2020: Fast Forward
If 2020 were a movie, it would be like "Himmatwala", playing on a loop for 12 hours. Welcome to the fourth edition of Year in Review.
Quiet roads, closed pubs, empty offices — Most of the world came to a halt in March. Countries announced lockdowns. I guess most of us didn’t imagine that we’ll ever experience anything like this in our lives, but we did. As I described in Year in Review — 2019 that last year wasn’t great for me anyway, so I hoped for a few things from this year.
Switching my first job
This year I left my job at American Express and joined an early-stage startup. I wanted to join an early-stage startup for a while because of the impact I can make from my work. Though most of my family members were against my decision to leave such a highly stable, well-paying job. Moreover, I joined this startup without any hike in pay. Money doesn't matter if you are not happy with the work you are doing. You anyway can't become wealthy just with a good salary. You need to own a piece of a business to become wealthy. When you join an early-stage startup, you get that piece in the form of ESOPs at a cheap price, and the growth can be exponential. Though 90% of startups fail so, there's a high risk, but I am willing to take that. What are you even doing in your early 20s if you are not taking risks? It's been 5 months now since I joined Vested and things have turned out to be pretty good till now. I have learned a lot.
Video games
I was not a gamer until this year. When you can’t go outdoors and are bored with Netflix, video games can make your life fun. I bought a PS4 this year and played some of the best games available to date. I played God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, Red Dead Redemption 2, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, and Valhalla. But my personal favourite is Red Dead Redemption 2.
Exploring other things
Due to the lockdown and the unavailability of house help, my cooking game has gotten better than the house help. I made some dishes I couldn't believe I nailed at the first attempt (though huge shoutouts to YFL, and Kavita's Kitchen for real help through YouTube). I am also thinking of taking cooking as my second profession. This year I also came across western classical music (Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Chopin), and it's my favourite genre now.
That's all folks for this year. Have a nice day. Happy new year!