Time flies so fast when you’re busy with life, doesn’t it? It feels like January 2024 was just a few weeks ago. Then came the busyness of college, and before I knew it, here we are in 2025.
But going back to what happened to me this past year, I can say that it was a long, kind of rough, but full of realizations and lessons type of year. It was funny that from the month of January up until the month of December 2024 threw its surprises at me—things I never foresaw or expected. Things that challenged me, made me doubt my capabilities, brought me to tears, and left me feeling hopeless. But at the same time, these things became the catalysts that made me strong, helped me appreciate myself, made me grateful for what I have, allowed me to reflect on myself, and encouraged me to continue growing.
Challenges are essential — avoiding them is to deprive yourself.
Everyone wants to live a comfortable and problem-free life. I am no exception to that; that’s why I am studying rigorously, trying my very best to acquire the skills that would help me land a better-paying job. Aside from the fact that I need to survive, I believe that having a good salary would solve the majority of my problems, LOL. For instance, right now, my eyeglasses are already broken, but I can’t replace them because I have no money. In addition, the screen of my smartphone is cracked and sometimes has ghost touches, but I can’t replace it because I have no money. Growing up with a middle-class status, I believe that having a job that pays well would make my life easier and leave me with only other problems.
It’s undeniable that money can make us comfortable and somehow minimize some of our problems in life. This belief was strengthened by what happened last January 2024, when our family faced a financial struggle after my grandma was hospitalized. Since the holiday season had just ended and we never anticipated the unfortunate situation, we didn’t save enough money. Good thing my grandma had health insurance that helped us with the bills; however, it was still not enough to cover the hospital fees, which kept piling up the longer she stayed in the hospital. In addition, the expensive prescription drugs were also needed consistently to aid in my grandma’s recovery, which added to our financial burden. This situation gave me the thought that there are certain circumstances where money can really solve our problems. At that time, how I wished I had enough money to solve our financial difficulties. Fortunately, we received financial assistance from the local government and a senior citizen discount, which greatly helped with our expenses.
In addition to the not-so-good New Year’s welcome, I was also confronted by other challenges. These challenges were not caused by external factors but by yours truly. We have this quote, “Our greatest enemy is ourselves,” which really resonated with me this year. If you’re familiar with the different types of conflict in stories, you’ve probably heard of the ‘man vs. self’ conflict. It is a type of conflict where the character of the story struggles with him or herself. I witnessed myself fight with my own self this year—a fight with my own values, beliefs, behavior, etc. I guess the ‘author’ of my story dedicated this year to understanding and discovering myself more.
Some of the struggles I encountered with myself this year were admitting my limitations. I think I am the type of person who wants to show that I am strong and can do everything without anyone’s help. I felt like showing that I am weak and being honest about my limited ability and capacity would reduce my worth as a person. This poor value is rooted in another poor value that I had since I was young—being inclined toward the validation of other people. Basically, I wanted to always be seen as capable and able to do everything to receive compliments and validation from others.
My poor values were really tested during our academic projects and collaboration. There were instances when I couldn’t understand the flow of the project concept, which left me in a trance. Luckily, I was not the only one working on the project, and there were several brains in our team. They handled it swiftly and were able to create prototypes and submit them to our professors on time. We even received compliments on how genius and unique our craft was compared to other teams.
However, this was also the time my poor values started to cause problems. Instead of appreciating the talent and skills of people around me, somehow, I took it as a threat and viewed them as competitors instead of teammates. As a result, this gave me unnecessary stress and a sense of urgency to study everything all at once to keep up with their skills and knowledge. In a day, aside from my other college subjects, I would study two advanced IT-related concepts. Mostly, I would hurry to study as if I was running out of time. Well, given that kind of learning routine, guess what? I failed. I was not able to absorb much and master the stuff I was studying. This led to disappointments and frustrations that greatly affected how I saw myself. In fact, at that time, I started talking to myself negatively, saying I was just a pretentious and dumb IT student. Good thing I was able to get back on my feet and push the monster in my head back into its locked compartment.
These were the challenges that shaped me this year—external and internal challenges. Honestly, I could have just run away from them, turned a blind eye, pretended they didn’t exist, and just not cared. But I remembered that challenges are essential—avoiding them is to deprive ourselves. Problems and struggles are what keep us improving and growing. If we deprive ourselves of problems and struggles, we also deprive ourselves of witnessing our better version. In addition, I see these challenges as occurrences that make the human experience more ‘human.’ Can you imagine a world with no problems where everything is perfect? It would be nice for a while, but it would probably become dull, boring, and empty in the long run.
To grow is to reflect on the challenges you’ve succeeded in.
We learn something from our experiences, both good and bad. Additionally, challenges that were extra challenging make us reflect on how to deal with them better or even avoid them next time.
The experience we had with my grandma’s sudden hospitalization gave me a realization that bad health is the thief of financial freedom. As a person who dreams of becoming financially stable in life, this fact slapped me hard. Aside from learning how to properly manage my finances, I must also learn how to take care of myself. It would be regrettable to use the money you saved for your dream vacation but eventually have it go to hospital bills, isn’t it?
This is why I started becoming conscious of how I treat myself, especially since I am still dependent on my parents. It would be a shame if I became a burden to our already shaky financial status. Some of the things I have done to take care of my health include exercising often. For instance, I often go for cardio activities like jogging and biking. This helps me stay in shape physically and mentally. Aside from that, I also became wary of how much carbohydrates and sugar I intake daily. Although I am not 100% restricting myself from eating sugary foods, I am already mindful if I am consuming too much. If I think I am consuming sugar above normal, I start to reduce my sugar consumption. In addition, I also changed my poor sleeping schedule. If back then I slept past midnight, now I try my best to sleep before 12 a.m. This helped me wake up early and do more things during the day. It also helped me have more energy and focus, resulting in better academic output and relationships with other people.
Apart from my grandma’s hospitalization, the ‘man vs. self’ conflict I had with myself gave me several realizations. One of these realizations is that my strengths and weaknesses are now more distinct to me. I mentioned earlier that we had several team projects and collaborations. This led me to discover my strengths and weaknesses, helping me understand myself more—what skills I can offer and the things I still need to improve. For example, being more organized with time and tasks is a skill I shared with the team, which definitely helped us finish and submit our outputs on time. Aside from that, I was able to lead the group effectively, pushing them to use their technical skills efficiently in our projects. On the other hand, realizing my weaknesses helped me recognize the issues I still need to work on, particularly in my technical skills.
Another thing I realized is how lucky I am with my circle of friends. Despite meeting a lot of people in college, fate still brought me to the right individuals—people who care about their education, value their relationships with those who matter to them, and make me feel included and important. It’s funny and fascinating that I’ve been involved with people I can say were not a good influence on me and my academics. Somehow, our social relationships drifted apart, regardless of how much effort and importance I put into them. Maybe it’s because our values didn’t really align? Or maybe God was intervening and had a better plan for me? Either way, I’m glad that I am now surrounded by good people.
Furthermore, I came to realize that everything might happen for a reason—perhaps to teach me a lesson or to encourage self-reflection. Whatever the reason, I am truly grateful for being able to overcome it all. These experiences have made me even more thankful to God for presenting these challenges and guiding me through them. They have provided me with new perspectives and helped me become more appreciative of what I have. Moreover, the challenges I overcame in 2024 led me to reflect deeply, pushing me toward personal growth and paving the way for a new and better version of myself.
The End (of 2024)
The year 2024 would come to an end at this point. I learned this year that every challenge is a chance to grow, every failure is a chance to think, and every moment of uncertainty is a step on the path to self-awareness. Even if life will never be flawless, we can discover strength, meaning, and purpose in its flaws.
