This year:

🙏 Stuff I’m grateful for:

  1. Dad recovering from his head injury, which was scary. He was knocked unconscious from a fall, and luckily made a full recovery. This gave me perspective, and the injury made me realize how fragile life is and in turn how precious life is. It also was a reminder to be grateful for each and every day, and that every day is a gift → this ties to the notion of enjoying the day by day, because that’s all we have, the current day. Not thinking about past, not thinking too much about the future. Enjoying the current day and moment at hand.
    1. Also enjoying the process, enjoying the grind. You have to enjoy the process - goes back to the interview with Ryan Tedder. It’s not about the destination, it’s about the process.
    2. Goals are a compass, and the win is when we develop the systems and processes that put us on the path to our goals. The journey before the destination.
  2. Childhood is longing for the magnificent, while adulthood is appreciating the mundane. I’m appreciating the mundane, the little things.
  3. Realization that happiness comes from within, dispelling anxiety comes from within - it is not an external thing; these things are within, contentment comes from within, and it comes with a switch in perspective, in mindset.
  4. My relative health and my mindsets and mental frameworks right now
  • People
    • My family
    • My colleagues and coworkers
    • Others that inspire me
  • Accomplishments
    1. Fellowship at the LRC to tackle some of the pressing issues the world is facing
    2. Getting into the habit of writing every day and reading to start off every morning.
  • Experiences
    1. Investing in some truly innovative and disruptive companies
    2. Exploring Boston
    3. Building a new software venture to aid, contribute to, and play a role in the development of urgently needed novel vaccines like the COVID-19 vaccine
  • Things
    1. My devices, e.g. phone, tablet, etc. that enable my productivity
    2. My new approach to minimalism and essentialism in my possessions and focusing on the things that really supercharge my productivity, like my devices, and focusing more on the actual stuff that matters. No more frills, especially in material possessions that I keep with me.
  • Game Changers
    1. Getting more into note-taking
    2. Reflecting more
    3. Writing more
    4. Meditation
    5. Starting off my mornings with listing out things I’m grateful for

Goals I’ve accomplished this year

  1. Taking on an incredible fellowship at the Laboratory for Research in Complex Systems in Menlo Park, CA, working on research and venture-building across complex systems and pandemic response applications. Working on things like AI, self-driving cars, climatetech, quantum computing, and pandemic response/preparedness/prevention tech
  2. I’ve had the chance to invest in some truly innovative and disruptive companies, evaluated countless other ones, met some incredibly inspiring & ambitious founders, and am also building a new software venture to aid the development of urgently needed novel vaccines. I plan on continuing all of this in the new year.
  3. Haven’t had a sip of alcohol all year, and I’m dedicated to continuing this forever. More on my commitment to not drinking alcohol forevermore, in a blog post to come.

Stuff I discovered this year

  1. Productivity apps like Todoist, Drafts, etc.
  2. Meditation
  3. The perspective that gratitude brings
  4. The power of journaling

Life Lessons

  1. Recognizing that our family members all concurrently play multiple roles in our lives. My mom is a daughter too, and a sister too. And my dad is a son too, and a brother too. My brother is also a son, and (at some point in the future) will eventually be a father too. This notion also applies to our perceptions of all others around us. We are all humans, and it’s important not to have siloed views of each other, but rather to maintain perspective of people and see ourselves as humans that are a lot more alike than different. It’s vital to have a full perspective of those around us and the many roles we fill as human beings alongside people we love.
  2. Appreciating loved ones even more than I already did
  3. As humans we seek resolve, resolve from conflict. That’s something that we all yearn for and it brings profound happiness once we do find that resolution.
    1. This applies in music as well, we all yearn for tension notes to be released by the resolution from discord moving to concord
    2. Also applies to diplomacy, and the seeking out of peaceful resolutions in international relations.
  4. At the same time, struggle is not a bad thing, and we equally strive for tension and a greater purpose to work towards. From Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl - “What man needs is not a tension-less state, but a striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal.”
  5. One thing that this pandemic has taught us, is that there will probably be another pandemic or threat from infectious diseases of some sort in the future. We have to be better prepared and to have the infrastructure in place to act swiftly to respond to the threats that infectious diseases pose - we believe what we’re building at SampleExchange will be a key part of that, in providing the infrastructure necessary for not only pandemic preparedness, but also pandemic prevention. Epidemics will pose a threat again in the future and we have to be ready - and at the least far more prepared than we were for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mental Frameworks

  1. Honor, integrity, and character are everything. If there is one thing that the Presidential Election taught us, it’s that honor is everything. The way Trump has been behaving especially in these last few months of his presidency and his lying tell us all we need to know about his honor and integrity. There is no foundation to his character. Ultimately, the people have recognized this, as well as those on both sides of the aisle and all around the world.

Headspace

  • Being more present in the moment
  • Having continuous gratitude
  • I remember at the beginning of the pandemic, it feeling really surreal, when we were first entering into lockdown and quarantine and it was turning into an actual pandemic that was enveloping society and a public health crisis - it was all very surreal.
  • Being grateful for all that life offers. Even suffering, loss. If you’re grateful for life, you have to be grateful for it all, all aspects of it - you can’t pick and choose what you’re grateful for.
    • What do you get from loss? Sure, loss brings grief, and that may seem like the only thing it brings. But, it also brings awareness for other people’s loss, which allows you to connect with that other person, which allows you to love more deeply.


Next year:

Goals that I’m setting for next year:

  1. Keeping things in perspective. Being aware.
  2. Gratitude is everything.
  3. Getting serious about maintaining my full health and taking it to the next level, with diet, fitness, attitude. Both physical health and mental health.
  4. Being less critical of others. Not trying to mold others. Letting others be. Being a strong mentor and committing to mentorship, but not actively trying to mold. Leading by example.
  5. Gratitude, Gratitude, Gratitude. Having a continuous sense of gratitude, all throughout. Life is a gift. You didn’t ask to be here, none of us did. Yet here we are. Life is such a precious gift. Gratitude for it all.

Looking forward to

  1. Helping startups and new technologies scale and come to fruition to improve the way we live and change the world for the better.
  2. Writing more
  3. Continuing fitness, maintain my fullest health possible

Other

  1. Enforcing minimalism, essentialism, minimizing excess physical possessions



Below is my template that I fill out and use for my annual reflection (feel free to use!):

This year:

🙏 Stuff I’m grateful for:

Write down everything you’re grateful for, in general and within the categories below.

1.

  • People
  • Accomplishments
  • Experiences
  • Things
  • Game Changers

Goals I’ve accomplished this year

1.

Stuff I discovered this year

1.

Life Lessons

1.

Mental Frameworks

1.

Headspace

-


Next year:

Goals that I’m setting for next year:

1.

Looking forward to

1.

Other

1.