Ask any kid growing up in Malaysia in the 90’s ‘When will we be a developed nation?’ and the answer, without fail, would’ve been ‘the year 2020’.
Like October 21, 2015 a.k.a. ‘Back to the Future Day‘, the year 2020 was this mythical target in the future. It was far enough in the future (back then) that anything seemed possible.
Flying cars? Sure!
Self-lacing Nike shoes? Why not!
Honest politicians? Get the hell out of here…
Anyway, the reality, as we now know, didn’t quite live up to expectations. In fact, I’m constantly struggling between two diametrically opposite thoughts on how this year went. On the one hand, I’d be lying if I said nothing good happened this year. But damn it, a part of me just wants to label this year ‘FUBAR‘!
To a certain extent, I feel like this year came to an end in March, and everything else since then has been a great big dream (or nightmare, whichever one you prefer).
2020 in numbers
According to my dashboard, this year I published 85 posts (not including this one), and wrote a total of 20,211 words (again, not including these ones). These posts received 5,629 views from 3,230 unique visitors. Most of my readers are based in Malaysia and the United Kingdom, although I’ve also received visitors from unexpected countries like Romania, South Sudan, Norway, and Sri Lanka.
So to all of my readers out there, thank you very much for your time.
Summary
Despite all that has happened, one thing I’m glad about is the fact that I started writing regularly again this year. In my next post, I will try to outline my plans for 2021; strangely enough, I feel cautiously optimistic about the forthcoming year. Sure, the pandemic has caused havoc in many areas of life, but it has also opened up new opportunities for growth and self-development.
Until then, stay safe and take care, wherever you are.
Imran Idris 
Keep going!😘
This sounds like my growing up in Brazil. My father used to say that Brazil was the country of the future. The future remains the future. Nice blog, I have enjoyed reading a little about Malaysia. The closest I have been was Thailand, where I spent three weeks collecting insects.
Thanks for the kind comments Alessandra. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say ‘the future is the future’ before, but it IS true to a certain extent. Perhaps that should serve as a reminder for us to live our life to the fullest in the present.
You should definitely visit Malaysia once the pandemic is over. We have way more interesting insects than our neighbours! (just kidding, of course)