Really, next week is the last week of August? Four months to go and then we can close 2020.

The highlights of this year, and everything for the first time!

1. Crossed “South Africa & Safari” from my bucket list
2. Survived a pandemic (so far)
3. Spend most of the days working from home
4. Got a groceries delivery service subscription (more in next blog)
5. Never ever have I been so “zen” before

You must have noticed it in my previous blog, but this year I made a major progress in keeping it “zen”. According to the Cambridge dictionary, zen means “calm and relaxed”. 

I can’t remember when I ever felt so relaxed. Not even when I was a child, or when I was studying and certainly not when I started my career. At that point stress gave me energy, a busy workday made me happy, and a day with little work made me restless. Even when I was on holidays after some days, I just got restless.

About one year ago I decided to take action to slow down and enjoy more of life outside. I started to work only four days in a week. It took me a year and the “corona pandemic” whereby I, like everyone else was forced to work at home. But I finally found my rhythm and got used to this “slower life”. 

Due to corona priority was shifted, whereby projects I was working on were either put on hold or planning changed due to limited resources to deliver on time. The first few months working at home in this very slow mode was terrible, everybody hates to wait right? Especially when you are required to stay available online, but in an active mode. The limited social life activities outside of work made it worse. I guess it works the same way as getting rid of something you are addicted to. First you feel like you have to climb this big mountain, you go into a really terrible period. But once you’ve reached the top, everything seems like it should be, just beautiful.

It’s August 2020 and I feel that I am finally there. It feels like how I have imagine it would be to be “zen”. I can relax even on days when there is less work to do. I am starting to read work-related developments and materials, which I couldn’t do before because I could not find the patience to read other things then the really necessary documentation relevant for my projects. Perhaps I can start reading a book until the end now without skipping some chapters? So what is next? Which levels of “zen” I can reach in this lifetime #thebestversionofme 😉