What was your proudest achievement/biggest moment of 2012?
In hindsight, I think it would have been better wording had I gone for 'proudest moment' and 'biggest achievement' instead. Moving on, the responses were beautiful and wonderfully positive and I'm always happy to hear of good things happening in people's lives.
At the end of the year, there tends to be an air of cynicism as people begin to look forward to the year to come. This cynicism tends to be aimed towards, but not limited to, two types of people:
1) 'this is my year' people
2) 'new year, new start' people
I understand the frustration of the cynics, seeing the same thing annually and, generally, from the same people yet no marked change or improvement, least not tangible for all to observe. But what purpose does such open negativity serve? Who are you, or I, or anybody else to knock somebody who wants to be a bit positive? I for one would rather be overwhelmed by positivity than negativity. Sometimes it is a case of those people go on to achieve but decide not to publicise. Like J. Cole said "If they don't know your dreams, then they can't shoot you down." - something the cynics surely indirectly can attest to.
Reality is though that when it comes to crunch time, we will be judged. By friends, by enemies, by strangers who will remember our proclamations with anticipation as to whether we lived up to our word. So I guess what I'm trying to say here is that as much as I'm all for positive starts (positivity overall, in fact), but with the acknowledgement that they must be driven by action. Sure, it can be argued that it shouldn't take a new year to make someone kick-start into action but we are all different but I'd rather be happy for someone that they've decided to take action at all.
Towards the end of 2011 (that's not a typo) a friend said a quote to me that has stuck with me and probably will for the rest of my life:
Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years. - Bill Gates (according to Google, I'm quite sure that when I first read the quote, it was attributed to someone else).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that we shouldn't take for granted the little things we achieve on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. Consistently achieving does nothing less than benefit the greater picture and once the picture is whole, boy is it worthwhile.
Returning to the question I posed on Facebook and Twitter, one specific answer that I didn't expect: a friend and his missus were expecting a child. Joy, success, happiness and everything else all rolled up into one tends to hit you when you least expect it, no matter what form it's in.
And with that said, feel free to leave a comment below on what your biggest achievement/proudest moment of 2012 was below. Hopefully the cynics won't mind us celebrating what has already occurred and using it as a platform for the future...
And with that said, feel free to leave a comment below on what your biggest achievement/proudest moment of 2012 was below. Hopefully the cynics won't mind us celebrating what has already occurred and using it as a platform for the future...
Happy New Year all, wish you all the best!
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Currently listening to: Rudimental - Feel the Love feat. John Newman
Hi Abe, a thought-provoking post. Yes, I think New Year is a great opportunity to take stock of where we are now and where we would like to be in the future. I think we achieve more in a year than we realise. (When I did a proper review of last year's resolutions for my own blog, to my surprise I realised I had achieved most of them!)
ReplyDeleteI kept forgetting to reply this...
DeleteYes, I agree with that too! Some of us can be so hard on ourselves and a good way of tackling that is being able to reflect upon what you had previously set yourself and, hopefully, finding out that you haven't done so badly after all
I agree positivity whatever the reason, can never be a bad thing. The last two months of the year have been the most testing and the most positive for me in equal measure. I was almost at a point of quiting Uni for personal reasons. But then I said hey hang on a minute whatever the good intentions you are trying to promoe striving through and commitment and doing what you adore. So i am.
ReplyDeleteAlthough on a much smaller scale, I can relate. I had a NYE party and a couple days before I got really frustrated and was contemplating cancelling it. However, I realised that, come NYE I'd be even more annoyed/frustrated when I was at home doing nothing knowing that it was all my fault.
DeleteI'm glad you didn't throw the towel in. Get knocked down X amount of times and stand back up X+1 :)