Starting with the End: 2020 Reflection





2021 thus far has been a surreal experience – mostly since I started the year feeling like I am merely fleeting through the days. Every day in January, I woke up feeling like I am on a bullet train with no exact direction or destination in sight – just endless things to do. Such as processing my thesis submission and correction, trying to get some rest, and fill out job applications. Fast forward to the end of February, I have completed my first month as a project officer working on communications and capacity building modules. Now it’s March (at the time of writing) – I find it simply urgent to pump the brakes to assess the past, recognise the present, and plan for the future by the end of the first quarter, hoping that it is not too late to look back at 2020.



This post is inspired by my dear friend Fathi Rayyan and his annual reviews since 2019. This is also an opportunity to enshrine my values and my purpose as I move further into 2021. I only hope that this serves as a remembrance, guidance, and an avenue to articulate abstractions. This is not setting my goals in stone, it is about understanding the nonlinear aspect of growth hoping that it will improve my attitude in approaching my experiences. It has been a common practice, where I would let my past experiences determine how I experience my present. It was easy for me to say, “I know that this will happen”, whenever I am faced with discomfort and try to console myself, when in fact, it was self-limiting. I intend to not do that in 2021.



On this note, I have set the intention to process the tough year of 2020, so I do not project the past into the present. I shall do this by acknowledging important milestones serving as a lesson and a reason to celebrate, and define the outcomes I wish to have by the end of 2021.



Important milestones in 2020

1)    Declining two job offers at the beginning of the year

I was expected to graduate by the end of 2019 when I complete my final year thesis, before going through my internship. However, I was unable to complete my thesis, but I pursued the internship considering it was a dream come true. After 6 months, at the end of my internship, I was offered the position of researcher. Through my internship, I was also exposed to an exciting opportunity to research and applying the Sustainable Development Goals at the grassroots level. Having these opportunities presented to me before completing my thesis was an intensely validating experience. But, I decided to choose myself—that is to honour my student life and not rushing into the working world. I was incredibly blessed to have such an understanding internship supervisor at that time to remind me always “realise your purpose” which was incredibly helpful.

2)    Honouring my life as a student!

I started university when the intention to be a student for as long as I can. Looks like my wish was granted because it did take me five and a half years to complete my undergraduate degree. I am grateful for this experience. As an undergraduate student, things were relatively easy for me. Easy in the sense that  I always get by meeting my targets most of the time. But when it came to the moment that I need to work on my final year project, I was burnt out. I attribute this burnout to my gruelling third year in university. However, it was not due to the actual studying but it was the emotional demands of a regional project that I was working on at that time. As I enter my supposedly final 4th year, I could not function and be productive. Especially when there was little intellectual and emotional support from my final year project supervisors.

I returned to university after my internship to complete my final year project, but I could not complete it from late January to July 2020. I decided to take a leave of absence knowing that I will fail the semester again. Come September, in my 6th year, I powered through and completed my thesis on climate justice framing. I dare say that it’s a shit work as reflected by my B- grade, but the work only begins now. It has given me leads to exploring my research area and interest.  University certainly taught me many lessons but mainly, it was knowing when to walk out from a negative situation.  Also sometimes, you think you are being put out by other people against your will, but most of the time, it is simply due to particular circumstances, and it is for your own good anyway. As much as I’ve graduated, learning never stops.  

3)    Meaningful relationships

I am immensely grateful to live with a beautiful soul named Netusha for almost three months that helped me complete my studies. I have also managed to reconnect with Shameera after not talking for each other for a while (due to a reason I could not divulge). The three of us have spent quite a considerable amount of time together, and, I am incredibly appreciative of their honesty and the space provided to me. I also made time for my friends from university to laugh together and seeing some of them leave the country. It was bittersweet.

There are still friends that I have not been able to see at all since 2019. But thankfully, we are managing well with calls. I suppose this is the unintended positive consequence with COVID-19 as there is more consciousness in arranging and scheduling phone calls. Another positive aspect of the lockdown and closed nation-state borders is that my long-distance friendships have grown deeper with greater emotional investments. I love our phone calls despite that they are not frequent. But nothing beats meeting them in person. I am really hoping that I can meet my Aperol Spritz gang either in Europe or Asia soon and a few friends in the States, Europe, and Southeast Asia. Only with time, I can be hopeful.



4)    Completed about 25 therapy sessions

As of 2020, I have completed about 25 therapy sessions. It’s an approximate value because I had not recorded all the sessions in my calendar. But it’s definitely more than 20 sessions by the end of 2020. My first session was in late December 2019 and I went in intending to change my neural pathways to cope better and manage my stress before I go back to university for my final year project. I am blessed to get this help as I work through my project.



Are my neural pathways better now? I don't know for sure because there are moments where I struggle with focusing on day-to-day tasks. However, according to my therapist, I am better at realising and recognising triggers and come up with plans to cope. Yes, not all plans are well executed but I think it's really more about recognising my thinking patterns, emotions, and triggers. Also, my therapist noted a milestone which is that I can ask for help now (something I hadn't been able to do before). Going for therapy has been an important grounding exercise for me and I shall continue for 2021.



Goals for 2021:

Generally, there are a few areas that I want to improve on. Mainly, my finances, intellectual and spiritual growth, and my well-being. To improve these areas, I am setting the following goals:



1)    Get a job that I do not hate dislike

I am still recovering from my burnout in 2018 and the last mile of my undergraduate studies. So this is a particularly important aspect for me. This is only because I do not see myself embarking on that freelance journey (yet), or set up a business (yet, because who knows the future Eira?). There are three criteria for the job I shall be looking for. Firstly, it must reinforce my sense of purpose by supporting the causes close to my heart such as gender equality, climate change, and sustainable development. Secondly, it must provide mentorship opportunities and guidance. Last but not least, it must pay a decent salary. The last bit is crucial because, in this economy, we are so easily exploited especially as "fresh" graduates. Also frankly, I need to start paying my own bills, give back to my parents, and save up for grad school!

2)    Set up a website to write more

I have developed a distance with writing since my secondary school days. My most recent memory of writing is when I started volunteering for the Malaysian Youth Delegation in 2018. However, since then I only managed to write three articles about my experiences, despite the homework that we're supposed to do throughout our engagements. When I was doing my internship, I only managed to co-write one article while my research idea remains underdeveloped. Hence, I figured that a blog may perhaps serve as an avenue where I contemplate the world and attempt to articulate them, while I further refine my research area. I don't have yet specific targets on how many articles I plan to write, but at this point, I have many drafts and a few outlines that had been developed including those with my friends. Let's see where it shall go, but I guess creating this blog and publishing this post is a beginning.



3)    Take French exam

The lifelong dream is to be able to read French philosophers in French. I am not quite sure why this is my dream. It just seems like a reasonable challenge for two reasons: 1) it is measurable through standardised tests and 2) it may help my admission to a graduate school in Europe. Though as I write this now, I am uncertain if these reasons make it a reasonable challenge. Essentially, I just want to read French literature in French – none of the translated works.



4)    Read 12 Books for the year for leisure

I do not read as much as I want to or as much as people think I do. Sometimes my work requires a lot of reading especially when I am working on a literature review, strategy proposal, or writing a response on policy briefs. When I am reading for work, most of them are on human rights, climate change, and sustainability. I plan to read widely beyond those topics. I started this year reading Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. After I got my first pay in February, I got Frederik Beckman's Beartown, while I was still reading three other ebooks. I have finished Kitchen Confidential, and I am close with Beartown. So now, I am mustering the strength to read the three ebooks to finish them by the end of May:

• Ibram X Kendi’s How to be an Antiracist

• Milan Kundera’s The Joke

• Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac’s The Future We Choose.



5)    Apply for a Fellowship Programme

There is a fellowship that I had been aiming for when I first came across it in 2017 or 2016 after returning from the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative Academic Fellowship. Over the years as I got busier with my studies, I somewhat had forgotten about it. In late 2020, I got connected with a Malaysian that is part of the programme and he had encouraged me to apply. We had a chat over Zoom and I have been thinking about it since then. I've sort of developed a plan for it. So now, it's all action to prepare for the application process. Wish me luck!

6)    Work on my health through three areas:

• Sleeping well – I know I need 8 hours to function properly and not be an irritable and annoying human being in general. That means sleeping earlier and setting my alarm at 0400 or 0500 hours. It is so important for me to rise before the sun because I simply do not function when the sun rises earlier than myself.

• Going to my doctor for meds and supplements – I have this condition where I have been on meds since I was probably 10 years old. Due to circumstances, I tend to forget that I am on meds, and sometimes I go more than over a year without meds. I feel fine, but I am sure that my doctor thinks otherwise. The last time I asked her what would happen If I don't eat my meds, she said, “you could die”.  She was probably half-joking because she’s like my mother now. But I should definitely take heed of her advice, go see her again and renew my medicine regime.

• Moving more – I aim to run an accumulated of 100K for 2021. I started running more frequently when I lived with Netusha and I enjoyed it. I also enjoy strength training and yoga. Working out will definitely be part of my routine.



7)    Figure out what resting looks like for me

I must admit that I do not know what resting feels like. Deep down, I know that learning makes me happy, and sometimes it feels effortless. Therefore I assume that I am resting. Regardless, it still weighs me down especially that it can be overwhelming knowing that there are still so many more things to learn about and there is no way I can explore all of my curiosity in this lifetime. How do I manage my energy then? To answer this question, I definitely need to experiment a bit more. I hope there will be opportunities and an enabling environment for me.

In a nutshell, 2020 did not go as planned. The decisions I made to take time and space in 2020 were not always part of the plan. There was a lot of improvisation and most things were circumstantial. Nonetheless, it had given me a renewed sense of hope and excitement to pursue 2021. I will not deny that I was exhausted as it was difficult to navigate uncertainties while we are collectively bombarded with news of death from all over the world. Not only death, I believe COVD-19 too had given us a certain form of clarity on invisible injustices.

Despite all this, I believe that things could not get any better in the future. All we have is now. So we must decide who and how we are going to be as we navigate current circumstances.  I hope that we can do better for those who are suffering the most. I hope that each day, we wake up realising that we can create better structures and systems by first deconstructing with compassion and kindness.



May we achieve our aims for 2021 with consciousness and conscience guiding us!