Month-in-Review Highlights: April 2021

A photo from our visit to the Morges Tulip Festival. (The photo doesn’t do it justice.) Morges, Switzerland. April 25, 2021.

I postmortem each month shortly after it ends, reflecting on what happened in general and, more specifically, in the context of my goals. Though I don’t share all my insights here, I have made it a practice to share at least one key highlight or insight. (To read previous months’ reviews, click here.)

In planning for a project earlier today, I made several notes for deadlines that I marked as March, rather than May. That tells you how quickly this year has passed for me.

I have a hard time reckoning with the notion that we’ve finished a third of 2021.

Do I blame the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its blurring of days, weeks, and months? After all, I have few events to demarcate the time passing.

Or should I fault growing older, via which the number of years on the planet affect the speed at which time seems to pass? (Why yes, researchers have studied this phenomenon.)

Either way, I reviewed my goals for 2021 at the end of April, per my usual routine, and felt relatively at peace with my progress so far.

I have a few areas of catch-up and improvement, but my “wins” for the month far outweigh my “losses” when it comes to meeting my annual objectives.

I wanted to amp up my creative endeavors this year. I’d felt stagnant and stuck toward the end of 2020. Although I didn’t catch momentum on this count until late in the first quarter of 2021, I now feel much more energized and inspired in my writing and in some of my other creative activities.

Partly, I credit my efforts toward building more relationships with other creative people. Connecting with other people who create feeds my own creativity. No surprise, I suppose: Research has proven as well that the people with whom we surround ourselves significantly influence our thoughts and actions.

Further, I feel my focus on creativity in my exercise—as mentioned my February monthly goals postmortem—has helped unlock my mind to more play and exploration in general. The more I open myself to trying new things in my daily workouts, the more I feel open to trying new things. Perhaps not surprising, either, that how we move our bodies changes our mindset and outlook.

I hope you’re moving forward as well.

Here’s to our keeping up the good work in the second third of this year.