2020 Year Review
By: Samy Felice
Tags: Year In Review

Play your cards

This year was about redemption. It was also about resilience, focus, and letting go. I cannot say this year was very fun, especially given the current world’s climate; but I can say that it involved a lot of work.

Career

At the start of January, I began a job working for a health supply chain distributor as a copywriter — a full-time job which I was seeking for a while. It was a brilliant company to work for, the people were nice, the culture was good, and I enjoyed my work — and I felt like I was thriving.

In the middle of the year, however, I got offered a scholarship at a London University to study a modern languages degree. When I got the offer, I planned to defer it to next year. I was happy in my job, I hadn’t been there long, why would I leave?

However, after lots of reflection, it dawned on me that this opportunity to do the degree might not be guaranteed next year — perhaps the funding would be cut for instance. Additionally, deferring would essentially mean that I’d be delaying my life by a year.

Given the situation with COVID at the time, it seemed sensible for me opt for stability and security instead of ripping off the band-aid. Perhaps staying in my job was the better choice. However, after a lot of going back and forth, over and over, I decided, or rather it was decided, that I ought to move on for the best outcome.

After 10 months in my role, I started my degree.

Opting to go down that path, in retrospect, was one of the best decisions of my life. I am now growing different sets of skills, feel more independent, and also earning more than I was before. Not only that, but I later found out that had I deferred, the funding would have been cut significantly. My brain, for the longest was telling me to stay in the job and that I shouldn’t leave.

In the end, I followed my heart, however cliche that sounds, and it’s worked out for the best.

On the Theme of Redemption

I mentioned that this year was about redemption. Here’s why: In late 2018, all my savings, which were £15,000 at the time got lost or gambled away, depending on how you look at it, through a bad decision/s online.

From that time till now, I’ve experienced a lot of inner turmoil. A lot of anguish, disappointment. How could I have been so foolish? If I was to play the role of a psychologist for a moment I would say the following:

“Samy, you knew that when you made the decisions you did, subconsciously, and even consciously to a degree, you risked losing all the money you had — but you did it anyway. You did it because you had a hole inside you that you felt would be filled from the outside: it’s the textbook gambler’s mindset.

Not only that, but a heavy sense of loss was part of your karmic field. And because you hadn’t yet resolved that karma/those feelings, you held them within your aura, and thus attracted a similar experience/s.”

Wow — okay. I think I knew that somewhere deep down. Honestly, maybe in the grand scheme of things, this experience will be good for me. I now value money more than before, I realise it’s importance, and I am not nearly as unconscious with my spending and saving habits. That can only be a good thing. To have the rug pulled underneath you eventually forces you to get back up and bring a greater level of awareness to your decisions.

The road to making all that money back has been tough — it’s almost been like a rite of passage. A lonesome journey towards redemption. Up until now, I refused to tell anyone about this until I’d resolved the issue and made all the money back. I didn’t want to speak about the loss from a place of victimhood but instead from a place of resolve.

When something significant is taken away from you, you go through a process of rediscovery. Diving into this underworld of loss was a shock for my system but one that’s made me stronger.

Romance

This was the first year in a long time where I barely did anything in this domain — I channelled much of my energy into the client I was working for and the master’s degree, which I’m now nearly halfway through.

Sure, I flirted with a few dating apps, but not much more. I still want to spend more of my time and energy delving into creative work and the degree I’m taking. Besides that, I feel like I have lots of stuff to resolve in my psychology — I don’t feel like having a relationship at the moment would be best.

Creative Writing

Funnily enough, as soon as I stopped tracking the number of hours I was investing each week for this work (as an experiment) half-way through the year — I just stopped doing anything.

This is a lesson for me — I need structure or some system of accountability with creative work, otherwise, it doesn’t get done.

Smartphones

I realise now that one of the reasons why my anxiety has increased over the last 3 years is down to smartphone usage. Although getting an eink phone in February 2020 was a step in the right direction — alongside uninstalling apps and using limits on social media, I’m afraid that the lure of the smartphone is just too irresistible, and no matter what I try I can’t help but use it more than I’d like to.

I’ve tried to make it work, but like in any bad relationship, you have to know when to say goodbye. So late this month, I bought my old phone — the Blackberry 9100 — the best non-smartphone I’ve ever had the privilege to own.

It’s the smallest device with a full-text keyboard that exists. I couldn’t see myself using a complete dumbphone due to the difficulty with writing texts. But this is the perfect fit.

On the Theme of Saying Goodbye: Things I said goodbye to in 2020

—Whatsapp

— Facebook — Deleted entire friends list (Only using Messenger)

— Unnecessary meetups (COVID helped)

— Eating meat (eating fish only)

— Writing paper journals

— Wearing polyester clothes

— Wearing watch religiously

— TV Shows

— Audiobooks

— Multiple tabs (Use xTab extension with limit set to two tabs)

— Google products (Stopped using: Google search engine, Chrome Browser, Google Photos, Google Keep, Google Docs, Google Maps)

— Meditating with a backrest

A Change in Philosophy

I remember that I used to plan and write everything I wanted to achieve for the next year. Although this would give me some sense of motivation, it would also increase my anxiety.

And as someone who is already highly perfectionist, making elaborate highly tightly focused goals with deadlines, produces more problems than it solves for me.

So what’s the alternative? I now am focused on simply bringing awareness to whatever it is I’m doing and ‘could do’, with a focus on developing better habits. Admittedly, this is something that’s hard to do given the lure of the goal driven mindset — which forms the fabric of our western culture — but I believe it’s something I’m getting better at.

This has been a short year review and it’s been a real pleasure writing it.

Thank you for reading.