my 2024 failures
Welcome to edition three of my yearly failures [2022 | 2023]. I find the process of collecting my failures and sharing them with the world very therapeutic. It's the same feeling of release and freedom from the emotion when writing down something that is bothering me.
Here they are in no particular order:
I did not communicate my relationship intentions with my parents very well leading to an asymmetry of expectations from them. I still gave them hope when I knew I had no intention of seeking a partner. If I had been more clear and firm and explained by thoughts earlier, they would not feel disappointed when I did end up having that talk a few months ago. For context, this is an ethnic family with expectations arising from traditional values and sacrifice that they went through by migrating and starting again.
I got complacent with my career and work. I knew layoffs were coming but did not prep adequately. Instead, it was a mad rush to get everything updated and stress about interviews until I get another opportunity.
I broke my foot again by doing something that could have been avoided. Whilst running, I think I grew overconfident or again, complacent and decided to do fast nightly runs. This ended badly and resulted in longer recovery period where my fitness and general well being did suffer. I should have planned my time better rather than just doing something that was risky but easier. This might be a common theme.
I fell deeper into doomerism. This mostly relates to global and local problems as I found myself anguishing over the state of things. This grew my cynicism and apathy and at times, I definitely let it get to me. I have come to realise that I do have the tools to change things around me. It's just harder and required more thinking vs. seeking comfort in the resignation that comes with being a doomer.
I often overcommitted and said yes to too many things. Whilst I am a lot better at this vs. earlier, I found that I slipped over some months and then it all hit at once via being overwhelmed. I think the best way out of this is I should practice saying "let me get back to you on that" more often :)
Which leads me to the next failure: I let a friend down. With a lot of things going on, I failed to communicate with a friend and express where I was at mentally leading to me just ignoring their messages and not showing up for something I had committed to with them. They had put in a lot of effort into it and I saw the signs of me not being able to deliver on my end but yet I persisted, thinking that I'll magically be able to ramp up and get it done. We're all good now but this made me think about my overcommittment issues a lot and felt so bad that I think it will finally help me realise how to be better. Thank you friend if you're reading for understanding. I've learnt a lot from you on how to be better and appreciate you calling me out on this stuff and helping me through it too.
If you have any advice or comments on any of these failures or what I could do better please do reach out. We're all human at the end of the day and I think it's more important than ever to share each other's failures and learn from them.