2013 came and went, and some important events happened along the way…
- I mastered a response to the question “So…where are you living now?” (or a variation of it: “So…[look of confusion]…do you live here or…”)
- My 84-year-old grandmother and I shared quality time with each other in Houston, Playa del Carmen, Tokyo, and Verona. She remains my idol in so many ways.
- I had the pleasure of attending or speaking at several WordCamps: Seoul (April), San Francisco (July), Tokyo (September), and Nepal (October); I also very much enjoyed my trip to PressNomics 2 (October)
- I reached the 2-year mark working with Automattic Inc. (October)
- The WordPress.com Editorial Team came to Hanoi for a meetup, and I had the pleasure of playing guide-slash-errand-runner for a week. It felt amazing to be able to share my love of Hanoi with coworkers. (November)
- The Vietnamese WordPress community took off, and we’re pushing hard to create translations for WordPress that any Vietnamese person can use in order to better enjoy the experience of publishing with WordPress; our plan is to hold WordCamp Hanoi in 2014.
- My family spent its first Christmas together in over 10 years. (December)
Two years ago I wrote that my personal life — the one that revolves around health, relationships, family, and friends — needed some attention. I still find that to be true, and have made an incredibly focused effort during the last six weeks to spend more time thinking about the things in life that matter most. Things like my family and friends, my physical health, my emotional and mental makeup, and my spirituality. I’d like 2014 to be a year that I spend more of my time focused on the aforementioned.
My professional life also needs to be scaled back a bit. I’ve learned that it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things if I work 80 hours a week or 30. If my health and the joy with which I approach work suffers because of how much of myself I put into it, then why do it?
I’d like next year to be one in which I fully realize how much more important relationships are to me than clocking hours. I come from a father who valued men who put in work, who wake up every day and bust their butts to provide for their families. I learned good lessons about work ethic from him, but he didn’t tell me that giving so much of myself to a company, or work, is incredibly frustrating and unhealthy in all aspects of life. I figured it out, though.
Lots of change coming in 2014; it’ll be interesting.
(Previously: 2013, 2012, 2011)
Great post that resonates with all of us . It really brings out the fact that life is a constant struggle and in our effort to find balance and harmony, we must also keep our minds and hearts on the end game by asking ourselves why are we doing what we are doing. Realizing our purpose thus becomes a process.
Happy New Year!