Day 726: [unfinished] 2021 Review

Note: i never ended up finishing this post oops

It’s the end of the year. It felt like not much happened this past year but I scrolled through my calendar and Road to Ramen posts and remembered all the things that now feel like distant memories.

A year ago, I was in Taiwan, celebrating the new year at some artsy party (and having some girl trouble lol). I had unintentionally taken a long hiatus from Browserflow because I was socializing all the time, and despite the vaccine not having rolled out yet, meeting up with people in close quarters was perfectly fine because Taiwan had zero local cases then and there was no real chance of getting coronavirus. Wow, that feels like a whole lifetime ago.

In February, I set the intention for 2021 to be the Year of Fear where I follow my fears rather than avoiding them. That was actually great because I thought back to that intention many times throughout the year whenever I was confronted with an uncomfortable decision. I would tell myself, “Well, you did commit to following your fear so let’s try this out” which is pretty stupid but also stupid effective because we have a tendency to want to be consistent so the intention was exploiting that bias but for my benefit rather than to my detriment (presumably). It’s like past me doing judo moves on future me.

Here were some of the highlights from the year from following my fear:

Organized a 40-person dinner

I don’t have much experience putting together events for large numbers of people, but it’s something I’d like to get better at. I was super glad I did this because it was a special way to say goodbye to so many of the new friends I made in Taiwan!

Did a 2-week ayahuasca retreat in Peru

I didn’t experience fear in deciding to travel to Peru and do the retreat, but there was an incredible amount of fear experienced during some of the ceremonies. The first ceremony in particular was one of the hardest experiences of my life, and I had a lot of doubts about whether I could do five more. Trusting the process and surrendering to the medicine led to some of the most beautiful and profound healing experiences, so I’m quite grateful that I did lean into the fear.

Started riding a motorcycle as my primary vehicle

I got my motorcycle license a few years back, but that was only so that I could legally ride a scooter on a trip to Bali. I never seriously considered riding a motorcycle back in the States because it just seemed too dangerous (and to be honest, I still think it is), but the ayahuasca retreat flipped a bit in my brain that made me way more comfortable with risk for some reason and I ended up buying a Honda Monkey that I now ride all the time.

Moved to LA after 4 years of being a nomad

After

Launched Browserflow after 1.5 years of building

And some other highlights not related to following my fear:

Living in community with friends

[vegas, hawaii]

EDC

[1/1: ok i will finish this post tomorrow i guess]