Nothing like the end of the year for a bit of self reflection, right? The Blocktrades contest gives us a little chance for to look back in the year with a critical lens, with a view to going forward into the new decade with a new way of seeing. I always believe that we never really fail, as any mistakes are just signs we maybe barking up the wrong tree or are simply opportunities for learning. There's nothing like that really uncomfortable feeling of failing to knock you around a bit and make you take stock.

I am very last minute with this. Sorry @nomadsoul - my laptop crashed and I am having to phone steem which isn't easy when you have so many steem obligations to fulfil!

How I Failed This Year

I failed miserably at my job. Not many people on the blockchain know this because I separate my work identity from - well, everything else in my life - but I'm a secondary school English teacher, and I've been teaching for nearly twenty years, ten of which were part time or contract positions and emergency teaching, and ten in a high school, teaching senior English and EAL (English as a Second Language). Whilst people may think I'm mad for doing such a demanding job, I have always loved it because I really, really dig teenagers. They are just awesome caterpillars on the cusp of being awesome butterflies. Having had an awful time being bullied at school, I was naturally drawn to teaching because I wanted to help teenagers, and I had a passion for literature that I wanted to share.

But teaching is tough - the classroom side of it is easy next to the demands of the curriculum and the expectations upon on us to perform. I did years full time before suffering a stress breakdown a few years ago. My mind just broke. The pressures I was putting on myself, and the boundaries I was failing to set pitted against a system that takes a lot more than it gives had me a crying mess unable to enter the classroom. Places like that only pick you up when you're broke - they don't do a lot to stop the breaking happening in the first place. I came back on a reduced timetable for the following three years, making adjustments to our budget and willingly accepting I would never teach full time again. Part time was awesome - I had space to surf, to do yoga, to garden, to do projects I was really into, and of course, to eventually Steem when I found this platform.

But oh god, it's been a long, hard three years and I totally felt a failure for not being able to cope with this job. It reached the point where I was just gritting my teeth and pretending to be passionateand caring in the classroom when really I couldn't care less about these kids or their results. I was just faking it - pretty well, as i am a good teacher and well liked. But my heart was not in it. I was struggling even to see the value in the curriculum and tired of staffroom politics which felt pointless and nasty. It's not too nice being in a career that is killing your soul and stretching you so thin you start feeling like a failure in other ways too as you start losing the energy to put enthusiasm into other facets of your life. I feel pretty teary even writing this as don't think I was even admitting to myself that I was seeing it as failure. It has knocked my confidence around a lot amd messes with my feelings of self worth.

Successes

As depressing as all that sounds, both my husband and I managed to overcome fear of drastically reduced income and take a year off work, stretching our long service leave pay across 2020 so we could have a break, travel amd just be ourselves again. It was nerve wracking making the decision amd worrying it was tje right thing to do. Would we have enough money? Could we pay the bills? However I am gradually dropping all of those fears and excited I have a year to have the headspace to regroup and reinvent. Maybe I will come back with more mojo to be better at my job and not feel like a fake. Or maybe we will be successful at dropping those fears and insecurities to totally change tack and not go back to teaching at all. Who knows, but right nowI I am feeling happy! I am starting to see that my job absolutely doesn't define me as a person and that there is MORE to me than that. As many die hard Steemians will attest, Steem is a place to find yourself, in a way many people off the blockchain won't understand.

There has also been a lot of other psychological breakthroughs this year - I am not one to remain stagnant and am constantly working on breaking free of all those illusions of the constructed self. Doing that is always a success to me even if its a work in progress. It can take a great deal of mental strength to go through those dark nights of the soul so I feel proud that I have the courage to do that. I have struggled tremendously with the prospective of losing my Dad, who I am very close to, but I am getting closer to accepting death as part of this beautiful life, including my own mortality.

Starting Natural Medicine Tribe

Even BETTER than that, haha, I overcome my nerves about starting a TRIBE - given I am a small player in a Steemiverse of smart & interesting people, the majority of people with far more tech skills than me, I wasn't sure I could pull it off. I never thought of myself as a leader and Im still kinda uncomfortable about that given the fact it takes everyone to make a village. However I had built a strong foundation of Steemians that were united in their passion for natural health, not just the body but also the mind (we have a meditation focus and live medidation twice weekly) too. Natural Medicine had been going for a year already and it's it the longest running health curation group on the blockchain. It seemed a natural next step to help support people through a token. With the help of @alchemage and @metametheus, and enthusiasm of @nateonsteemit, we took the leap and @eonwarped put up with my stupid questions to create www.naturalmedicine.io. I was finding skills I didn't know I had and began to realise I could do anything here with the right crew and the right questions. Thanks to @quochuy, @richardcrill, @jonyoudyer, @gerber, @khaleezi and quite a few others, including a crack team of amazing curators (you know who you are) I made it something to be proud of.

I really believe in the capacity of these front ends to tempt new users via niche interests and incentives such as tokens and SMTs and feel committed to doing my bit to make my Steem corner as good as it can be to be part of an even greater whole, and do what I can to support even the tribes I am not involved with. I think we are all in it together and have to help each other out where we can and however we can.

I feel really proud of what I have achieved - we are only a fairly small community but I think we have an important role to play and give many people a place to call home and feel comfortable. I think this has been the most rewarding and succesful thing I have achieved steemwise - I don't even care about my own SP except I need it to reward Natural Medicine folk and put into worthy projects and incentives here. In fact I entered this challenge not only to for @anomadsoul but because if I won anything I could invest in back into the community.

All in all, when I get to the end of a year I tend to look back with fondness rather than regret. It's been a really tough one in many ways and I feel a little shellshocked but 2020 is looking good.

What successes and failures have you had this year?

**NOTE: If anyone from Blocktrades judging panel is readign this right now, I forgot about the whole Twitter thing, so I'm just creating a Twitter Account for NAtural Medicine now, which i've been meaning to do in ages! Back soon...

**Update! I finally created a Twitter account for Natural Medicine, called Lotus_Medicine. Ah, a success! I've been putting it off for ages - between running Instagram, Facebook, Discord, a community, multiple accounts and real life, I was really delaying on this! Now, off to follow as many related accounts as I can to make this worth it! Thanks for the push!

@naturalmedicine II Discord Invite II #naturalmedicine