Thursday, December 31, 2020

2020, best year in my life! A quick recap.

2020 is the best year in my lifetime thus far. Dumb isn’t it? Calling 2020 a best year. 2020 certainly being a disastrous year for many due to obvious reasons (Pandemic – Covid19), we always fail to look at the silver lining in any situation. Fortunately I guess, I quickly adapted to this untoward situation and I wanted to freeze certain things that I had done in this year through this blog. Let me take you all for trip down memory lane of my special year 2020. Here we go!

Why special?

“I don’t have time” is the common phrase probably used by all at some stage of our lives. Everybody has 24 hours per day but only few using it wisely and climbing up the ladder and shining bright in their lives. It is all about priorities and effective time management. “I don’t have time” is the easiest way to shun responsibilities or possibilities of exploring new things in one’s life, similar to famous quotes of 2020 “Act of God” or “Warning from God”. Here I am not quoting these phrases as an agnostic person. I just see people’s lame excuses to hide their inability by hiding behind the invisible God. I only feel sorry for God if one exists in reality and plead mercy on behalf of them for their ignorance.

“I don’t have time” is the proxy for “It seems tough to try” or “I don’t want to invest effort to learn” and also it is simple to convince others without explaining much. In 2020, I bravely attempted few things which I never did in my life and I hope I utilized my WFH (Work from Home) spare time (Travel time to office) to my fullest satisfaction.

Half Marathon (HM): My first Half Marathon and probably the last one. Running Marathon is not a joke and arguably one of the toughest sports in world considering its duration, discipline in sleep, food and training. I never dreamt of taking up running for fitness and in 2020, I had completed HM. Certainly feel surreal now. I decided to keep my running distance within 10K in future considering above said prerequisites.

Kural of the day: It was my long time pending wish and had attempted few times earlier but failed. In 2020, I tried differently with meme for easier understanding. Idea is to do self-check whether Thirukural is really a universal scripture (Ulaga Podhumarai). I started translating one Kural a day, selected Kural to match current affairs and trying to add tint of science/ psychology to it (whatever I know). Most of the time goes into thinking of relevant meme to make it fun. I had translated over 300 couplets thus far and hope I will continue to finish the entire book.

Let’s Learn – Kelvi: Started my dreamy book club to share knowledge with dear and near ones to build rational thinking community. Successfully completed 6 online KT sessions thus far and here is the link forYouTube channel.  The name of this club KELVI is borrowed from Thirukural and idea is to spread basic awareness on all basic needs. Thanks to my dear friend Sadesh for joining with me in this community building journey and I thoroughly enjoy our daily conversations related to the books which we read. We had covered History of mankind, Future of mankind, Acid Base balance and importance of sleep and Thirukural. I truly believe that Learn, Unlearn and Relearn are key for sustainability and possible only through bookreading.  

Importance of parenting: Parenting plays a key role in building scientific, rational thinking and secular community. Parenting is skill to acquire with deep understanding of kid’s psychology and following it patiently.  I am fortunate to learn basics of such kid’s psychology from altruistic Dr. Arul Saravanan and I am confident that I shall raise Aarav better to serve the society fruitfully. I wish to travel and learn more from sir and share my learning with friends.

Boobu Baba: My newly found alter ego who is spreading gyan in Whatsapp status and FB timeline to spread awareness on random topics and shooting relevant but disturbing questions to common man to read their mind. Often earn yelling/ silence rather than convincing answers to the questions.

Personal time with family: Thanks to the curfew for giving opportunity to spend time continuously with my wife and son. Ever since I got married, we had been leading nomad’s life as she is pursuing her PhD away from home. Due to WFH option and closure of college made the trick and savoured every moment with family though completely locked in home. Thanks to Priya and Aarav for allowing me to spend my time on above said activities.

Blogging: Resuming blog was my 2020’s resolution and started off the year with a blog post describing about my Debut Half Marathon experience. I would say 2020 started off with bang and now finishing it with eight blog of this year. Not bad isn’t it?

Let me end this recap post with the 2021 resolution. Though I started 2020 with HM, later I took a pause in running due to Covid19 situation. But I am thinking to resume road running in coming days. And I wish to upgrade my technical skills (AI) to stay relevant in future. Thanks for staying in this trip till end and I hope you had fruitful 2020 and I wish all Happy New Year.

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