I’m lying on my bed in my PG and thinking about writing a blog about all the good things that had happened to me in the year 2018. The surprising thing is, this being the last day of the year also marks the last day on my PG, because tomorrow myself along with my roommates are moving to a 2BHK flat. Henceforth, they’ll be called as flatmates!

Compared to previous years, I have lots and lots of positive things that have happened to me. To start with,

Traveling

2018 marks the year I have travelled the most including the places like Wayanad, Thekkady, Moonar, Kodaikanal, Mysore, Hyderabad, Nandhi Hills, Madurai, Pune, Siva Gangai etc. It’s almost like I have covered the entire South India in just one year. Only Goa is missing and hopefully I’ll go there as well in early 2019🤞. I intend to write a separate blog for each place I have visited so moving on to the next section.

Reading

I made a challenge to myself this year that I should complete reading at least 10 books before the end of 2018. Guess what? I have completed 11 books. 110% 😎. Out of the 11 books I had read, I liked Atomic Habits, The Secret and Everything that remains a lot. Especially Atomic habits changed me about how efficient I can be as a person by improving lot of good habits and removing bad ones. And Minimalism has completely changed my perspective upside down of how I should see the world. I encourage all of you to please watch Miminalism : A Documentary About the Important Things and do yourself a favor.

Health

During this year starting, I weighed almost 84-85kgs and was out of shape as well. After coming to Bangalore, I was pretty determined to workout and stay fit no matter what. I use to hit the gym in my PG and followed a rigorous diet by eliminating sugar all together and reducing the intake of rice and increasing more vegetables and water consumption. As months progressed, everyone noticed changes in me and their comments about me getting into shape encouraged me to do more exercise. Right now, I weigh 77-78kgs and I intend to bring it down under 75. The main thing I learnt in weight reduction is patience. With this instant gratification world around us, if you aim for weight reduction and didn’t see any change, please don’t quit. Stick to your regime and you’ll see changes as time progress.

Professional Life

When I came to Bangalore, I was just a Full Stack PHP Developer. But after joining my company here, I performed different roles like UI/UX Designer, Market Analyst, SEO guy, Co-ordinating teams, Project Manager, etc. I think this is the advantage you get by joining a startup. You sign for one and perform many. Being a Project manager and co-ordinator I learnt a lot about how to interact with people and how to progress as a team.

Personal Life

While I was cruising with my professional life, I struggled with major financial crisis in my personal life. I faced few unexpected hospital expenses for my family this year and it costed me heavily. The main reason I found behind struggling is, I never had any backup. I never saved money for any unexpected happenings. All I did is, earn, pay for debt, spend the remaining and then repeat this all over again and again. So, I prepared myself for the future by putting a medical policy for my parents, started investing in share markets by creating an account with Zerodha, leading a minimalist way of living and cutting down unwanted expenses etc.

And this year one of the best thing happened to our family! We welcomed a new life-my nephew, Dhuruvan my brother’s child. I still remember the moment I took him in my hands for the first time. So little, so cute and certainly the most beautiful moment of my life so far! I thank God for giving him after all the struggle our family went into.

Bachelor Life

The main reason I came to Bangalore is to lead an independent life and to experience the life outside of my comfort zone(Chennai). And oh boy, what a wonderful decision I have made in my life by coming here? I learnt a lot about people, friends, families and most importantly:myself. I still remember all the fun I experienced living here in my PG. Late night dinners, late night walk for a tea, late night bike drive, late night dress wash, late night chat with roommates discussing/arguing/laughing about various topics, purchasing at D-Mart, Mall visits, watching live match in stadium, trying different hairstyles, noshave november, movie marathons, planned trips, unplanned trips, searching for a flat, last minute train catch, last minute flight miss, hyderbad friends marriage, bachelor trip with school friends, bawarchi biryani, soup & grills, nandhi hills, golconda, ramoji film city, chennai-bangalore bike trip, family outings, guna caves and so many. I Thank God for all the good things he has given me this year!

If ever, God appears in front of me asks which year I would like to re-live, I would choose 2018 without any second thought!

And that sums up my 2018 year end review and this is also my first time year end review. Let me know your thoughts here

Thanks for reading!

Stay happy! Stay healthy!