We’ve all needed to find ways to reconcile 2020 for ourselves. This post is part-attempt at reflecting on how I’ve tried to deal with the disruptions and opportunities that 2020 presented, and part-tribute to a friend who has passed. I’ll admit I always thought that mental health support, while important, would not be something I would need to pursue, but I’ve found myself using coaching, counseling, and therapy this year as means to process, heal and grow. I find myself in a brave new place in my identity and am curious about how 2021 will present opportunities for me to continue to develop.

When I wrote my birthday post, coincidentally around the mid-2020 mark, I reflected on how 27 was an awkward age that both reminded me of my youth and signaled a coming of a new form of maturity. Two years ago, I also posted about my relationship with religion. A lot has happened since both of these posts. For one, I’ve decided to come back to Christianity and to recognize the God of the Bible as the God of my life. There was a long journey to this point, as I interrogated the Bible and various other religious worldviews. Many people along the way would have been victims of my incessant questions, birthed out of both my skepticism (I attribute this to the hurt from an incomplete instruction growing up as a Christian) as well as my desire to reconcile religion with my broader worldview (having traveled, witnessed new cultures and identities and having built relationships with other people who have had been hurt by the Church). For one, the world is a lot messier than the idealistic and didactic ways that I was taught and I wanted whatever spiritual worldview I take on to be helpful in dealing with the world as it is. I am blessed to have people support me on this journey, friends who have dedicated time to work through my questions, and to simply pray for me. I am blessed to have a God who can accept me despite my flaws, especially since I am aware of the brokenness that I embody. The past year has been a season of growth as I’ve made attempts to adjust my life and align with this new identity of mine. It’s not been easy, and I still remain stubborn in a lot of ways, but I have faith that there’s a reason I’m on this journey and I’m grateful for my peers who walk with me.

The second major thing that’s happened is the decision to work on myself. I’ve always known I’ve been drawn to community building and facilitating dialogues, and so I joined The Thought Collective’s Facilitating Powerful Conversations 1 (FPC1). The intent was primarily professional given the work I do in change management and design thinking internally, and since I’ve had prior relationships with The Thought Collective and Tong Yee, I was hopeful on gaining some skills to bring back to EDB. While helpful, FPC1 cares less about how you could employ skills in the workplace, and more about how we relate to ourselves and one another. The batch of participants is broadly formed, drawing from the public, private, and people sectors. We learned that all of us have resistance to conversations and that can be indicated in our body, our emotions, or our linguistics. Some of these can be because of our “archetypes”, a Jungian take on personalities, and others can because of moods or traumas that we continue to cope with. For example, a brainstorming conversation would be difficult to facilitate if everyone is acting in a “get things done” manner, without allowing space for mistakes and experimentation. An easy response could be to rejig the environment to be safe for people to take a trial-and-error mindset but for others, the transition could be even harder if they’ve had a bad history of having their ideas (or worse, their identities) rejected. As a facilitator, sometimes our own resistance can interfere with creating a safe space for others. That’s where I recognized the need to work through some of the things that have happened in my life. In the rush to grow up and make an impact with my life, I’ve just found ways to cope with different events or relationships that I’ve endured without actually learning to accept and integrate. I’ve definitely dealt my own fair share of hurt, as we do as humans, and I recognized the need to process all of these so that I can find ways to integrate my identity and engage wholeheartedly in the discussions that I am part of. Coaching and therapy have been immensely powerful and I am privileged to have people who are able to help me recognize patterns and unlock new insights. This provides continuity between my past, my present, and my future identity in Christ I want to build.

This brings me to the last event that has happened this year. A week before Christmas, I found out that one of my buddies (a HR system in EDB where we pair with a new officer to show them the ropes as they join) had passed on due to health issues. He was the same age as me but had simply taken a path that brought him to EDB one year after me. We were good friends and we hung out even past the “customary” obligations of a buddy. He was explorative, experimental but most of all, sincere in wanting to live his life to make an impact. This resonated with me and made me feel confident that there were others in my organization who were keen to retain their identities and not just conform to a normative view of how we should operate in the workplace. When I found out he passed, my heart sunk not only because his story had ended prematurely but also because I felt that there was so much potential ahead of him. Our friendship was built on a celebration of what life could offer and I’ve been working to honor him in that way. I’ve been working to reconcile this with my Christian understanding of how finite life is, as well as my own personal work on integrating my identity. This is the second close friend of mine who’s passed, the first being a fraternity brother who passed 3 years ago, and I am reminded once again that we cannot take our relationships for granted. We do not journey alone. We are better because of the people around us, and I will dearly miss my friend.

So here we are, at the end of 2020. Would I have been able to take this journey if I continued to be obsessed with traveling? I’m not too sure. I miss exposing myself to new cultures and I especially miss my friends who I normally am able to meet with a quick flight. But perhaps 2020 was a necessary intervention in its own way, COVID-19 and all. I am blessed and privileged to have access to communities, resources, and opportunities and I think 2020 gave me the chance to position myself better for the years ahead. I have grown closer to and continue to be grateful for family and friends. There are already things happening in 2021 that I’m excited about, so I know the best days are still ahead of us. 2020 has been a whirlwind, and 2021 is a mystery but we have to make our own meanings out of all this. Farwell 2020, and here’s naively hoping 2021 ends up better.