2022 has been quite the year.
I think Charles Dickens puts it best:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” ~ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.
Looking back it was definitely a challenging year, but also a rewarding one. From being in the metaphorical valley of death to the literal tops of the most beautiful mountains in Alberta.
It certainly was a year to remember.
I will share this year’s summary in four parts and I hope to conclude with some life lessons learned and share my hope, vision, and outlook going into the new year.
Never in my life would I have ever imagined that I would have to choose between keeping my job or keeping my freedom of choice. Whatever side you are on regarding the COVID-19 vaccine debate, I don’t care. You are an individual who is more than capable of making your own decisions.
Why did we as a society fully embrace throwing the baby out with the bathwater? We shut down the world to stop a virus from spreading at any cost. No consideration was given to other causes, including mental health, employment, or the flu, which mysteriously resolved itself during this time.
Despite this irrational, illogical, and emotional behavior, this wasn’t the reason I didn’t want to take the vaccine. The reason was that I knew what my body needed, and it certainly didn’t need a vaccine.
I’ve had many health complications throughout my life. Currently, I take roughly a dozen vitamins and minerals a day to improve the areas of my life that are most affected by these complications. If I needed something more, my doctor would have prescribed it and I would have added it to the list.
There was no discussion about a holistic approach to health, which I embrace. Vitamins, minerals, sleep, diet, and exercise were not encouraged. Instead, taking x number of vaccines was.
Regardless of what I thought or what I was doing, I lived every day for the first three months of this year in fear of losing my job. I did everything I could to find a solution to this problem including looking for new opportunities, starting a business, and looking into a one-way ticket out of the country.
As extreme as these measures may seem, I likened my decision of taking the vaccine to taking a voluntary step into totalitarianism which eventually leads to genocide. I didn’t take this decision lightly. If I could compromise my beliefs, morals, and ethics once, I could, and would do it again.
Despite this view, there was one person who said one sentence to me regarding this decision. This person said the following: “Don’t put God in a box.” With the understanding I had at the time, I was more than willing to put God in a box – and I did for most of this time. What I didn’t comprehend was that God can do anything, through anyone, and who was I to stand in the way of Him and His will for my life? This gave me peace and solace and I slowly started trusting Him again during this time.
I will never forget this time in my life as this is exactly how a government can control people to do anything. I have learned that I am one of many others who have faced the same decision. Some lost their jobs, their ability to walk, and even their life. I have forgiven those who have done wrong, but I will never forget what happened. I have since taken steps to avoid this situation if it happens again.
Moving on to a more positive experience, I took a trip to Las Vegas this summer. I wrote a blog post about my experiences and the life lessons I learned, so I won’t reiterate them here. What I will do however is share a bit more about what I have reflected on since then.
It was refreshing to be with over 50 other people who have come to similar conclusions as I have over the past few years. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to be in a community of like-minded individuals, especially if you think differently than most of the people you encounter regularly.
Community brings as much to you as you put into it. It can provide you with a baseline and a reflection as to how you are fairing. This trip provided me with a well-needed reflection on the level of progress I’ve made. I no longer felt like I was the only one putting in the work to get the most out of life. There were some fine folks working hard, putting in mornings, evenings, and weekends achieving excellence in all areas of their life – and it showed.
However, It does pain me to see people who do not strive for excellence. It also pains me to say that the people who do not strive suffer from fairly simple issues. Overweight? work out and eat less. Have debt? Spend less than you make. Can’t find a spouse? Become the man that God calls you to be. It’s not complicated, but most do not want to do the work and wonder why things don’t work out.
So for those of us who strive for excellence in all areas of life – kudos to you! There’s a community out there for us, but we of course have to do the work to find and contribute to it.
There’s a line in one of my favorite songs that I will end this section on:
“Elders and youngsters, near or far, blood relatives, friends! Sincerely I am speaking to you. Hey, modern men! I’m gonna give a precious medal, a song of praise to you guys. It doesn’t matter if I know you or not. My respect, honor, and greetings to the elders and the young. To those who preserve, honor, and glorify their mother tongue and to those who are renaissance men.”
~ Dimash, Screaming
Looking back on the goals I set for 2022, one read “Go on 12 hikes.” Little did I know that I would attempt to hike 9 mountains in 3 days, all for a good cause – to end sex trafficking.
I also wrote a blog post on this experience, so once again, I won’t go into detail here and instead share a bit more of what I learned and reflected on since then.
After climbing six of the nine mountains, my body was fatigued for the next three months. This was certainly one of the hardest challenges I have done. What I learned is that the body can take more than the mind wants to admit. Reflecting on David Goggins’ book, Can’t Hurt Me, he says that the mind has a governor on it. Once we hit that governor, the mind says we should quit, but in reality, the governor limits us to 40% of our potential. If we can push past this 40%, a new world opens up to us.
This challenge certainly pushed me past my governor, and by doing so, my body had to take lots of time to recover. Since recovery, I’ve certainly become more confident not only in myself but in what I can achieve. For example, I’ve spent the last few months determined to complete all the goals I set for this year. The result was that I managed to achieve 47 out of the 50 goals I set. The last three goals I did not achieve were all attempted but failed due to circumstances beyond my control. Despite this, these goals will be moved and completed early in the new year.
The past three months have got me to refocus my time, energy, and money. Going out six days a week hanging out with friends, traveling regularly, and working out took its toll. I’m thankful for every outing, but for an introvert, it pushed me far beyond what I was used to doing at the time.
I spent most of my time completing the goals I listed at the beginning of the year. Knocking out one after another was what I needed as I postponed doing so for a third of the year. As stated above, I managed to accomplish 47/50 (94%) goals. This has been one of the best years in terms of achieving personal goals. It gave me a perspective that even though there were many rough times this year, there was also significant progress – more than I have achieved in previous years.
Taking the time to refocus gave me time to process everything that happened this year. Not only this, but it also allowed me the ability to confidently say ‘yes’ to opportunities that came my way during this time. It’s funny because, for the first time in a long time, I entered the holiday season with little stress. Everything was taken care of and planned in advance as I now had the time to make it so.
It certainly was the best of time and the worst of times. But, I’m excited to bring in the new year.
Of course, there are certain goals I want to achieve in 2023. I’m taking a different approach than what I have done for the past 8 years. One of the best ways to achieve anything is through consistency. It is this consistency that I will build and apply throughout the year to get me to where I want to be.
If you have goals for the new year, I encourage you to pursue them. One of the tricks I use is that I write my goals down, then I cut the timeline to achieve them in half. I do this because work expands to the amount of time you have to complete it. By cutting this time in half, you not only achieve them faster, but if you fail, you still have the rest of the year to work on them.
I hope that you had a good year and a Merry Christmas spent with family and friends. Let’s go into the new year with hope and joy in our hearts despite the challenges of this year.
All this being said, they say that if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans…
Well, let’s see what He has in store for us.