My year in review

I am trying to take a well-deserved holiday, so this will likely be my last entry for the year 2021. What could be more fitting than reviewing the year from my (more personal) perspective?

First up, I will state that this year has been extraordinaly wild, for lack of better words. I do not wish to judge too negatively. I have faced many challenges, but I have also grown in many ways. After all, one result of this years upheaval in my life is, that I started writing. That is a win.

I started therapy
For years, I had been battling with some issues. Mostly overeating on sweets and escaping into gaming and binging. I know, most people do it from tme to time but for me it was starting to get extreme. Another issue was, that I was terrible in handling stress, quickly lost temper or felt overwhelmed. This put many of my relationships under strain, including romantic and family ones. And it was taking a toll on my work in the classroom as well.

My mental health was poor and has been for a long time. I finally started therapy this year.

In early 2021, I decided to seek therapy. It turned out to be the best decision I ever made in my life. Sure, I explored som childhood trauma, which includes bullying. But most of all, I discovered how bad I was at adressing and dealing with emotions. And how low my self-worth realy was. I can’t say I got it fixed, but it is a lot better now and I am on the right path. I learned the hard way that you need to work on yourself your entire life.

I had a car accident which was serious, but luckily didn’t result in injuries
These things happen fast. I have always been driving accident-free until now. Statistically, though, it was bound to happen.

Statistically, every driver has a serious car crash at some point in their lives. This year, I became part of the statistics.

Unfortunately, this time it was during a school trip. I had a fellow co-worker on the passenger seat and two kids in the back. We were out on a nature trip, spotting deers. On the way back, the weather turned bad, it started to snow and the road quickly became lousy to drive on. Close to home, I wanted to make a left turn, onto a smaller road. From there, it happened faster than I could say ‘boom’. Somehow, I missed that another driver was trying to overtake me, as I started initiating the turn. We got torpedoed. The car was totaled. Thank god no one was injured.

The kids proved to be more resilient than myself. A couple of days later, they were already joking about it. We make sure, they got a word with our school therapist, though.

I took a five-week holiday for the first time in my life
This one might seem strange, but I never, ever had more than 2 consecutive weeks of holiday in my life. But after my relationship crumbled and therapy was getting really hard, I figured it was time to pull the plug.

It was in this period, where I started to contemplate some bigger changes in my life. I started reading again. I did exercise. And I used the time to build new habits and routines for myself. Like journalling.

I took a long holiday this summer. I managed to use the time wisely.

This has proven extremely useful. But I also found out one thing. I am horrible at being idle. I simply cannot understand people, who can lie by a poolside or a beach the whole day. My mind isn’t built for that.

I fought battles with authorities and my own, inner demons
In 2021, I was fighting a war on two fronts. One front was Danish authorities.

I battled authorities. And my own demons. It was two-front war. I am slowly winning.

I will not disclose the details now, but I can say this.

Authorities are stubborn. When you fight them you are in for the long haul. In the end I had to give up.

Another front was battling my own demons. I had poor self-worth. I was close to giving up.
I had frequent temper outbreaks. I cried during the night. I didn’t sleep. I lost all motivation for work. I neglected myself. And I tried to keep a facade. In the end, I had to give in and accept my situation in order to change it.

Once I did, I began rebuilding myself from bottom up. And I am not finished.

I made countless of plans, which had to change last-minute
And that is not only because of COVID. I cannot count, how often I had to make major changes to my plans this year.

Few plans worked out like originally intended. Some of them because I ended spoiling them myself. Such is life.

Planning an excursion with students? Aaaaand it’s lockdown again.
Planning to finally celebrate New Year with extended family? Well here are the new contact restrictions for you.

Getting a PCR test I need for travelling? Sorry, we are overloaded right now. It will take four days.

Sometimes plans also changed for personal reasons. Or beacuse I sabotaged them myself. Like I said, I was emotionally not always in a good place.

Some people thrive in this. I don’t. Sure, I learned some resilience, which is good. But a little bit structure is not too much to ask. On top of that, I ended up quitting my job and putting myself in the most unstructured situation I have ever been in during my adult life. Life is not always as simple as it seems. And sometimes we also tend to make it more challenging for ourselves.

I discovered that I really cannot function without structures
I often had this dream of freelancing. And I do not know, how many time I cursed my rigid structure at work.

After quitting my job, I realized that I put myself in a situation I never tried before. I actually had no structure and no commitments. I still don’t. And it is harder than I thought.

A certain degree of structure is necessary for me to function. I cannot be without it. I realized the hard way.

It demands an enormous amount of self-discipline on my part. One of the ways I offset it is by writing. And I treat it as a job. Or at least I try to. Even though I am by no means making any money from it. Maybe one day, who knows.

This gives me some stability. And then I have four pillars in the form of habits, that help me stay on track. Journalling, exercise, guitar practice and reading. Those four activities are not negotiable.

As difficult as it is to be reliant on making your own structures, I grow with it. A lot.

I visited Brazil for the first time in my life
All the turmoil led to a good thing. I finally seized the opportunity to go to Brazil.

I seized the opportunity to go to Brazil. A long-held wish of mine.

I have traveled quite a bit during my life, but South America was never one of the place I managed to get to. And it had been high on my wishlist for many years.
As it happened, I met a girl from Brazil, we fell in love and in spite of all the challenges I described, I had an opportunity to visit this country. So I did. I am even contemplating to move there.

However this adventure ends, I am grateful for having had that opportunity. It is a beautiful country, by the way. You can sense it the moment you step out of the airport. But it is also a country that offers lots of contradictions and challenges.

I discovered a new passion in writing
I am a teacher by heart and always will be. I deeply care about pedagogy and my role in shaping the future of coming generations. I consider teaching as a highly activist activity. And I am not shy to tell about it. But I never actually wrote much about it until now.

Writing has become a new passion for me this year.

I had been encouraged many times. But I found many excuses not to. But now, with a massive change in my life on my doorsteps, I took the opportunity and started a blog. And I started writing here on Medium, also. It’s great and I am happy to be slowly gaining an audience.

Now in truth, I have been writing a lot in my old job. Also about pedagogy. But that was mostly like reports and the like. You know, satisfying demands from authorities, cooperation partners, parents, etc. But now I have the freedom to go deeper in my writing. And I love it.

I rediscovered the hobby of playing guitar
When I was a teenager, I was trying to learn the guitar. But I didn’t pursue it very far.
The truth is, as with all lerning, you have to want to stick with it. I didn’t at the time. My teeanage brain just kept getting occupied with other stuff and daily practice started to become too mundane.

I started playing the guitar again. This time, I managed to stick with it.

This year, I started again. And this time around, I actually managed to build a habit around my practice. It is a welcome distraction, that gives me some peace, especially on days where emotions are challenging. And there are a lot of them to go around.

In fact, guitar practice is now one of my four main pillars of daily habits. I am grateful, I managed to stick with it.

I say goodbye and thank you for a challenging year
In conclusion, 2021 was probably the wildest year in my life so far. And I have passed 39 of them, so that counts for something.
I don’t expect 2022 to do the opposite. But I might finally be able to calm down a little again. I feel like I am on the right path.
I achieved a lot during this year, especially when it comes to my personal growth. I am proud of that. So, here is me quoting Edith Piaf: “Je ne regriette rien”.

So, here is some fireworks to end the year in style.

Alexander Benesch is a teacher at heart, who deeply cares about pedagogy and education.
His thoughts and reflections on pedagogy and education in the 21st century can also be found on his blog.