A New Year of Hope

Another year had passed, and here we are, welcoming another year with dreams, hopes, goals and aspirations in our heart.

The previous year, 2021, was full of ups and downs, challenges and lessons to me. Reminiscing the memories I collected from that year makes me experience a mixed of emotions which I can’t fully explain in words. There were times that I felt so devastated upon something that made me cry a lot. May it be social, academic, financial and family problems. But, despite the negative feelings, I did experience happy times as well. I felt the sense of joy when I successfully accomplished something, when I met new friends, when I earned money to help my parents, and when I got to spend more quality time with my family.

In this article, I will share with you some of my achievements that make me feel happy right now. These are only some of the simple things I gained that makes me proud already. It may not sound grand to others, but for me, it means a lot.

Let’s start…. 

So in terms of:

ACADEMIC

Talking about my studies made me stressed a lot in the previous year especially with the piles of activities, performances, reports and other responsibilities that were needed to exert a lot of effort with to be done successfully. However, I am proud of myself for not cramming despite my hectic schedule in doing my responsibilities, both in my academic and personal life. Honestly, I haven’t achieved the highest grades in my course subjects I took for the two semesters (2nd semester in 1st year and 1st semester in my 2nd year in college), but I am still proud of myself for having decent academic grades that makes me one of the dean’s lister. 

Even though, I was pressured by my brother to have higher grades as much as possible to graduate as cum laude, I am still not sure if I’m going to make it until my last year in college. But, despite the pressure and doubts in me, I am greatly hoping and working for it to happen. I won’t pressure myself that much, I’ll focus more on the process to attain it. Let’s see if I can achieve it.

FINANCIAL

Financially speaking, I think, I am lucky enough to fulfill my own needs without asking money from my parents. My financial condition was somehow stable, thanks to the money I earned in our printing business, and with the help of the two great platforms (noise.cash and read.cash) and to BCH as well. The money I earned are enough to sustain my needs and to help my family in our daily needs at home. Though, I just earned sufficient amount of money and that doesn’t make me a rich one, I am still happy because unlike the previous years, I didn’t struggle that much when it comes financial aspect.

Aside from that, my heart is full because I’m able to give some money to my father that he will use in our farm. I gave him a total of PHP 11,000, around $215, I guess. That’s one of my achievement already, to lean some money to my dad, though it’s still doesn’t equate to the money he and my mom spent on my tuition fee in college. But, this year I am planning to save more so I can pay my own tuition fee without asking my parents for it.

SOCIAL

I am an ambivert, but my introverted side is more dominant and evident that’s why it’s kinda hard for me to socialize especially in real life. But, I am thankful that for the previous year, I managed to socialize and meet new friends both in physical and virtual world despite my weakness in interpersonal aspect. I am thankful to both read.cash and noise.cash for giving me an opportunity to not just earn, but to interact as well with other people around the world. So, I am beyond thankful for those I became friends with even from afar because we are just communicating using our phones. 

PERSONAL

Personally, I might not be able to improve my appearance (physically speaking) because I am still my old self, who doesn’t achieve my desired glow up (charot). But, in terms of my behavior, mindset, emotion, literacy and life skills, I’ll proudly say that I develop them further. I became more mature when dealing with problems or challenges in my life, and I become more optimistic despite the negative thoughts wandering in my mind sometimes. I learnt how to prevent negative thoughts, and I managed to fight my overflowing laziness (though I became lazy sometimes, but I know how to overcome it now as much as possible). 

In addition, I become more close to God and my faith strengthen a lot. Whenever I have problems, I always ask for God’s guidance and love, so I can overcome it with such power coming from Him. When things don’t come up with my plan, I am trying my best not to be upset that much because I know that God’s plan is better than mine. 

CLOSING THOUGHTS

I learnt so much lessons and blessings this year and I had a lot fun, but I can’t also deny the fact that there’s so much struggles and agony that I experienced. I thought, I’ll end this year with a blast of happiness, but I wasn’t expecting the heartbreaking feeling when my grandmother died last December, few days before Christmas. I had a very sad Christmas, but this New Year, me and my family tried to be happy because we all know that my late grandma doesn’t want us to be sad. When she was still alive, she keeps on reminding us not to cry that much when she died and to remain stronger even when she’s not already by our side.

With that, despite the sadness I feel, I am looking forward to this another year with strength, confidence, hope and aspirations in my heart and mind. I am greatly praying that this year will be a better year than the previous ones, and that our wounded heart will be healed by new experiences and with the love and grace of God.

Happy New Year!

Author’s Note:

As a sign of gratitude, I want to express how thankful I am to you, my readers. Thank you very much for those who keeps on supporting me with my articles, and I hope that even though my writing skill was not yet pro enough, you are still learning from it. I am very thankful also to my sponsors, I am hoping that you are all doing fine and for you to be showered with more blessings from above. 

Special mention to my newest sponsor, @Mictorrani thank you so much for the blessing. I really appreciate it a lot!

May the good Lord bless you more with love and grace! 😇❤️

Thank you so much for reading! 💕

Date Published: January 1, 2022

Lead Image and Gif: Originally edited by me using Canva