Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash
Yes. Another one of those posts. Ugh.
Whenever I see a post telling us to remember what we’ve achieved, I tend to scoff a little.
It feels a bit cheesy. It is like an invitation for self-congratulation, which feels even more bizarre when it often comes in response to facing a current hardship. Why look back, when the thing that we’re meant to be facing is staring right in front of us?
Yet as is often the case with common wisdoms, there is usually truth behind them. That’s probably why they stand the test of time.
Sometimes looking back is actually very important. When we don’t go back to seeing what we achieve, it’s hard for us to have a sense of momentum or pride upon what we’ve overcome. Without these things, our task becomes even harder.
I’ve been working on my father’s biography for a number of months now. We got to a stage where we have a messy first draft. But we went on a pretty rapid pace, and honestly I was feeling pretty worn out. Since July, I’ve done very little.
The next stage is really my main responsibility. I need to go through it all and re-write the synthesised transcriptions into a readable, flowing format.
I can rewrite a section in about an hour or two, but there’s about forty sections in total. By the end of doing one, I feel like my brain is mush. It’s tiring grueling work. Making the words flow in someone else’s voice is tough.
Don’t get me wrong, it is enriching. I’ve learnt more about my father then I ever would have otherwise. It also is a lesson on how important the early day achievements are. I just rewrote the section where my father first opened an Indian takeaway in the late 1970s. That was the first time he followed through with his own vision of a business, and achieved success. It paved the way for him to set up an empire of restaurants that dominated the scene for the next few decades.
For me, it also helps to remember that this isn’t my first rodeo. This work will by my third book I’ve written. Granted, this is a different challenge as it is relying on the experience of my dad, but the key difficulty is still the same. Namely, keeping motivation and overcoming the tyranny of word count.
But the reminder to look back on my own achievements actually came from a separate source of inspiration. I happened to go through the pictures I had taken over the last couple of years in my phone gallery.
The biggest noticeable difference are in the pictures of myself. The difference is pretty striking. The first obvious change has been my appearance. My style is different, and most notably, the era of facial hair has ended #RIPbeard.
But beyond the aesthetics, I’m in a very different head space, and with a whole lot more mental clarity compared to what I had about 18 months ago.
Ironically, I probably have more interesting pictures of myself from a year ago compared to what I have recently. I was doing more back then, and trying a lot of different spaces.
But that’s also an illustration of how this period was one of really trying to find myself. Nowadays, I’m trying less. I’m slowly returning to a sense of calmness and comfort from within. I’m still changing, but with less of an urgency or feeling that there’s something I’m lacking.
The defining periods of our lives are often the ones where we are most challenged. I went from a life of general stability and success to one where I doubted my existence and whether I would ever be able to function as a human again. The burnout period was rough, and my life will not be the same again.
But as I slowly crawl my way back up, I’m realising that I understand things far better than I ever would had this never happened.
Looking back is not necessarily about celebrating our big achievements or wins. Yes, seeing such moments can be helpful to remind us of what we’ve done. But the more important part is seeing how much we’ve grown . It’s in the things that are beyond what is seen or heard. It is how we now exist.
If you look back and see that you’ve improved as a person, then that is always worth cherishing.