Lessons Learned From My Jewish Year

It's Sunday and holiday eve here in Israel as of writing these words. In a few short hours, many Jews who don't even frequent the synagogue will appear at their local temple - all dressed in white - to celebrate the new Jewish year.

I will also make an appearance to pray for success, love, and health in s upcoming year. After the prayer, all of us will go home and have a massive meal with a lot of delights saved only for this holiday. The symbol of Rosh Hashana - the Jewish new year holiday - is a slice of apple dipped with honey to symbolize a sweet year.

But for now, it's noon, and I find myself in my local mall, sipping a strawberry-banana-yogurt shake and listening to LoFi music as I'm writing these words. I've never thought about writing a year summary, but I feel it's necessary this time.

So, without further ado, let's dive into my lessons for the year and how I can do things better.

Keeping In Touch With Friends

Ever since Covid hit, I've felt isolated from many people I used to talk to regularly. I'm an HSP and introvert through and through, but I still kept in touch with some people more. Now, I feel like most of my friends are work friends.

That's something I should fix for next year. I have found that many people want to talk to you but don't because you've been quiet, so they are unsure whether you need space or are going through something. I plan to reach out first, not wait for them to reach me.

I think the best example of me not keeping in touch with my friends is precisely today - new year's eve. It's a tradition among Jews to send Shana Tova messages to each other. And so far, at 12:30 PM, I have received none. Quite sad, I know, but I'm not taking it too hard. It's my fault.

Managing Money Better

I think this is something we all deal with—especially us millennials. I could have managed my money better, saved more, and paid off more debt. I have a lot to improve on. Many people around the world deal with multiple credit cards, multiple loans, and a minus in the bank, and I feel like I should also learn how to not let my money or lack of it order me around this year.

I've been so terrified of dating and having to tell a potential date about my financial state and especially knowing that people my age should already have houses and mortgages.

So this year, I'm not going to let my financial state order me around.

Keeping Myself Healthy

I'm fat. There's no way around it. When checking my BMI, I usually fall in the Obese section. But I'm not sure if it considers my muscles because I'm also pretty beefy.

It's not an excuse, though. I've been eating like shit this year, and I believe this is the first year I didn't manage to fall under 100 kilograms. Maybe it's the stress of my financial state and family urging me to get married and stuff, m; maybe it's just me adding fries to almost every lunch during work.

Either way, I'm not getting any younger, and one of the things I dread is running. But I see now that combined with eating less fried trash, regular running could help me burn some dangerous fat around my belly. I could also try to close all my rings daily in my Apple watch's fitness app. I'm not using its health features, and trying to improve health stats could be an excellent place to start.

Having a Purpose

Who am I? Am I a writer? YouTuber? Podcaster? Do all of these words fall under the "Content Creator" label? I regularly feel like I'm pulled in too many directions. And the main reason for that is tied directly to my financial state. At the end of the day, I sat out on this journey to try to escape a 9-5 but not because my 9-5 is horrible or something - I love my day job. Instead, knowing that if I were to lose my day job, the worst that could happen would be really bad.

So, I think my purpose is to be free. That's what I want out of the new year. I want to sleep at night knowing I don't have to look at my bank app in the morning. And it begins with cutting back on many things and not spreading myself too thin.

And I know this afflicts you too. After covid, so many of us are just struggling to find a way out of the mess. Many of us lost our jobs, and others lost loved ones. But we're advancing toward 2023. And it's time to pick up the pieces.

Setting The Right Goals

Not setting the right goals is the initial reason for jumping between different projects. You don't know what to measure, so you get upset that nothing is moving, and you abandon the thing hoping the new something will be easier.

But it's all on you. Nobody else is measuring these projects or even knows they exist besides you. So you have to be willing to focus. And it's hard because our brains don't like to invest energy in futile attempts.

What would be easier for you? Thinking through "publishing a book in the next year" or "writing 200 words today"? Of course, the latter. So, if we find a way to set goals our brain loves to tackle, we will reach them. Otherwise, we're working against ourselves.

Getting Things Done

This is kind of a last-minute one. You may notice I reference the holiday at the beginning of this article. But a few days had passed since then.

I'm completing writing it on the eve of the next Sunday. Meaning - a week after those initial lines.  

I've been contemplating what else I want to add to this article, whether I want to change anything, or whether I should just post it as-is.

And it took a while. I don't want it to take as much time for future pieces, and that's something I should improve this year.

Conclusion

We've discussed many things in this article that you may resonate with or not at all. But that's my life. If I were to choose only one of these things, I'd choose to set better goals because it is a feat that affects your entire life. Whether you set better goals at your day job, content creation journey, or even money habits. Setting better goals could take you a long way.

What do you wish for yourself in the next year to come? Let me know in the comments below, and thanks for reading!