the things that bring me joy
This one could probably be rephrased as, “Don’t waste time and energy planning things that might change.” I’m a lot better at thinking through which planning activities fall into the high certainty vs low certainty columns and spending my time on the former rather than the latter.
Routine and health/fitness maintenance while traveling/away from home is what will give me energy to enjoy where I am
When we were away from home this year, we knew that we’d be on the road for longer stretches of time and had thus booked primarily apartments or apart-hotels that had kitchens. This was a huge gamechanger for me being able to enjoy extended traveling, as it meant we could eat lighter, healthier meals at home when we wanted, rather than feeling forced to eat out all the time. I’m a big fan of simple soup noodles with an egg and some veggies and it’s become my go-to comfort/healthier meal while traveling. I felt like I was more comfortable, more refreshed, and more able to enjoy the meals where we dined out, rather than feeling guilty, unhealthy, and overwhelmed by all the eating out. (It also helped us manage our budget.)
I also started doing 7 minutes of exercise per day through an app that E found for me. I started in March/April and have basically kept to the daily routine, and this was so much easier to stick to while traveling, especially as hotel gym access is kind of hit-or-miss.
I don’t want to be defined by solely my work
I don’t think 2017-2020 Isabella would be shocked to hear this one, but it was always a hypothesis that I was trying to test in the back of my mind. There was a small part of me that thought perhaps I could be the sort of person who was super deeply defined by their work and profession. I’m thankful for the chance to have put this to the test in 2021 – there were moments where I thought I was ready to go all-in, but through a series of fortunate (in retrospect) roadblocks, I came to the conclusion that going all-in wasn’t the right move for me.
Further thoughts on relationships
Last year, I wrote about how I had come to the realization that “engagement” is a label rather than something that changes how one feels. I’ll start by saying that this year, I have come to feel that “marriage” is also just a label that doesn’t change how everything feels – again, in a good/neutral way.
Side note: getting married legally has made it feel much easier to see wedding planning as party/event planning, rather than as a momentous emotional situation (though I’m sure it still will be, despite my best efforts to ground myself and not get carried away). It’s nice to de-couple (haha) the relationship step from the big event that involves lots of other people.
I was chatting with a friend recently and we both observed that I have felt a lot more stable in my relationship in the last few years. I think 2021 illustrated a year where E and I were just really stable in a good way and it left us space to feel angsty and stressed about other things, with a safe haven to always come back to with each other. When I think about my relationship, it feels like we’ve elevated it to a permanent status, essentially operating on an assumption that we are chosen family – we chose each other, but we are now family in that we aren’t going anywhere without the other.
Other random thoughts from the year:
- Splitting responsibilities/duties 50/50 isn’t always the best, even if it feels like it should be that way to be “fair”. I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable playing to our respective strengths so that we each pick up more responsibilities on the things that we do well/better than the other. We might average out to 50/50, but that’s only on a macro level – on the micro level, it might appear like we’re splitting things unevenly a lot. Playing to our strengths has made us happier and more efficient.
- Alternate who’s carrying more of the load at a given point in time – something I’ve also gotten more comfortable doing is saying that in a given month, I’m going to go deep on ABC (e.g., work or wedding planning) and thus need E to take on more of XYZ (e.g., meal prep). In the next month, I might say I’ll take on more of XYZ so that E can focus on something else. It doesn’t always work out elegantly as we don’t have control over all the different priorities and demands that life presents to us, but when we can, alternating back and forth and being really explicit about it also helps us avoid squabbles.
- Pick your battles. Honestly, sort of obvious, but a great one to reinforce for myself.
- I’ve been exploring the concept of unconditional support and what that means. I don’t think it’s something I’ve had to really practice in the context of my relationship until this year, as E quit his job and started working on his startup. I’m trying to define the parameters of how this sort of support works, and so far what’s worked well has been me expressing where I think my breaking point is (i.e., how far I’ll go with my support). So I guess in some senses, ironically, I’m defining how conditional my support is. The pros are probably that I’m less likely to end up resentful and I’m probably drawing good practical boundaries for myself. The cons are that I’m not sure if I’m giving enough/as much as I should.
- Hand in hand with the above is that sometimes I am quick to make verbal commitments of wholehearted support, and I can get on board with those commitments rationally, but yet there are still moments when a slightly frustrated or snarky or resentful comment slips out. I’m trying to catch that in the moment more proactively and figure out if it’s just an adjustment period or if I need to temper the verbal commitments I’m making.
- I’ve grown to see that all of the things that can be frustrating about another person are probably also the same traits or characteristics that make that person awesome. I could sit here all day and list out reasons why the things about E that drive me crazy have also led him to great success in other domains of his life. It’s fascinating to step back and put myself into a neutral perspective (when I have the calm to do this) as it reveals so much about who we are. It’s good motivation for me to accept people as they are, rather than feeling like I always need them to meet me halfway.
- It has been fascinating to mostly live with my parents and for us to navigate our relationship with a sort-of audience. Recently, we had a bit of a squabble and I actually just removed us from their presence to go resolve our things elsewhere. I think having a sort-of audience often forces us to be on our best conflict resolution behaviour, and use our “I feel X because you did Y” statements, which seems…healthy?
Very brief thoughts on working remotely and not working
- Working remotely is awesome. I do miss the “derping around” in an office and having lunches with colleagues, but being able to do so much with the rest of my life has more than made up for that so far – being able to travel for a few months this year was definitely a highlight.
- I actually think the ideal travel rhythm for us is working while traveling, as we can spend a few days exploring and eat one meal out, but then spend the rest of the day at home, working, and in our own space rather than being stimulated by new sights and sounds. We honestly get tired after 4-5 hours of being out and about, so having just about that amount of time to explore before or after our workday felt perfect.
- I had the opportunity to take November off from work again this year. It was a funny coincidence that it’s now been two years in a row where I didn’t work for November. I love it and I want to make it an annual event.
- Last year, my month off from work had an explicit goal and I was busy with figuring out storybook logistics. (We were also on our road trip across the country.) This year, my month off was really just to relax and unwind. I thought I’d spend my time drawing, reading, learning Italian, and being all intellectually productive, but instead I was mostly a tourist who walked a lot, had a slow pace of life, and watched a lot of TV on the side. It was great even if it wasn’t “productive,” and I’m curious how I’d do with a month off in a different environment.
On work, otherwise
I’m really lucky to work with someone I consider a close friend. However, working with a friend has also proven to be quite hard because of all the human emotions that get entangled. I think I’ve seen firsthand a lot of the messiness and the mistakes that can be made with the best of intentions. As I close out 2021 and look to 2022, I’ve also seen firsthand that rebuilding friendship and trust is a process that takes time, space, and two people being willing to share.
I feel very fortunate to have the role I do, and I know that it is very rare to find such a set up and to be so supported (and given so much leeway). In 2021, I have opened up a can of questions not just around the role of work in my life (as mentioned above), but also about what role I want at work, and what I want to be doing X years from now. I’ve been doing executive coaching to reflect on a lot of these questions.
I don’t think I was particularly deliberate going into this new job and have stumbled a bit on different tasks, and oftentimes, taken on tasks without stopping to ask myself, “Is this something I want to do?” In looking back at the year, I’ve realized that I have the uncommon opportunity to define my role, and this is largely uncharted territory – I’ve been well trained on how to do a good job at work and be a reliable professional. I’ve never been trained to craft a role that suits me best – this broad question is predicated on knowing the answers to so many other existentially challenging, foundation-shaking questions such as “How do I set myself up for success,” “What does success look like to me,” “What do I enjoy doing,” “Where does that intersect with what I’m good at doing,” and “Do I enjoy doing the things I’m good at.”
Questions aside, I have also started to uncover some answers.
This year, I learned that the singular hardest thing for me at work is receiving feedback from the team on things that I built from the ground up. There is a class of work tasks that I do, which draw on my personality traits rather than my “professional skillset” (e.g., event planning, gift giving, team spirit initiatives). These are tasks that I’d otherwise do in my own life for my family and friends. In my personal life, I take great pride in doing this sort of task thoughtfully and catering to each person’s needs in a broader group. As I took on some of these tasks at work and received constructive feedback, it felt like an incredibly personal attack – I realized that I would rather get feedback on an “intellectual” or “professional” deliverable I’d put together, as it’s a lot easier for me to separate my self-worth from my intellectual/professional output.
The other big learning is that I don’t want to be so emotionally invested in my work that I bring it home with me into evenings and weekends. Even though at times, bringing my work home with me provides a false sense of self-importance and can be a backhanded ego boost, it’s something that ultimately adds to my stress, reduces my ability to enjoy the other domains of my life, and impacts my relationships.
Noteworthy books that I read
I’m very proud of keeping apace with my loose goal of ~1-2 books per month, with some pretty fluffy books in there to help my stats 🙂 Top reads from the year:
Big Friendship
My final read of 2021, at the recommendation of a friend. I sped through this book and highlighted so many passages. I love the core idea: “we can also choose to elevate our most important friendships to a status equal to marriage, family, and career.”
This has definitely informed my goals for the year (more below). Here are my biggest reflections:
- I have some really special friendships that I’ve neglected in 2021, largely because I have been unable to travel to the US and I don’t find video call catchups on weekends/evenings very enjoyable
- I have some friendships that have survived so much, in such awe-inducing ways
- Honesty in friendship can go a long way and I have probably not given as much honesty to certain friends as they deserve – whether it is “opening up about how important someone is to you as a friend—making sure you are saying to them that you value their presence in your life” or talking about “feeling stretch or strain because of a change that’s affecting the friendship”
- There are certain elements that a close friendship comprises: ritual, assurances, and openness – I think I’ve fallen short of all of these in most of my friendships and I want to work on building rituals as a starting point
- Because of a broad social construct that normalizes walking away from a friendship without ever having a “breakup” conversation, friendships are inherently very insecure environments where there is thus a greater need for reassurance, openness, and communication
A Severe Mercy
A fascinating love story with religious exploration. I found myself left with questions about religion by the end of the book (I wasn’t entirely satisfied), but religion also wasn’t my main motivation for reading this book. I was drawn in by the love story that is described and the concept of a severe mercy. The way the author describes love is very powerful, and there are parts of the book that are so relatable while there are other parts that are just so hard for me to grasp. What I took away from the author (spoiler alert) is that his relationship with his wife remained so perfect only because of the little time they had to spend together because of his wife’s early death. All in all, a book that I’ll probably read again in a few years and would love to discuss with others.
The Midnight Library
I love books that explore the idea of afterlife/death and this one was a great push in February to get me thinking about all the alternate paths in life that I would want to pursue on my deathbed. The new Litmus test: Are there forks in the road where I’d have wanted to take the other fork? I am generally relieved to say that I don’t think so – but it’s a great question to keep asking myself.
Motherhood
This was a book I found as part of my intellectual exploration of motherhood (“intellectual,” only to distinguish it from my emotional reaction to the concept of motherhood). The author goes through this long period of questioning about whether to have a child, and I thought it was very revealing to read her thoughts and mentally tally which ones resonated vs which ones I disagreed with almost immediately. It generally helped me clarify a lot of my questions/rule out certain doubts.
Looking to 2022
In broad strokes, our year will be centred around a few big events: the wedding, my green card interview, and moving to NYC. While we’re still nomadic, we’ll also try to get in some extra traveling, so fingers are crossed for some more European adventures. If Taiwan’s borders open up, we are overdue on a visit to see my 90+ year old grandmother, and we’ll do a second wedding celebration meal with the extended family there.
The other goals I have set for the year:
- Reconnect with friends. Be extra honest with my friends about where I think I’ve fallen short in 2021, ask what I can do to help build new rituals, and be more transparent where I feel like I’ve been let down or discouraged from trying harder. Basically, take the lessons from the book and see how many of them I can apply.
- Incorporate cooking into my schedule and routine more, even if living at home where my mom is very proactive at making sure we are fed. I’ve actually staked my claim on being the chief food officer for the first two weeks of 2022 and am in charge of feeding everyone lunch and dinner for 14 days.
- Get through the major life events with some amount of grace and as little stress as possible. Plan ahead where it makes sense but leave things to be sorted out naturally where I just don’t have control.
- See E’s startup off the ground. I only have a supporting role to play here, and I think the role will evolve throughout the year. I think success would look like me finding the right supporting role scope and E having a well-oiled small but growing company.
- Vision for next Christmas: The family visiting us in our apartment in NYC with a cozy Christmas tree, adult furniture (whatever that means) and a comfortable home office setup.
And continued efforts from 2021:
- Read before bed: Target another 12-24 books for the year.
- Fitness/health: 7 minutes a day, every single day. Walk 7,500-10,000 steps per day.