Is it just me, or did 2022 whizz past even for you?
We were all barely coming to terms with life post pandemic, and before we knew it the year is almost over. Wow.
Work from home, work from anywhere, great resignation, quiet quitting, fighting back to office and what have you, we saw everything that none of the previous generations had ever witnessed. But one thing that came to the forefront of our lives is our personal lives, and the realisation that we make a living to support our families and not the other way around.
Over the next decade or two, we’re going to see a surge of investment into personal health, relationships and well-being. As we start automating more and more monotonous tasks that were previously done by humans, we’ll start relying more heavily on human creativity to push the frontiers on innovation.
Ironically, a creative mind needs more rest than a monotonous mind. So, prioritising mental well-being and building richer relationships will become imperative for both individuals and organisations. As our lives become more individualistic, there is an increasing need for purpose, meaning, connection and happiness in everything we do, and work is no exception.
As I watch the growth trajectory of my own coaching business, I can see that people have started investing in themselves, and so organisations will only follow suite. The greatest innovations of the next decade will come from organisations that move beyond lip service when it comes to investing in their human capital.
Personally for me, a lot has happened, but not much has really changed.
I am still sitting on unanswered questions from 2021 … Who am I? How am I making a difference to this world? Should I get a job? Should I start another business? Am I a good parent? How can I meet more interesting people? Will I ever play basketball again? The list is endless.
Although not in the same league of existential questions, but a recent question that left me intrigued was …
“What is your kink?”
eh? what’s that? do I have one? I wondered.
I’d never thought about this question before. In fact, I don’t think I even understood what it meant. So, I obviously googled it. Then, I realised what I am more interested in is why people have the kinks, fetishes or fantasies that they do, where they stem from, how they feel when they act on them and how they evolve over time.
May be these things have always been around? At least as long as curiosity has been around. If you see some of these stone carvings in Indian temples, it’s easy to tell that people were fairly adventurous with their sexual exploration. But may be there was much more than could be easily carved into stone?
Here’s what I have gathered from my preliminary exploration - there is so much out there in the world that most of us will die without exploring, not because we don’t want to but mostly because we had no awareness of it.
So, one of the many things I will take with me into 2023 is that I may fail, I may pass on opportunities, but I hope I never stop being curious.
As I wrap up 2022, I want to thank you all for reading Shapely Gal and supporting my writing. So let me indulge in some much not-needed analysis of my writing this year.
Posts with the highest views (ok I may have contributed to 50% of it, but still):
Power and Emotion - why women desire powerful men
Marriage, Pleasure and Power - power dynamics in a marriage
Marriage, Boredom and Infidelity - why we cheat
Posts with high open rates (well, 40% is high by my standards ok!):
Relationship transitions - opportunities for strengthening relationships
Manifestation - attracting things you desire
Career and Carrier - work-life balance
Posts that got read more “widely” (my own metric, so don’t ask):
Organic Dating - recipe for partner search ;)
Technoference and trade-offs - impediments to intimacy
Volatility and Happiness - how we measure happiness in relationships
Turns out this is the 81st edition of my newsletter, so may be I’ll hit a century in 2023.
Wish me luck?
As for you guys…