Annual Review 2022
The Year of Disruption
When we were young, when we get our first bicycle, we struggle so much to learn it. First, we get those two tiny support wheels to help us with the balance. Still, we struggle to understand how it works. In a few days, you get the hang of it. You start riding with confidence in your garden and you think “Man I got this”. But then they come and take the supporting wheels off, and tell you that you are supposed to ride it on the road along with all other big vehicles. Everything you thought that made sense, anything that made you comfortable, is gone.
The year 2022 is pretty much the same, except way more intense. I start the year with a job I loved with a clear plan of progress, a society in that I thrived and adored, with lots of friends and family around for support. I did carry forward a few plans from 2021 that I knew would make a lasting impact on my life. Little did I know that these changes I planned for 2022 would disrupt my life so much to a level, where I am way out of my comfort zone, and everything I thought was stable is gone. If you read my 2020 review, I start the review by saying that 2021 was full of change. Yes, it was but still, I was within my comfort zone. My social support systems were effectively in place for me to take risks and explore without fear. What 2022 did to me was, strip me off of my comfort and pushed me way deep into the unknown.
All my previous reviews had the same flow. Every year, I create a list of everything I want to do in that year, and I keep ticking them off as I do them throughout the year. By the end, I have a list of activities that I could summarize in the blog. Guess what? I don’t even know where my list is for this year. I created one, I just don’t have it anymore. Therefore, expect a very different, less structured review from me this time.
*I am not proud that I do not have a list with me. I just lost touch with maintaining one while moving. I am planning to go back to that habit next year. (Hopefully)
Life Events
As I step into the new year, there were some commitments that I knew would alter the course of my life. As soon as I step into 2022, my girlfriend became my fiancé. We planned the wedding for May that year. Initially, the plan was to get married on the 11th of May, but the government of Sri Lanka decided to call an island-wide curfew on the 9th night, we had no fuel, and the country was in turmoil. Fortunately, all our vendors and almost all our invitees were free on the 16th of the same month and that is our anniversary now. Our relationship runs for 10 years, and we were preparing for a life together for a while and we kind of knew what was coming. Or at least that is what we thought.
2 days into the honeymoon, I got an email from the University of Bristol saying that they have selected me for a scholarship to study for a master’s degree in business analytics. Yes, I remember applying for it 8 months back, but I never expected this. Especially while I am in the middle of celebrating my biggest life event. From then, we had 3 months to plan everything, say farewell to all my loved ones, resign from our jobs and start a life from scratch in an unknown country.
When life becomes comfortable, you start to think that you can challenge yourself with these kinds of changes without much discomfort. You expect it to be another challenge like many challenges that you faced. But leaving everything and everyone behind and starting a life from scratch in an unknown world was not my cup of tea. I am glad that I have my wife with me on this journey. I do not know how everyone else does it. Life in the UK must be a blog of its own. I am not planning to bore you with all the details of that in this. I just wanted to start with it so you don’t lose the context. So here comes the most disruptive year of my life.
Reading
Wherever I go, reading never stopped. It halted, it had many monetary breaks, and I definitely read much less this year. Yet I made it a point to keep up with the habit in whatever possible. I manage to grab my hands on 5 books and only one of them was a novel. As usual, I was very cautious about the books I pick and here is my list for 2022.
1. Flow: The Psychology of Happiness by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
2. Deep Work by Cal Newport
3. The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (Novel) by Shehan Karunathilaka
4. Why Nobody Told Me This Before — Dr Julie Smith
5. 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang
I am ashamed of myself for how small the list is, but I cannot be too harsh on myself. However, I can guarantee you that the above 5 books are indeed top picks, and I can highly recommend all of them to anyone.
If I am to recommend one non-fiction out of the above, I would suggest you start with Deep Work as it altered the way I work significantly. You can read my blog about the book here. My fiction choice is a bit biased as the book is written by a Sri Lankan who won the Booker Prize this year.
Travelling
While I was not reading that much, what I was doing well enough was travelling. The sudden feeling of leaving this paradise of a country made us explore it as much as possible. We covered the east coast, the south coast, and the countryside, slid down on caves and bathed in underwater ponds, zip lined, and the list goes on. The following are some top picks I would like to suggest.
Top places visited
1. Ella — Spend a minimum of 2 days and explore everything
2. Trincomalee — Pick the season times and go wild in the sea
3. Pasikudah — Not secluded as Trincomalee but the best beach!
You must remember that I recommend these places as someone who used to live in Galle. Which is kind of the first choice for anyone new to the country.
Top hotels to visit
1. Bentota Beach by Cinnamon — 5 Star resort at its best
2. Jungle Beach by Uga — As private as it can get next to a beach
3. River House by Asia Leisure — Amazing location
Disclaimer — There are hundreds of hotels to visit in Sri Lanka that may be better than this. What I share is based on my experience and where I have been within that year. And I have not been sponsored by any of those hotels to mention.
Top activities
1. Nil Diya Pokuna — Ella
2. Snorkelling in Pigeons Island — Trincomalee
3. Zip Lining — Ella
It’s been 3 months since we started our life in Bristol. We could not visit many places within the UK except London. I don’t think I am qualified enough to give any recommendations about any of the places I visited before exploring more.
Education
Remember I told you that I am kind of done with formal education in the 2021 review? Remember me sharing all the non-formal educational courses I took on Coursera? Well, guess what? I am back in formal education. Just when I thought I am done with education, here I am, in one of the UK’s top 10 universities as a “Think Big Scholler” studying business analytics. To be honest I never considered myself to be good at academics. I never really enjoyed studying. From that to being accepted to this, I guess I must have done something right during the last few years. Whatever that is, I can now confidently say that my view on academics has taken a 180-degree turn from where it was heading.
I started learning how to code which was a long overdue plan of mine. The progress is slower than I thought but eventually, I hope it will turn out ok.
I managed to achieve the Bristol Plus Award, a recognition offered by the university career services for candidates with high career potential. For this, as a part of the criteria, I completed an online course called Unleash Your Potential: Global Citizenship offered by the university.
Apart from that, I also finished a course on design thinking through Coursera.
All in all, I would like to say that the highlight of my year was academics. However, the year was full of highlights, I don’t think I can say that this is the outright winner.
Health
My physical and mental health had no significant stresses or downturns over the year as I was focused on both and picked any bad habits sooner. As a groom-to-be, I was anyway super conscious about my weight for the first 6 months of the year. And as I was getting married and moving countries, all my loved ones were hypersensitive to any mental stresses I went through.
I managed to maintain my weight at 82 till my wedding day and then had to settle for 85 for the next three months till I moved to the UK. I lost my health tracker in between all the mess and could not track my active hours from May till October. Apart from those 3 months, I have clocked in 32 hours of Gym time, 48 hours of other workouts and 207km of movement. I consider this to be a significant bump from last year and expect to take it up a notch next year.
Work and Volunteerism
Similar to last year, the year began with the SLASSCOM people summit (virtual for the second time) with a much better experience this year. As I moved on from Sri Lanka, I had to bid farewell to SLASSOM and my job which I loved so much. As I keep saying, whatever progress I made in my life in my last few years, I owe it to my bosses. They shaped my life in ways that I never expected.
We also started a small-scale start-up on corporate training that delivered a couple of training. It went well till all three of us who started it had to settle in the UK, India and Singapore. Since I moved to the UK I delivered a couple of online training for universities in Sri Lanka and that is the extent of my volunteerism for the year.
To Sum It Up
If I were to sum up this year in a single phrase, I would call it “The Year of Disruption”. It is like any other disruption that happened in the world. When artificial intelligence came into our lives to automate mundane tasks of our jobs, it was not easy for people to adopt. People lost jobs and it was stressful for many who were used to those repetitive work. But it ultimately served a bigger purpose that pushed the world to new levels. When AutoCAD replaced hand drawing, draftsmen had to adopt or drop out. It would have been very difficult for them, but it revolutionized engineering. All disruptions are difficult and seem impossible as they appear. But those are necessary changes that push us forward at exponential rates.
This year was full of disruptions. Some such disruptions are already working out and started to give out results, while others are still pushing my limits. I was never afraid of leaving my comfort zone. But every time I did that, it happened on my terms with full control within me to push myself back the moment I feel resistance. This year was different. Even though the path I chose was solely at my discretion, the consequences of those actions were beyond my control. I did not have the safety of falling back. It is like those times you get into the swimming pool from the deep end and only swim in the lane closest to the wall, so you know you can always hang back against swimming in one of those middle lanes.
I think this is what I needed at this age of my life. A good intimidating push to the centre of the swimming pool. As expected, I am intimidated. But I know, when I get back, I will be an entirely different person with so much more to offer.
I look at 2023 as the year of adaptation. A year full of hard work that will eventually take me up to a new comfort zone. I am excited as I can be for 2023 and I can already see myself writing an amazing yearly review in a year! I wish you a very happy and prosperous new year.
May you have the courage to be the best version of yourself.
