Nomads Dwellings

Can you believe nearly ¾ of the year has already flown by? This fact quite strikes me. I feel a sense of urgency atm. Oddly it's an urgency to slow down, treasure time and live in the moment. I feel very aware of my time being limited. I am currently visiting home, as a family member is not well. It is the main reason I have spent a lot of time in Switzerland this past year. First and foremost I am very grateful that I am able to do this. Freelancing is a massive gift for me. Also being faced with our mortality puts many things in perspective for me. I feel very aware of my priorities in life. It puts into perspective who and what is most important to me. Second I also feel strongly that there are things I still would love to learn and explore, and don't want to make excuses to postpone them. I saw a reel on IG the other day, about how two years passed and nothing changed... the excuses are the same-but if one just starts moving towards one's dreams in small steps, two years later most things won't be much different, except we have small experiences that change our lives. This spoke to me and I am now writing a list of skills I still want to learn and things I want to do. A sort of bucket list of skills. I might share them later here. (Don't hold your breath, since I am terrible at writing posts these days)Do you have skills you want to learn? I am also reflecting on the year so far. The 100 Day Project was an interesting experience for me. It's been interesting sketching for 100 consecutive days. My inner overachiever still preens with the fact, that she managed to finish the 100 days. From a skill point of view, it was interesting and creatively I found it very expansive, even though I was worried I would run out of ideas or feel stifled.I did however not feel like it was very interactive with other artists. Maybe it's about the algorithms or we are all social media overloaded. Who knows? But one of the reasons I loved Damn Early Days was the sense of community it created. While I did my own thing and was one of the few people in my time zone who took part, others were struggling with me. There was an exchange of ideas and experiences. Also most importantly reminders to be patient with ourselves and our intentions. It helped me get even better at setting goals and pursuing them. And it helped me overcome my fear of routine, and how to build one that helps me expand rather than stiffle me. And last but certainly not least I learnt a whole lot about habits. When I told a friend about these experiences I had the idea to do another 100 days- for the last 100 days of the year. But then life happened and I kinda forgot that the last 100 days of 2024 start on the 23rd of September, so I decided to do a 30-day challenge instead with whoever is keen to join. Starting in October. The idea is to write a goal and make an intention to do something consistently for 30 days. This could be something creative or physical or studying whatever, for at least 5 minutes every day. Or if one wants the goal could be walking 3km or reading one page.. the sky is the limit. I think it is important to make time and to challenge oneself but not to make it impossible. For example, I would not be able to finish a sketch every day because it usually takes me at least 3 hours. Would you be interested in taking part in a 30-day challenge?

Looking back on 2022 two things really stood out: Everything seems to rush by. It seems like it was a very short year and I felt quite often rushed. I feel like I was super busy and achieved rather little. The second thing that seems to have dominated 22 was that I was sick. It feels like I was sick a whole lot of the year. In reality, I was sick exactly 3. But I was sick for the whole of June and parts of July and it took ages to recover. Then I was sick again end of the year, again it took me what felt like ages to recover (two weeks). Both these things actually brought me to the conclusion to take a step back and just have a holiday for the last 10 days of the year. I mostly ignored my phone, the only interaction with my laptop was to edit photos and I was only on social media to keep going with my Project 365. Literally posting the photo of the day and calling it a day. I did reach the goals I set for myself. BUT at the beginning of 2022, I did say how I am setting 3 quite simple goals and that I would rather make intentions and write down what I would like to prioritize during the year instead. So maybe it wasn't that huge of a feat. I did reach my reading goal of 200 books ( but that is my usual so not that special) and I did also finish my 365 Photo Project. I will talk about it a little later.My overall impression is however that I didn't manage to get very much done. When I was sick at the end of May I stopped my morning routine. No more sunrise walks, no more sketching in the morning, also no more study time. This also meant much less journaling and I didn't keep a bullet journal. For the first time in over 6 years, I just stopped doing my bullet journal- the result sadly meant I didn't really keep up with my routines and I was also less organized and my multitasking was rather questionable. Even after I recover I didn't manage to get back into my morning routine, and obviously, my evening routine, which was always my weak point was totally thrown out the window. I think this is a huge reason why I did feel more stressed and why I didn't get half as much done as I usually do. The feeling of being stressed a lot and not being able to keep up permeated many aspects of my life. I often found myself rushing somewhere or thinking I should be doing a million things. I feel like I got sidetracked and distracted a lot. Most importantly, I feel like there were far too few moments when I was fully in the moment. I found social media overwhelming and I stopped posting because I was overthinking as usual. Also, I found the trolls stressful. Instead of being inspired and connecting with others, I just felt stressed and alienated half the time, or I would get sucked into the vortex of random posts and then be stressed because I wasted time. Writing my stress-fest down like that makes it all look quite dire. But really I had many amazing moments. I went on 5 trips (not as many as I used to do before 2020 but I good amount). I spent a lot of time with my family. I got to see a lot of friends. Both were even more of a treat after two years of barely being able to see anyone. I made quite a few new friends. I got a bit lost with my work and what I wanted to do but found in all of the stressing very clear signs of what I really don't want to do. And with that a clear indication of where I want with my creative life and work. So ending the year in my beloved alps. Sipping coffee as I watched the sun rise over one of the snowy peaks I felt like I could finally breathe. And when took my pen and started journaling what came out was clarity. I was very clear on my goals for 2023 and how I want the rest of my life to look. So 2022 might be a year of haste for me, overall and in general but really it also ended up as a gateway to clarity. PS: As pomised I will talk about the 365 Photos in 2022 project a wee bit later (give me a few days)

Category: Lifestyle

September Morning Musings

Reflections on 2022: The Year of Haste