Day 741: Life Snapshot

personal

In past years, I went through the 8,760 hours guide to do a comprehensive review of the past year and to plan out the upcoming year. This year, spending a bunch of time to reflect and plan doesn’t really resonate with me so I’m not going to dedicate the many hours I usually do to this process. I thought it’d still be fun to do a mini-reflection where I quickly go over each life category in the guide and take a snapshot of my current situation:

  • Values & Purpose

    • My core value feels the same as it has in previous years: I want to improve the well-being of as many beings as possible. The avenues through which I want to do that still feel largely through spirituality/meditation/psychedelics and animal welfare. With my recent focus on entrepreneurship and creating an indie business, helping people find financial independence and fulfillment in their work also feels like an avenue I’d like to explore, but that still feels less impactful/important compared to the other avenues. What feels important to note here is that besides continuing with my personal meditation practice and being vegan, I’m currently not doing much to explore those other avenues (e.g. writing about these areas, guiding sessions). Definitely interested in seeing how I can devote more energy to those areas.

  • Contribution & Impact

    • In 2019, I committed to giving 10% of my income to effective charities and to my family. In 2020, I barely made any money so that was easy to hit, but on examining that again while writing this post, I realized that I didn’t include money that I got from unemployment benefits so I actually have several hundred dollars more to contribute to meet that pledge. My income was again pretty low in 2021 (yay indie maker life) and I more than meet the 10% pledge if I consider the money that I gave to my parents this past year, but I feel drawn to removing the family portion of the pledge and just donating to effective charities instead. Will think about this some more.

  • Location & Tangibles

    • Currently living in LA with Shiva with the intention of staying here for at least the whole year. Right now, I feel good about this decision and optimistic about settling here and giving myself the time and space to nurture a community and a routine I love, but it’s still pretty early.
    • Still feel weird about paying so much for my apartment and still miss having a more communal living arrangement, but I’m curious to see if this sentiment changes as I develop my community here.

  • Money & Finances

    • My savings grew significantly over this past year thanks to the rising markets, so I feel pretty good about my finances.
    • My spending is the least frugal it’s ever been. I’ve found myself buying items from Amazon and at stores I pass by without a second thought, which is very different from my behavior my entire life where I avoid buying a $1.99 snack because it feels like a waste of money. Honestly, not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, I feel like I’m being too lax with my spending but on the other hand, my finances can perfectly support it? Hm. (I’ll know I’ve gone too far if I start buying food at airports)

  • Career & Work

    • Hit ramen profitability with Browserflow and I’m loving the journey. Excited to continue growing the business.

  • Health & Fitness

    • I feel great health-wise. Love how consistent I’ve been with my workouts and I’m leaner than I’ve been in many years.
    • The only area of health that I’m concerned with is my sleep. It’s been abysmal for the past few months and I’m very much looking forward to figuring this out so I can sleep well again.

  • Education & Skill Development

    • I haven’t been learning new skills recently, but I’m hoping to change that with dancing this year. There are so many other skills that I’m interested in as well (drawing, woodworking, etc.) but dancing feels the most compelling right now (I think this is due to having so much fun at EDC).

  • Social Life & Relationships

    • Relationship with my family feels pretty good. My relationship with my dad still has much room for improvement, but I’ve accepted it for what it is and am good with it growing in its own time.
    • Feel great about my friendships overall. This past year was especially lovely in that I was able to spend so much in-person time with some of my closest friends. Now that I’m in LA, I’d like to find more friends here that I vibe with and can hang out with on a regular basis.
    • Currently single, and I’m interested in putting more energy into dating. In previous years, I felt entirely indifferent to whether I’d be single or have a partner long-term, but these days there’s definitely more of an interest in finding a life partner. (I still think I’d be happy if that didn’t happen, but there’s more of a preference now.)

  • Emotions & Well-being

    • I feel quite content and grateful for this life <3

  • Character & Identity

    • Feel quite comfortable in my own skin and embracing all of myself, flaws and all
    • I’d like to continue growing and become kinder and more loving. Would also like to grow in leadership capacities and feel more comfortable organizing things and bringing people together.

  • Productivity & Organization

  • Adventure & Creativity

    • All my adventure and creativity these days feel like it’s going into my interest in fitness. Think I want to incorporate more camping / nature excursions with friends but that’s a soft desire rather than something I feel really strongly about right now.