2020 it’s been a pleasure

2020 it’s been a pleasure, but now it’s time to say goodbye.

2020 Weight Graph

Personal highlights

I’ve seen a common question on social media over the last couple of days. “What have been the high points of 2020 for you?”

I’ve read many responses. The sad replies outlining the loss of family and friends as well as employment are heart-wrenching. However, it’s been refreshing to read that not everyone has had an altogether lousy year.

I can share three highlights for me in 2020.

  • A new friend has enriched my life and has been a sounding board, keeping me sane in this year of mayhem. This same friend is someone of faith and has helped me enormously reflect on my own spiritual life.
  • I have found 2020 to be professionally rewarding. This year has highlighted again, why one career can be limiting and how a diversity of skills through qualifications and experience can put you in the right place at the tight time. As a trainee pathologist, I assumed my working life would always be in a medical laboratory. Thirteen years in the Australian Public Service has allowed me to exploit my general and specialist medical training to work in ways I never dreamed would be possible.
  • The only measure I have for improved health today is knowing that I have lost about six kilograms this year. I started 2020 in the 78 kg range, and I’ve managed to end 2020 in the 72 kg range.

In the graph (above), I maxed out at 78.2 kg, and my nadir was 72.5 kg. The big dip was due to a week when I was out of sorts mentally. I lost my appetite while I was processing stuff in my head. It turns out I learnt I didn’t need to eat as much and at the same time and I’ve started reducing my portions to much smaller sizes. Mind you, I still think I have COVID-19 arse from spending almost every day sitting at my desk.

Some less critical highlights include an honorary professor appointment at the Australian National University in the Medical School, cooking different foods, increasing the variety in my diet and reading more books.

Personal low points

If there have been high points, there must also be some low points.

  • My daughters and brothers lost employment this year, (except for my youngest who managed to snag an extra job).
  • My parents felt trapped in their two-bedroom flat. While I was happy calling them more often I could hear in their voices their frustration at being together with nowhere to go and no one else to see.
  • Long work hours which I’ll never get back. After some years of self-repair due to some dark years that involved workplace bullying and stress, I’d got to a happy place with work-life balance. This year the balance shifted almost entirely to work.

Personal hopes for 2021

In line with my highlights for 2020, there are some corresponding hopes and ambitions.

  • I want to reestablish some friendships that I’ve neglected. I enjoy my own company, and I tend to spend too much time in my head. Being both shy and introverted doesn’t help. It will be good for my mental health to get out more and mix with others (in a physically distant manner of course).
  • While I’ve enjoyed the work in my main job, I’ve neglected my role as an honorary visiting medical officer in Canberra Health Services because of the pandemic COVID-19 work. I need to return to that part of my life again.
  • I want to get into a healthy body mass index range. For my height, a healthy BMI means getting below 70 kg. I’d also like a scaphoid abdomen. When I was a medical student, a favourite general surgeon would always emphasise that obesity begins when the abdomen becomes flat rather than scaphoid in the supine position.

As for some of the less critical points in 2021; I want to read more books, increase my cooking repertoire’s diversity, and get stronger through exercise.

More global hopes

Let’s hope we can continuously improve our containment efforts through quarantine measures and be realistic about improving population health rather focussing on the wealthy getting what they want.

While everyone hopes the vaccines will work, I hope we can maintain the constant message that people should stay home if they’re unwell, people should keep distant from one another and avoid unnecessary touching. We need everyone to be better at washing their hands all the time. Everyone also needs to cover their mouth and nose when they cough and sneeze. Not only will these measures help contain COVID-19, but they will also reduce the spread of other infectious diseases. It’s a sacrifice we all need to make to prevent the spread of communicable diseases.

Final thoughts

What do you want out of 2021? Let me know in the comments.

Happy New Year!

May your 2021 be the best it can be.

13 Replies to “2020 it’s been a pleasure”

  1. Hope 2021 is a great year for you Gary! It’s always good to look back and reflect. I agree completely, I hope as a society we retain the hygiene and social distance practices that have been emphasised in 2020. We don’t want people reverting to going out/going to work when they’re unwell, because it was a common occurence before the pandemic.

    1. Thanks, Alex. It’s been pretty amazing to see the low prevalence of other respiratory and even eneteric diseases as a result of the simple preventative measures COVID-19 has taught us. We can be safer and healthier if we maintain these practices.

  2. Very rational reflection for the year that was, Gaz. Good job on the weight loss, lots of progress there and at the same time, your pizza cooking has been tremendous this year.

    Hope you don’t overwork yourself this year. Work-life balance is so important.

    I’ve been on holiday from work for a bit, and haven’t had a break almost all year, this time for myself has been refreshing. It wasn’t too bad a year for me – some challenges but other than that things were good.

    Like you I hope in 2021 people will be mindful as ever to practice good hygiene and keep their distance from each other. Nothing is certain about the vaccines or the nature of what’s going on, and best to be as safe as possible.

    Happy New Year, Gaz.

    1. Thanks, Mabel. Good to read your year wasn’t too bad and you got some time to yourself. I hope 2021 is a great year for you too.

  3. Congrats on your weight loss! Glad to hear there were high points in the year. Glad you and your family are healthy, too.

    I will support your goal of reading by writing as much as possible! 😉

    Love you, Gaz!

    Jules

  4. That’s fantastic work on your weight Gary, bit rough that you weren’t in a great place near the end of the year. I hope you can maintain what you have achieved into next year.

    I learnt that while I can adapt easily to working remotely, I did miss seeing friends throughout the year and I am hoping to be more sociable this year – at a safe distance. Also hoping to find a bit more of a balance between work and not work – I think a lot of us just banked leave from January until November or December, and I don’t want to do that again.

    1. Thanks, Tim. I hope I can keep going. I wonder what the chief operating officers are going to do with all the leave so many people have banked. As much as I like having a reserve, getting a lump sum at some stage would be helpful. It would be better if it wasn’t subject to taxation 🤣

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