There’s a lot going on in the world these days. I haven’t really got back to regular blogging and sharing stuff, but I feel these past few weeks (months?) deserve a summary.
Well first of all, this year clearly deserves to be labeled as one of my worsts. It haven’t started out as one, just the opposite, I made a career decision last year that I felt really good about and I was working towards it. Then this year I got talked into changing course, and it felt like just a slight detour at the time, because I made a temporary decision that only postponed my plans for a few months, but now sometimes it really feels like it completely ruined my life. This past summer was maybe the worst summer of my life, when all I did was work, and had to cancel all my traveling and study plans that I had (I had a lot!). Now after a foot operation (and not being able to walk properly or without pain for weeks) plus a really bad case of Covid on top of it, and having to do my job at a decent level through it all, I just feel I want to rewind and choose a different path. Since that’s not an option, I will just try to accelerate working towards my next chapter. This will involve studying some more and a lot of professional writing that I will want to share here.
The state of the world doesn’t look any brighter either. It is still very upsetting for me that we can grow somewhat accustomed to, or dare I say even bored by the most horrifying things if they last long enough, be it wars, authoritarian leaderships, more and more frequently occuring hate crimes, whatever else. I’ve been following the state of the Middle East long enough to understand how difficult it is and how far away it is from a simple “that land is yours, this land is ours, let’s shake hands and move on” situation. It is like the more you know about it, the more you understand how utterly impossible it is to solve in a diplomatic setting, mostly because of religious claims and traditions. Whenever they got close to a diplomatic solution in the past, it always ended in terror attacks, outright wars or even one leader’s assassination. And that solution never seemed further away than it does these days. Did you know Yasser Arafat, then Palestinian leader refered to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin as his brother after his funeral in 1995? His brother. Imagine that now. I recommend reading the late Leah Rabin’s (Yitzhak Rabin’s wife) memoirs about that time. But there are many other good books to help you see the perspective of both sides and see that either the ‘I stand with Israel’ or the ‘I stand with Palestine’ statements are wrong. For me, I stand with everyone suffering from this (or any other) war no matter who they are as long as they hope for peace without wanting to kill or hurt another human being.
Politics around the world show a mixed picture too. There were some election results that gave reason to hope, and there are some that disappoint, also there will be quite a few elections next year to look forward to. I am still hopeful about the future and still believe in idealist ideas like a few good men (and women!) can change the world. It proves harder and harder these days, but still no reason to give up and stop working on it altogether. I hope in time (when I will have the energy to post more frequently) this platform can reflect this.
My plans for the rest of the year involves gaining back control over my life from work and different health conditions.
- I want to catch up on my studies: there’s the one I finished in June and there’s another I want to do before the end of this year. I have some compliance content lined up to share here.
- Still on the studies front, I want to catch up on my French language learning as well, it was planned for September to find some course or school, but I am a bit behind with that too. I will post a status report about that here as well.
- Books. The one thing that I didn’t lag behind this year was my reading. In fact, I already completed my 2023 goal I set on Goodreads. It only shows that reading for me is preserving my mental health, so I needed it most during difficult times. I want to post more book reviews here, and I have had an idea for a Bookstagram account for a long time now that I want to work on. Stay tuned for that.
- Traveling: so even if I could walk (i.e. use my feet literally), I hadn’t had any days off in months. (Well, after complaining about this, I could take two (2) days off for a last minute weekend trip to Lake Balaton in August.) I want to resume traveling, I feel like it’s also essential for my mental health. I know I am not going to catch up on a year’s worth of missing out in two months, but I hope I can still get out there more than one time in the coming weeks.
I am looking forward to posting all about these and more here. It’s incredible (or not, really…) how much being able to use your feet can elevate your mood. My frequences these days are a lot higher than in the past few months and I love packing my calendar with programmes and going and seeing everything I’ve missed. Hopefully it will all work out, stay tuned for more regular posting.
