I hope whoever is reading this has a blessed, healthy and safe new year.

As we enter the new decade and bid farewell to the decade that made us, it is a great time to reflect on how our lives have changed both in the decade and in 2019 alone.

Some of us have made fabulous strides in 2019. Whether it be getting into their dream college, scoring that coveted job or internship, or merely just surviving another year, everyone's achievements are due for celebration.

What also should be celebrated is our setbacks. Maybe we got rejected from that college or job. Maybe we've lost someone or something that in a million years we have ever thought we would lose. Maybe our mental health got the best of us.

And that too, my friends, is ok and should be celebrated.

But the problem with reflection and sharing is based on what "deserves" to be celebrated. The problem lies in us comparing our goals.

We live in a culture where everything is framed as a competition. It's in our politics, our economics, even in our pop culture. It seems as if we cannot even let our own well-being allow us to recognize that everything has to be a competition.

As we usher in a new year and a new decade, take the time to understand that there is no competition to be the most successful amongst your family and peers. One's level of success is by any means a measure of how much your success is defined.

Rome wasn't built in a day, nor has the voyages of explorers across history. You are the master of your own destiny, the writer of your own story. And think about that. What makes a better story: a short one with the plot twist so abrupt that the rest of the story drags on, or one that is slow at first, picks up and reaches an unforgettable climax?

From the bottom of my heart, whoever's reading this, please take care of yourself. Self-care is the most powerful act that one can do, in an age of fast pace and competition. You owe it to yourself to give yourself a break.