I took a trip to the beach yesterday with my housemates, my partner and Lucy. I laid there horizontally bobbing in the sea, starring into the deep blue sky. I thought about my accomplishments and failures in 2013 and see in 2014 I could find in the rough, to takeaway some diamonds. I love these trips as divorcing me from the computer allows me to think about things deeply and from different angles. It was a most excellent experience.
In 2013, I did quite a bit. However, I was often overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things to do, and I would retreat to idleness out of the anxiety of not being able to complete the task. Anxiety has been a big issue for me in 2013, and not much introspection was required to figure that out.
For a very short period of time on the beach – about 15 minutes or so – I was actually at peace with myself, engulfed in the serene quietness and solitude of my mind. It was a very fleeting moment and I cherish it very much so. And then, just like that, my mind went back to being busy, thinking of things to do and making plans.
One of the things I had reasoned was that I totally sucked at delegating tasks. I appear to have some difficulty delegating tasks to people and that had caused me to be extremely overwhelmed with things. So in 2014, I think I will delegate more. Or at least learn to.
One thing I had set out to do in 2013 was to do more things. I launched Fork the Cookbook, and I embarked on a really massive project that I didn’t expect to take so long. It’s nearing announcement stage though.
While on the trip, I did look back a lot at what I did in 2013, and I didn’t really like what I saw. A lot of the things I did can be considered trivial and relatively easy. Somehow, my inner snob scoffs at these tasks. Which was one of the reasons why I started upon my larger project. And yet, despite all that, 2013 was one of my more stressful years.
I’m not much of a resolution maker. But here’s to a better 2014. In the meantime, I should tend to my massive sunburns. Slip-slop-slap, people!