I recently wrote my year-end review for work. I hadn’t really thought about it until recently, but there is an element of vulnerability that is required when writing one. It, by nature, encourages you to be relatively introspective. You go through your year’s objectives, highlighting where you succeeded and acknowledging where you fell short, understanding what you need to do to improve and noting what you need from others, your team or manager, to help support you in your future growth. Kind of deep if you think about it. And of course, mine began as far away from the shallow end as possible.

“This year has had its ups and downs”, I began. “It has been simultaneously fast and slow paced and both busy and quiet. At times, I have felt myself thriving,” I continued, “while in others, I have merely survived, that is all.” 

Heavy, I know. Not me low key inviting HR to drown with me in a pool of my introspection. Though don’t worry, I didn’t submit that. Instead I threw them some armbands and gently pushed them to the shallows, for it was in that exact moment that I realised that what I had intended to be my year-end work review was very quickly becoming my year-end life review.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

Oscar Wilde wrote that in his 1891 essay titled The Soul of Man Under Socialism. What he meant by it, is that in life, people often live to accumulate perceivably meaningless things: wealth, social status, materialistic possessions etc. However, not many live in true individualism. Not many embrace their authentic selves, free from the constraints of outsider thought or exist as drivers in their own lives, ready to take matters into their own hands. Instead, most go about the daily drudgery, relying on moments of escapism to provide that spark they lost somewhere along the way.

It’s one of my favourite quotes, one that I remember in seemingly small, but pivotal moments, like writing my year-end life review for example. It immediately came to mind as I reflected on how much of my year has been centred around survival: how many of my days were spent focused solely on making it from sunrise to sunset and not about experiencing everything in between.

Admittedly, for a large part of this year, I have been existing, that is all. Trauma will do that to you. But not just trauma, any life low or setback: failing a big exam, mourning, recovery from our dystopian covid years, a break up, anxiety, the list goes on. There are many things that send us into survival mode, where we aren’t really experiencing the days, we’re just trying to get by. And that’s okay, because sometimes that’s what one needs. However, sometimes we get so lost, that we forget that there is a life to be lived outside of whatever it is that we’re going through.

That has been me with trauma. I have been so wrapped up in the pain of it that I surrendered myself to its demands and stopped experiencing joy of any kind. Worse yet, I stopped allowing myself to experience it. I wouldn’t enjoy moments of relief because I was always preparing for the next wave that would inevitably come crashing down.

All I can say is thank God for my village: my army who very lovingly, in their own individual ways, go to war for me whenever trauma invades, my mum being one of them. I remember speaking to her over the phone one day and explaining how all-encompassing it had become. In response, she told me to allow myself to be free and immediately in that moment, I was reminded of Wilde’s words.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world.”

See, it’s not about being happy or at your best all the time. It’s about being present and allowing yourself to experience everything that is going on around you freely: not running, but accepting and even better, embracing each moment as it is.

Every time that quote springs to mind, I am reminded to seize the day and dance like no one’s watching. But also, to let go, cleanse myself in the rain as it falls from my eyes, then later embrace the joys of tomorrow when they come. And they will come.

Tomorrow there will be joy, there will also be sorrow, but like the ever-changing seasons, this too shall pass.

And so, friend, as the end of year approaches and we prepare to entre one anew, I leave you with this my parting note: remember to live, that is all. *Sips Tea*

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