Written by Here’s my annual reflection of my past year. I’ve heard many of my friends say “Where has the time gone? This year has flew by.” For me, this year took went the speed as it should’ve been. I’ve learned whenever you get caught up in routine, time speeds up, and whenever you’re experiencing something new, time will slow down. I’ve had many new events to take me away from my routines and really focused on living in the moment. So, each week of 2022 had its own unique event to “spice” up my life and went by as it should go.
I started the year off in São Paulo, Brazil. It was a trip I planned back in September 2021 with my friends in San Diego. My New Year’s night was rained in, but I had a memorable time playing the card game, 13, with my buddies all night. The winner of each match would get to queue up a song on the Spotify playlist. We played too many 2000’s pop songs to count as we enter the New Year. Almost a day after, we boarded the plane to fly to Rio de Janeiro. São Paulo was like the New York City of South America, Rio was like the Miami. Parties on the beaches, beautiful people everywhere, and laidback. I enjoyed the busyness of São Paulo. There were so many things to do, so much good food to eat, and so many people to talk to. I didn’t enjoy Rio as much, just because I liked São Paulo better. I’ve always wanted to go there growing up because I’ve seen so much of it in media. I think it helped I didn’t know much about São Paulo before I arrived either. One example of my expectations not being met were the beaches. When I think of the beach, I think of it being calm and serene. The beach in Rio, Copacabana, the famous one where songs were written after it, was loud. Too many parties playing loud music, too many vendors walking around yelling and selling, and too many people in general. It wasn’t my thing. Funny enough, my buddy Ryan was the opposite. He didn’t like São Paulo and loved Rio de Janeiro because of the same reasons I mentioned. All in all, my trip to Brazil was wonderful. I got to explore a culture where I almost had no exposure to, and my Brazilian friend Gabriel planned the entire thing, so all Ryan and I had to do was show up and had fun. Travel expands your perspective and a goal I recommend for you is to travel to unexpected places in 2023.
The next few months of 2022 went by quick. I remember undergoing a sort of seasonal depression through the early months of spring, of feeling down even though the sun was coming up. I took many mental health days instead of going out, but it eventually restored. Later along the year, I found the answer to these down periods I’ve experienced. I needed to find energy internally rather than externally. I bought a home sauna and I picked up two new hobbies this year: Yoga and climbing. I boulder now because my friends were into it and I do yoga because the climbing gym had it in its package and I wanted to build stability and control in my muscles. I’ve found these activities to energize me regardless of the outdoor temperature. Later in the year, as it got dark, I was energized to tackle through the night because of my new physical routines. So, coming into 2023, I need to find the right activities to charge me up internally rather than relying on external factors. I’ve found when begin my day with basketball at the park or surfing at the beach, my mental health radiates. Hope you find the activities that light you up too and continue to do them often. Your mental health depends on it.
I had a chance to serve at my church as a small group leader by running a book club based off of Timothy Keller’s Every Good Endeavor. It was a wonderful experience where I got to help members of our church gain the perspective of how they can integrate their faith with what they do at their work. The book changed my life by seeing that secular work and ministry are both holy. Both works have an opportunity to honor God . Having worked in both secular and ministry work, I can truly see God bring his kingdom here on earth. I’ve also had the chance to lead a prayer group for our church to simply pray too. It’s amazing to see what the power of prayer can do to impact a person’s life. I love tangible results. It’s instant feedback for me to see whether something is working or not. Prayer is difficult for me because the results aren’t tangible. It’s difficult to see the results of prayer until you look back and reflect on it. It’s in the darkest times when you don’t know what to do except pray and hand the situation to God and look back and see how He truly impacted your life.
This year, I went all in on an assistant networking group. I used my tax return to subscribe to a premium membership of assistants. I was able to attend various workshops, happy hours, trainings, and so many Zoom calls with them. I paid for coaching too by the host. It’s great because I get to use it as a workplace therapist whenever I am stressed about my work and get to learn tips and tricks from him as an experienced assistant. I’ve also made valuable relationships and expanded my network too. It was easy to network because we have weekly Zoom calls where we all get to hang out with each other. The structure typically goes into introducing new members and then separating into small groups and having some questions to answer. The adage your network is your net worth is so true. I’ve seen so many layoffs happen through this year, I can’t imagine that if I didn’t have this network, I’d have a hard time finding a job. It’s great to know I still have my job, but what my industry is currently going through (Semiconductors), we may experience layoffs. Because of fears of a recession, the industry is actually having a lot of inventory due to reduced sales. It’s good to know if I were to be laid off, I have the confidence of reaching out to my network to find another one fast. I encourage you to not only to surround yourself with wonderful community, but also a vast network of people who win and help you win.
A huge accomplishment for myself was being 100% debt free in March. Fortunately, the only form of debt I had was student debt, and I used the pandemic freeze to attack as much of it I can. Our church went through a series using Dave Ramsey’s book, Total Money Makeover. I already had a healthy view of debt from my reading of Ramit Sethi’s I will teach you to be Rich. However, this book taught me to go as aggressive as I can with attacking debt. So I used as much as 80% of my paychecks to attack my debt. I used the snowball method, which is to pay off the lowest amount of debt to clear it, and then attack the next lowest. In March, I received my annual bonus from my workplace which was enough to pay off the rest of my student loans. This meant the following months I had a chance to build wealth through saving up and investments. 2023 will be a great year financially for me even though it will be a dark time in the economy. Debt isn’t fun. If you have debt, I encourage you to tackle as much of it as you can so you can begin building wealth.
My friends from high school and I decided to do monthly excursions because we’re surrounded by so many beautiful places in the Bay. I like to say we’re still the same high school kids, except we have money and a car. One of our friends asked if we wanted to go to Half Moon Bay. I one-upped him by saying “Let’s go to Big Sur”. So we did. We woke up at 6am because we wanted to maximize the day and arrived at one of our friend’s house. We then grabbed coffee and breakfast on the way there. Big Sur was fun, we accidentally made friends with people in the Air Force because their group was meeting for the first time together and thought we were there too. We decided to join them and become friends with them. We shortly departed from the group and drove along the gorgeous coast of Highway 1 and stopped at every stop taking pictures. This was the first of many adventures. Our next trip was during Labor Day weekend. We wanted to go see Muir Woods, however, it needed a reservation and we didn’t have one. So we found the next big thing which was Roy Woods in that general area. We did a quick and short hike and I said “Let’s go to Point Reyes, it’s right there.” So we drove west trying to find the beach. We never ended up at Point Reyes, but we did end up at a beautiful beach. It was fun to soak in the rays and enjoy the nice cold water. At the end of it, I ran into my old college roommate from San Diego! What are the odds?! He was up in NorCal for grad school in UC Davis, but he was at this beach with his family. To this day, I have no idea which beach we were at and it was an amazing coincidence we bumped into each other at this beach! The last trip we were on for this year was Pinnacles National Park. This was one of my favorite accomplishments this year not only because my time with my friends was great, but we managed to hike the majority of the National Park. Most of the trip was painful because we hiked for so long. We only planned to hike for 2 hours, but it turned to 8 because we were too in the zone with each other and being goof balls and found us at the other end of the park before we realized the only way back was through the mountain. We were totally not prepared. We only had two bottles of water on us and no food. We found a water fountain to refill our bottles and we trekked through the mountain. After the end of it all, we ascended and descended over 2400 feet, we hiked 15 miles throughout the day and burned a day and a half worth of calories. This was my prime achievement of 2022 because even though the odds were against us, we overcame it and live to tell the tale. There’s nothing better than belly laughing with friends all day. I encourage you to enter the new year with spending more time with these friends.
I’ve heard of many my friends say “I’m scared of getting old.” I still don’t understand the negative stigma of being older and the idolization of youth. I crave to be old. To be full of life, wisdom, and experience. It’s exciting for me to carve my own path and see the opportunities God places for me. As the years go by, I am not motivated by fear, but by hope. I’ll be turning 26 soon. It’s so easy to compare our lives with each other, but we’re all on our own journey. I avoid looking at Instagram so I don’t compare my life with others. I know where I’m going and am will to do what it takes to achieve those goals. As each calendar year gone by, I’ve managed to change and grow so much, so here’s to 2023 and the things we’ll create and the people we’ll become. 🥂
Life of Wesley 