Was 2015 A Good Year?

I stopped writing my year in reviews because I don't want to jinx the next year. I choose to review 2015 because I want to ask myself, "Was 2015 a good year?" I believe many people say my 2015 was a bad year. I answer the question myself. There are no restrictions at Finding Raymond Mar blog. Let's see what happens to 2016.

Bad Year?

I worked at Palo Alto Networks as a contractor supporting an engineer. I hoped there were new openings in other departments or my contract was extended a longer term. Neither happened. There were no new openings. My contract was extended for two months. The company was phasing out all contractors.

My last day was Fri May 1, 2015. There were multiple sources why my contract was satisfied. One source was the department had no money to extend my contract. Another source was no need for my services. And a third source was, as mentioned in the last paragraph, the company phased out all contractors. In other words, the company employed full time workers only.

I have been job searching since Wed Apr 1, 2015. The first week of being unemployed was optimistic. Three phone interviews. No face-to-face interviews resulted. As of the blog entry, I interviewed face-to-face four times. I stopped counting phone interviews after number 11.

2015 was a bad year because I was unemployed. I had no income. Correct?

Incorrect. 2015 Was A Good Year.

2015 was not a bad year. 2015 was a good year. I learned lots of new job skills such as Oracle, Tableau, forecasting, and Agile. I reviewed lots of my existing job skills such as Excel, Access, Salesforce, and SQL. I trained to be a Community Emergency Response Team. I lost 10 pounds. I blogged my 1,000th blog at my Innovating Common Knowledge blog. I read at least ten books which included The Color Purple by Alice Walker, The Fault In Our Stars by John Green, Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck, and various books learning new job skills. I upgraded my desktop computer.

The icing on the 2015 cake was new feelings and new emotions. There was sacrifice such as spending less time with my close friends. I grew out of my past relationships. I had the nothing to lose attitude. No more data entry positions. There were moments I lived outside my comfort zone. I backpacked 23 miles for two days at Zion National Park. I hung up on a persistent unhelpful recruiter. I never hung up abruptly and impolitely before. I experienced willpower and never give up when I hiked.

2015 was a good year. I did my best to get better. I stayed strong to survive the long term. I built my foundation. There were no monetary rewards. I'm optimistic what I did yesterday reaps any and all rewards tomorrow. The monetary rewards are coming soon. One of these days I look back at the hard work, the frustrations, the setbacks, the struggles, the new feelings, the new experiences, the lessons I learned of 2015 telling myself, "The journey was worth it." I continue to get better, get stronger, stay the course, do it today for tomorrow, and grow my foundation. Moreover, if the only 2015 lowlight was unemployment, then 2015 must be a good year.