Now, in no particular order, I am focused on:

Practising the art of prioritisation

When it comes to problems to solve, I'm like a kid in a candy shop. I want to help with everything. This, inevitably, means I overcommit and over-subscribe to work, and inevitably become stressed because I have too much to do.

I've always admired people who can be ruthless with their time, who value themselves enough to set clear boundaries. This is something I would like to get better at. The tricky part is performing the prioritisation calculation: what things to keep and which things to drop? If you have any advice on this, please do let me know.

Building back strength

I used to be so strong! But after more than a year working from home, vacationing from home, and doing everything from my little apartment (apart from stepping out for groceries once a week), my muscles have atrophied and I have become so weak and unfit. It sucks. I want to slowly, somehow, build back the fitness and strength I once had, so that after the pandemic, I will be able to start Judo again without, like, immediately injuring myself.

Wintering ❄️

The past two years or so have been a long, quiet period of my life, where I've felt untethered, questioning my own existence. Who am I? What is my contribution to the world? What will my legacy be after I am gone?

I think we all go through these existential, melancholy periods in our lives (for me it seems often multiple times!), and it is always tempting to try and avoid these thoughts and feelings and simply keep on keeping on. Sometimes, we have to. But the more we avoid uncomfortable feelings and thoughts, the more they tend to leak out in strange and unusual ways. Sometimes we just have to sit through it.

Frankly, I'm not sure what this process looks like, but I am trying to be more open to its more uncomfortable parts. Not worrying too much about this feeling of detachment from society and the people around me, and make more of an effort to notice time in the seasons and the sky. Sorry this sounds a bit woo-woo, but I've found a tending to nature has helped.

I'm not sure who will emerge out of this pandemic, this long period of winter, but I do hope she is a better person than the one who went in.