2015: My Year In Review
This has been a great year for me on both a professional and personal level. My biggest achievement this year was making it ten years with Global Wire Associates. I never thought a decade ago that I would be an entrepreneur, let alone one with a company with such longevity.
I want to take this time to thanks those who have been with me since day one – Marjane Nakello, Maria Ferrara and Philip Lee – great colleagues and lifelong friends I will always cherish. I want to also thank all the clients I have had over the years. A great business idea only flourishes when you have supportive customers!
I think I have learned a lot about myself, especially over the last year, about patience, humility and tenacity. And I am still learning and hoping to grow even more in the future. I am really looking forward to a new opportunity next year where I will do more STEM instruction for youth.
On the journalism side, my Caribbean business and economics newsmagazine had a rough start at the beginning of the year. But now that we have the right people in place, we hope to officially launch it in 2016. I also have a couple of other projects in the pipeline, prepping to launch in the new year or 2017.
At the beginning of 2015 I challenged myself to better balance my work and personal lives, which includes exercising more and spending more time with family and friends. Life is too short to work all the time. I’m happy to say that I have achieved that … and then some!
In the new year I hope to continue with the work/life balance by reading more books. I have dozens of books sitting on my bookcase, waiting for me to discover. I usually get so wrapped up in work that sometimes I forget to let my mind breathe. I also want to take up hand drawing again for pleasure, and not just for graphic design business contracts.
I need to watch less television in the new year, mainly because of all the negativity happening in the world. Just when you think the world is moving forward on issues like marriage equality, then you hear stories about Ahmed Mohamed and Laquan McDonald. Then Chapel Hill happened. And then Charleston happened. And then San Bernadino happened. And then Paris happened – twice.
Maybe less time on trumped up Benghazi hearings and more on why there are still Confederate flags flying on public grounds in this country is needed. I don’t consider myself a staunch Hillary supporter; she is the lesser of the evils…
With all the mass shootings, ISIS terrorism, plane disasters, political and cultural divisiveness, killings of unarmed black people and Donald Trump, I feel really stressed when I watch the news. And all the garbage reality shows don’t ease the tension either.
There were some glimmers of hope this year. Pope Francis and Malala Yousafzai continues to inspire me. Last week in Kenya Muslim women shielded a group of Christians on a bus from an Al-Shabab attack. Just yesterday I read that Muslims are openly mocking ISIS on Twitter.
American media coverage of all these issues was horrible this year, and it will only get worse with the cartoonish US presidential election next year. I find myself going to Al Jazeera, BBC News, France 24 and the Intercept for my news more often these days. Less CNN and Faux News and more real news, reading, writing and drawing in the new year.
For the next week I am just going to veg out a little, read a book, relax with some good music, and prepare myself for the new year.
I hope you will take some time out to do this too!
See you in the new year!