100 Things of 2023

Documenting the past year, mostly for myself.

Photo by Jacki Drexler on Unsplash

Inspired by Austin Kleon’s blog post on 100 things that made his year in 2023. He’s been doing these every year since 2014! Nathan Barry has been doing something similar called Year in Review since 2011.

1. Discovering books I’d read over and over. Some of my best reads of 2023- Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Steal Like An Artist, Keep Going, and Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon.
2. Journaling consistently (not every day). I started journaling on 6th March and wrote in my notebook mostly at night, before bed. I enjoyed it and have filled more than 3 journals since.
3. Learning that motivation means doing something because you’re inspired to do it, a burst of energy. Discipline is doing that thing despite it.
4. Discovering creators like Ali Abdaal, Austin Kleon, and Matthew Dicks and discovering small personal blogs.
5. Taking a 10-day trip to Sikkim with my family. Being surrounded by mountains, hiking through a pine forest, getting inside waterfalls, walking around Gurudongmar Lake at an altitude of 17,800 ft, eating momos and basking in the sun in Yumthang Valley, visiting monasteries, breakfast at a wholesome homestay, kind and happy people, using google maps to explore on foot, visiting the Indo-China border and Indo-Nepal border, snow, mist, long drives, rhododendrons and pink fox gloves, old silk road.
6. Walking to college. With friends. Or listening to music or a podcast
7. Participated in a Pen-a-thon where I had to write LinkedIn personal branding posts and suggest profile optimizations. The company hosting it loved my submission and wanted me full time
8. Discovering and writing black-out poems. I’m very proud of my first one- “Foreign experienced home, everything is new.”
9. Thinking about the difference between goals created out of inspiration and desperation (Don’t Believe Everything You Think by Joseph Nguyen)
10. Wanting to move to Alaska after reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
11. Reading books differently- underlining, scribbling notes in the margin, cracking its spine
12. Working with an Italian luxury brand during the festive season- doing calligraphy on customised cards for their premium clientele
13. Matthew Dick’s homework for life
14. Finding comfort in Via Li’s videos
15. Bibi Jane Angelica’s Algorithm of Life
16. From not wanting to go to college at the beginning of 2023 to not wanting to leave by the end
17. Making and eating chocolate-covered strawberries
18. Learning about different cultures across the world
19. Good Will Hunting
20. Billy Oppenheimer’s notecard system
21. How nature creates the best sustainable packaging- peanuts in their tiny shells, bananas with their beautiful and protective yellow peel, coconut water in hard husks
22. Reading ‘101 Essays that Will Change the Way You Think’ by Brianna Wiest and writing my thoughts and answers to the questions she asks in the book
23. Doing mundane work or comfort activities- work you do when you don’t not what else to do
24. Reading till 2 a.m. because I could not stop
25. Getting a new study table
26. Long drives
27. Night walks
28. How important creativity is to me. Painting, sketching, writing, reading, hand writing quotes in a book, calligraphy, observing
29. Consuming too much content, OTT and doom scrolling and realising how bad it is for my mental health
30. Frozen yoghurt, donuts and blueberry cheesecakes
31. Thinking about how you are never too old or too young to do anything
32. Got my passport renewed all by myself and realised the process is not complicated, you only have to read (more than 95% of people in my country get a third party involved who totally rip them off)
33. The smell of air at night and in the morning, in autumn and winter and summer.
34. Good conversations
35. The idea of being an experimenter and trying new things
36. How much I need to work on myself and grow and figure out
37. Realising that I need to get out of my comfort zone more often
38. Morning jogs at the Victoria Memorial
39. Practising affirmations and gratitude
40. Sitting with myself quietly or with soft piano or violin instrumentals in the background
41. Watching Fernweh Chronicle’s travel videos (more like short films)
42. Disliking how crowded my city is getting, the frenzy of new cafes, barely any space for pedestrians, how often people honk for no reason
43. The peace at night after everyone sleeps
44. Fries and Taboo at Blue Tokai
45. Discovering a new park with a small lake, labelled trees, hopscotch and a tiny library
46. Making crafts
47. Visiting a village called Kulpi with an environmental conservation organisation. Eating food served on banana leaves, greenery, open fields, blue pea flower plants, large jack fruits, planting a coconut tree, bad bus journey with terrible air conditioning
48. Writing on tote bags, painting on bills, wood, coconut shells and tiny medicine glass bottles
49. Reconnecting with school friends
50. Working on my relationship with money
51. The beautiful skies from my university grounds
52. Self-learnt acrylic painting. Turns out I’m pretty good at it.
53. Talking to and connecting with new people in college and online
54. Watching the moon.
55. Painting Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night on an old CD
56. Cold emails work
57. Starting 2023 with a 21-day yoga challenge, one juice fast and one soup fast.
58. Drawing and using oil pastels after a while.
59. Bought some clothes I really like.
60. Watching the tree in front of my bedroom window. How its leaves turned ochre during autumn
61. Learning to protect and expand my boundaries and being honest about it
62. Meditation
63. Witty (and sometimes humorous) sign boards in East Sikkim- Curves can be beautiful but dangerous on the road; safety on the road, safe tea at home; mountains are a pleasure only if you drive with leisure
64. Zip lining for the first time
65. 90-minute movies
66. Taking long walks
67. Rewatching Gilmore Girls
68. Writing more often and documenting things. Not waiting for it to be perfect.
69. Baking things I’ve never baked before- brownies, carrot cake, banana muffins
70. Played badminton
71. How having good teachers and mentors makes all the difference. It’s not about having the best people around. Rather, it’s about having the right people around.
72. An internship where I explored blogging, ghostwriting, copywriting, LinkedIn personal branding, and social media. Check out my LinkedIn ghostwriting samples here.
73. How self-care looks different for everyone. It’s even different at different stages for the same person.
74. How what matters is taking action
75. Watching Chandrayaan-3 landing in college on the projector
76. Watching sunsets. Pink, blue, orange, purple, yellow
77. Solo pottery session
78. How fun looks different for everyone and it’s okay if you don’t enjoy what someone else does.
79. Using fresh basil leaves from our basil plant in pasta, pizza, toast
80. Pressing flowers in books
81. Paying attention. A flower twirling in the air before touching the ground, a leaf flowing with the wind, shadows on the wall, the sun.
82. Changing my mind
83. Buying books and ceramic coffee mugs
84. Learning the importance of creating content even if it isn’t good when you begin. Also, remember a big creator won’t make fun of someone starting out but, those who don’t create are more likely to
85. How we are the ones who judge ourselves the most
86. This quote by Charles Horton Cooley in Jay Shetty’s video, “I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.”
87. A quote from artist Caroline Caldwell stuck with me, “In a society that profits from your self-doubt, liking yourself is a rebellious act.”
88. That I did not go on a solo trip or a trek
89. I planned and thought about doing more than actually doing
90. Leaving books I didn’t like midway
91. Slow mornings, some good, some bad
92. Drank a lot of water
93. Stephen Duneier’s Ted Talk
94. Did not start my newsletter
95. Rereading Tuesdays With Morrie
96. Accepting that it’s okay to not like what I don’t like even if others might
97. How important being quiet and having downtime is
98. What being an introvert actually means
99. How being close to nature is rejuvenating
100. Reading Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter

If you’ve written something similar, share a link in the comments. I’d love to check it out and gather some ideas for 2024.

(Ps, I want to point out that there were, of course, many more ups and downs in 2023 but I’m only sharing what I feel comfortable putting out online)