Next
to the charming X-mas cards, warm and cozy family and friends dinners and
lovely wishes for the coming 2014 this nice and sweet December time is all about, one cannot but come across all kinds of
reflections on the old year, top-something
lists of the best and most memorable moments, varying from sports, the news,
television, radio hits to the year’s overview in pictures and events for each
of your Facebook friends. And sometimes it does go too far if you ask me, but
given the fact that turn of the year has some certain kind of magic to it (at
least to me it still does), this summing
a year up seems like a reasonable and useful thing to do. As it also just feels
good to do so, let me follow my fellow bloggers and all other people who deem
this end-of-the-year ritual important and reflect on my 2013 in this very final
end-of-the-year post.
This
year started out in big uncertainty for me as I quitted my old job in the last days of 2012 and was feeling both sad
and excited about it at the same time. As I’m a kind of person who seeks
security, it was not quite encouraging to think I’d stay without steady incomes
for a while (aside from some unemployment benefits I could count on for some
time). On the other hand, all endings mean beginnings of something new, which
is why I was elated to a certain extent. And as long as after 3 months of job-hunting I was still unemployed, it
made me reconsider how much I disliked my former job and, under slightly
adjusted employment conditions and modified responsibilities we got back together
with my old employer, which was a great decision after all as far as I can
evaluate it now. I’m still working there part-time
as a market researcher. This might
not be the work of my life and my career has been standing somewhat still this
whole year, but I feel productive and get a chance to carry out some really
cool things at work from time to time, while still having enough free time to
enjoy other nice things in life (and thanks God my boyfriend has his job by the
way, otherwise this half-freedom wouldn’t be that very affordable financially).
And as to my professional self,
which is why I’m writing this blog in the first place, I’m still searching and
still enjoying the process…
Another
great thing that happened this year was the revival of my blog, the one I started a couple of years back as a
means to reflect on my ‘being a late starter on the job market (in a country I
emigrated to)’ and then suspended successfully after just one post… Well, this
year I had so many career-related subjects I got truly interested in, found out
a lot about and couldn’t but share with the rest of the world that I just
decided to dust off my good old blogger account and start writing again.
Judging by the reactions I received and most of all by the therapeutic effect
this revival has had on me, the blogging
has got to go on in 2014 as well. One post per month seems also like a frequency
easy to keep up with.
In
2013 I also travelled a lot and quite
far, like never before, spending most of my savings on trips :). Ah well, you only live once,
right? I’ve been to my birth country twice, went skiing in Austria for the
first time in my life, flew to Prague all alone, visited two of the Dutch
Wadden Islands, Terschelling and Texel, which I never did – shame on me – in
almost 8 years I’ve lived in the Netherland, but most exciting of these all was
my Grand American Journey along the West Coast of the USA. These trips alone
have made my 2013 a year never to forget, full of exciting memories and moments
to cherish.
My
next big discovery of the year – can
it still go any further? – was yoga.
It’s not like I only encountered yoga this year, but it’s the depth of it I began
to discover. Starting with an inspiring yoga weekend in July, I found out there
was more to yoga than just an ordinary practice once a week in the
neighborhood’s gym. I started looking for an in-depth training or a course and
found one. In October I got enrolled in a yoga
teacher training that I am still enormously excited about it and have managed to
build up my own independent yoga practice so far. I’m not sure yet whether there’s
anything I’m going to do with it career- or money-making-wise, but I already
gave my first yoga class to a friend of mine and she said to have liked it. To
be honest, I found it a pretty exciting experience myself, so who knows what the
future in a role of a yoga teacher will bring me…
Though
I’ve been job-hunting for quite a while without much success as I pointed out
earlier, I have found a new job eventually. I’m starting as a tutor of English for the secondary and
high school students on the very last day of this year. And even though it is a
small part-time job I wouldn’t be able to pay my bills from, it’s also trying
out something new, something I used to be good at in the past and something I
hope to again enjoy doing. Boy, I’m thrilled about my first lessons – I’ll keep
you posted on how it’s going.
As
this whole blog is about searching for vitality and most possible happiness one
could derive from an occupation, preferably the one that could also make you a
proper living, I cannot quite say I’m there yet. But nonetheless, reflecting on 2013 I can say that I’ve done
a lot of exhilarating new things, met some great and inspiring people and
managed to expand my comfort zone more
than in years before. I hope this could be a good example to some: only trying
things out you can figure out what’s best for you and not being afraid to let
go of the things that are not. Probably the most important thing I came to realize
this year is that happiness comes from
within and you and only you are the one responsible for making yourself
happy. Looking for stuff in life that makes you feel good, being grateful for
the nice little things that are already there and concentrating on what’s
positive and good rather than on what’s missing makes a huge difference. Absolutely
grateful for this wonderful year full of great insights, revelations and
experiences that have helped me grow.
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