The decade gone by - 2010-2019 - was the most important decade of my life.
This was the first full decade that I lived an independent life away from my parents - shaping my own life in a way. My personal life. And my professional life. I spent the decade before this one completing my education, setting things up for my life to come. But it was in this decade when I started recognizing myself. Defining myself.
I got settled into my first job. I fell in love and then married her. We moved in into a house and made it our home. We learned to live together. We purchased our first car. We decided to settle in and shifted to a new town to do just that. We found a house where we felt we could start our independent life together and purchased it.
We decided the time was right to welcome another member to our family. We were blessed with a baby girl, our little angel, and I fell in love again. She became our life. For the next years to come, every decision we took, I took was to make sure our daughter has the best life.
I grew professionally. I proved my worth and gained respect amongst colleagues. And when that started dwindling towards the end of the decade, I decided it was time to move on to a new job. By this time, I was pretty clear what I wanted out of my carrier and thankfully I found a place and a role that could provide me with that.
I identified my interests outside of work. And they have managed to provide me with the stability, the sanity in my lone times.
As I look back at the years gone by, I can’t help but think this was indeed the most important decade of my life.
If there was one common theme that defined this decade for me was the decisions, the life-altering decisions I had to make throughout the past 10 years. The decisions that would make or break my life.
And I think I have managed to come out unscathed. Bruised, scraped now and then, sure. But not marred. I feel satisfied with that.
Here’s me looking inwards at the start of the year on how the past 10 years have affected me.
the fidgety teen from 10 years back has given way to the calmer, saner, thoughtful self of today. I feel content within and that is the most important thing.
No doubt, today’s is a changed, improved me over 10-years-younger myself. But if the decade gone by was defined by the decisions, I believe it would be the balance that defines the next decade - a balance between change and stability. Exciting times!