I always write a yearly wrap-up, and this years feels harder than most. If I were to try to come up with a theme for my year it would be “sort of a weird return to partial normalcy”, which isn’t really much of a theme. But I both started and ended 2021 by traveling, which wasn’t the case in 2020. The year felt more normal but with the cloud of covid always nearby.
Still, like always, it was the best year ever overall. As usual my relationships get better every year, I’m more happy and satisfied with my life, and (hopefully) have more knowledge than ever.
Travel Again!
This year all of the countries hosting my shared properties other than Japan allowed me back in, so I went to all of them. I went to Hawaii three or four times, Budapest once, and the island once. Besides that I went to Mexico, Canada, England, Switzerland, Germany twice, and Austria.
It’s a rare year that I can recall off the top of my mind all of the countries I’ve visited, but it’s also the year in which I was probably most grateful to be able to travel. I was nearly brought to tears walking in Switzerland for my first trip to Europe in almost two years, and felt similarly emotional about going back to Budapest and the island.
I also went on two cruises, including one with my brother, which was something I had wanted to do for a long time.
Traveling again also made me feel like a newbie, which was interesting, and I’m still forgetting to pack stuff every trip. (While we’re on the subject, the gear post IS coming. I forgot some of the gear when I planned on doing the photos for it and have been out of the country since).
Building
I looked back through all of my photos and monthly updates and was surprised at how much of my year was about projects. I built a spa building with my family members, built some huge dividing walls in our house, built a new tea table, and did all sorts of other random projects that involved me wiggling through attic crawlspaces.
I also repaired at least three cars in different ways, designed and 3D printed all sorts of things, and even fixed all the drywall blemishes in the house.
I don’t think there’s much significance to all this, except that I just really enjoy doing it and this year I had the right mix of free time at home and lack of pressing responsibilities.
Friends and Family
I made up for lost time and got to see a ton of friends and family this year. Maybe not exactly everybody, but SO many more people than the previous year. If I went into details I’d have to write a whole blog post, but suffice to say that I’m incredibly grateful for the people in my life and actually getting to see most of them this year.
Vegas Neighborhood
Two more friends bought great houses in our new neighborhood, another couple rented a place for several months and may eventually move there, and a few others have some level of interest. I love the new place more and more every day, and it’s so much fun being able to walk or scoot between our houses.
As has happened for the past several years, I continue to find more and more to love about Vegas every year and find it even less possible that I’d be willing to move anywhere else. Then again, I also felt that way about SF for a while before it started to go downhill fast, so you never know.
Hockey
I would have never predicted this, but I got super into hockey in 2021. A friend took me to a Vegas Golden Knights game and I liked it so much that I went to all but one of the home games that have taken place while I was in town. I took my wife to a game and now she likes it so much that she’s been to all of the games when we’ve both been in town.
Hockey is a great sport for a lot of reasons (I think I have a half-written post about it somewhere), but the bigger lesson is to keep exposing yourself to new things, because you never know what you’ll like.
Vermeer Quest
As I wrote about earlier, I finished seeing all of the Vermeers in the world!
But Honestly… I Didn’t Do Much
As I look back at my year, it’s the first year where I look back and thought, “Oh, that’s it?”.
Part of it is that I did very little in the way of traditional productivity. I tinkered, fixed stuff, built a few little things, but didn’t “work” much. At this point I can sustain my life comfortably with passive income and investments, I have no business I’m dying to build, and don’t want to trade my time for something I don’t need more of.
That’s an awesome and strange place to be in, and I’m giving myself time to figure out what I want the next phase of my life to be, without rushing into anything. For now I’m happy to make up for lost time seeing friends and family and traveling, but I know myself well enough to know that I’ll want to sink my teeth into some sort of bigger project at some point.
As I read over this I think it sounds like I’m in a rut or something, but a more accurate way of phrasing it is that in the past I could always tell you how I wanted my life to be different in 5-10 years, and now it’s so good that I really don’t want it to be different.
2022
It’s hard to predict or plan for a year that could be the end of covid or more of the same, and especially one where I don’t have a straightforward mission to plow towards.
Other than some people I’d like to see, some places I’d like to visit, and some house projects I’d like to complete, I have no real big goals for 2022. I’d love to do another Superhuman event or two, but am going to wait for covid to be a non-issue.
I hope all of you had a great year! Last year I told people to email me their yearly goals. You can do so again, or leave them in the comments. I read them all and like knowing what people are working on. If you emailed me last year please send me an update letting me know how you did. Email is 2022goals at tynan dot net.
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I chose German for the language because I went to more German speaking countries than usual this year.
Photo is a view from the island
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