Reflections about 2021

Hi, in this blog post I am going to reflect on 2021. What did I do? Its so easy to forget especially with COVID which mess with my time perception 😅

Lets take a detour to understand where I started 2021 with an entry from … Christmas 2020. I promise not to cheat after 🤞

Its been a hard year [2020]. I am tired, been through 
a hard breakup. 
The first time I am not doing the breaking up. 
I felt helpless. 
To compound this, covid started right after and 
I felt so alone. 
I have put much pressure on me at work ...

Outch! Overall, I wasn’t feeling that hopeful and the theme was a low energy self. Not exactly my preferable state as you can imagine. I had a hard time getting anything done and my projects all had stopped except for climbing.

What were my goals for 2021 ?

1 Eliminate defensive instinct and reduce my ego
2 Be humble but understand your value (what you have to give)
3 Rethink dating
4 Practice self-compassion
5 Manage my stress and Energy

How did I do? I still have some work on 1 for sure! But I did get better with a change of team at work that made me learn how helping instead of trying to prove oneself as fast as possible is more productive and conclusive to create nice relationships.

To be honest, I am not close to having mastered any of these points, but I am satisfied with my progression this year 😄

Now that the serious goals are out of the way 🧹 Lets look at the recap!

2021 recap!

PS: The dates might not all be accurate! See the next sections for the pictures to complement the text or to skip it if you don’t like reading!

I actually started the year … Bald!! 👨‍🦲 I am thinning a bit up top and was beginning to fear for my hair. In order to feel a bit better I decided to see how the worst case scenario would be and hopefully feel less fear. I am still not really happy about loosing my hairs, but I think I will be fine. Just need to look like Jason Statham by then!

In January, I bought a nice flashy red bass! Then, I decided to ignore it for the next 12 months 🙈 I also started “Saturday morning experiment” after having read Range from David Epstein. I brainstormed a few pages and even with a calendar event didn’t do much more around this project unfortunately. Jonathan consistency: 0.

In February, I started learning a ton about music theory by following an online course on Udemy. It was really fun and I was really proud about my commitment to wake up early and do this! I manage to learn quite a bit until I stopped. Counterpoint was my downfall 🎼

In March, I was high on life and started so many thing at the same time! I decided to get more shredded and eat “healthy” with meal prep. Sorry for those unfortunate that saw me scroll my pictures pass my “progress” pictures 😆 I had my first ice cream and bought a Roli lumi (a pretty midi keyboard) which has multiple layers of sensitivity making music producing more expressive. It was around this time that I learned that my mother was severely ill. She has been know to lie and its been a real rollercoaster since then.

In April, I started seeing a nutritionist. It was pretty interesting, but I didn’t hit my goals of getting “shredded”. It did get me more interested into the space of nutrition and I learn a bunch about traditional approaches to an “healthy” diet. One reason I didn’t my goal was that I was emotionnally a wreak… While spending some time at my mother, I received a message from my father saying he had a cancer and was starting chemio and radiotherapy soon. Not easy having both parent very ill.

I had to reduce the stressor in my life. I kinda dropped everything and reduced my stress at work by taking less responsibility. This proven to be a good choice that really helped me for the following months and make my transition to another team much smoother. One thing I really didn’t like about this period is my inability to stop myself from binge eating which really made my path to getting in better health not going anywhere.

In May, I started going outside more! Doing some chocolatine bike ride with friends and some gravel bike at Yamaska parc. I also bought a camera and started taking some pictures and reading a book about camera.

In June and July, I spend some time on vacation and working. I visited Quebec city and some winery with my friends! We also went to Laurie Raphael were we ate like kings and Queens. During my vacation, I took time off and visited Megantic and Orford and did some hiking. I had a ton of fun running uphill in Orford like a crazy person 😂

In the end of July, I felt like I needed some boost of confidence and decided to get a new wardrobe! Instead of stumbling through stores not knowing what to look for, I decided to hire a stylist! I was in dire need of some guidance and my stylist delivered 😎 I also went kayaking near Montreal at Îles-de-Boucherville National Park. Its really nice and I should definitely go again in the future!

In August, we went to prince Edward county in Ontario for some biking and wine touring. It was delicious! I also had a bachelor day were I discover I was really competitive (duhh) at go-kart 🏅 I also switched team at work.

In september, I had a wedding, I went to “le jardin des lumieres” and hiking in Tremblant with my friend Gelinas and Sonic his girlfriend dog! I also ate like a king at my friend Kim “souper presque parfait”. This is an event we do between my close friends where we really try hard to make the best supper we can. Its pretty fancy on the food side and with kim edition it was also accompanied of awesome wine pairing!!

October was pretty chill with birthdays and buying a house. Oh yeah! My remote working I decided to take a leap and leave the city to see if it fits me better. I am looking forward to be closer to nature and mountains, to having more space for tinkering and being in a more calm environment.

November was really fun! With my work, we had an activity in Toronto for team building. We had an exclusive experience in a music studio jamming, recording tracks and getting vulnerable through activity. We also ate at really fancy place. Lots of fun all around. I also went to an multimedia experience with Kim. Lastly, I bought too many things during black friday 🙈

In November, I also started geeking on keto and decided to start an experiment with it for a few months. I will make a post about it in the future!

In December, I had a get together with folks from work and we visited a merchant. I also went to a chalet with my friends and started coding this blog!

Thats it folks! Sorry it was pretty lengthy 😅

2021 in picture

Otherwise I take a lot of picture of my food, so here is the best of! Including home made and restaurant pictures