Two days ago was my 29th birthday.

I do not have much to say but I am just happy to celebrate my birthday with a beautiful girlfriend whom I love alongside our daughter who is about 2 years old. By the way, her birthday is soon. It is a great joy watching her grow up. It feels like just a few days ago when I saw her born and held her for the first time.
I am 29 years old now. I feel old already. No. Not old.

I decided to celebrate my birthday each year. There has not been much to do and in fact, I am broke, but my girlfriend did her best to make sure we were able to go to the restaurant. I wanted to celebrate my birthday each year to take an opportunity to reflect on my life and evaluate what I have done and how I have behaved. To evaluate what is right or wrong.
Two years ago, I started to do it. I did not change much about what I do. We went to the restaurant and our daughter was 10 months old last year.
I posted my birthday on the blog but it is still on my old site — a free WordPress website. I just thanked Jesus on the blog for giving me another day and being thankful for the people who were always there for me, especially my girlfriend and daughter.
This year I decided to do a reflection on how I should improve to get what I need to progress personally and professionally.
I will always write a blog like this every year, and here is my reflection on the most important day of my life: I am not expecting readers but if you are one of my readers I am thankful.

1- Lack of networking

Sometimes, I am too pessimistic in life and have low self-confidence and lack networking.
I have been aware of it since I was 15 years old. I am an introvert, I came up with the word and I am 100% convinced I am one. As a kid, I did not have many friends. I was shocked why I was so lonely and had few friends. I rarely attended parties. I remember I only went to a nightclub twice as a kid and I regretted it. I even found it strange that I did not want to celebrate national holidays. I wanted holidays to be quiet and small. I just wanted to stay at home even with nothing to do at all.
I was very focused at school and hated those who were bavardeur and sometimes our teacher appointed me as supervisor of bavardeur and I got in trouble with kids when the class was over.

I did a lot of hard work to fight loneliness and try to network and communicate with people. But I still hate small talk. When I talk I want it to be important and meaningful, but life does not work like that. That is why I was lonely and had almost no friends and network.
As a grown-up, it has a negative impact on me personally and professionally. I struggle to find a job and relationships. I remember as I was growing up when our relatives visited us in the countryside from the town, we hid inside plastic bags and under the bed. I was a very shy person and almost couldn’t talk to new people. I was uncomfortable making friends. It had a negative impact on my personality. My uncle called me “tsy dy” [not wild] because they called me Didy (from Candidier). Didy means [wild or shy from people]. So culturally, ancestors believe that a child needs to fight his destiny if his name is too strong for him. They believed my name exaggerated my shyness because my nickname was Didy. So our uncle called me “Tsy Dy,” opposite of “Didy.” They would want me to be less introverted and shy. They wanted to call me "Tsy Dy'' [Not Shy].

And looking for a job, I spent many years after college without a meaningful job because I missed information. I did not attend seminars or any kind of gathering with people. I was even afraid to ask for information from important people. I struggled to find connections despite having a college degree. I lived like a cattle herder or charcoal maker, if not worse. My condition was very bad because after a long time being jobless you cannot expect to have a better life. Some friends blame the job market but my case was because I lacked a proper network.

2- Not open-minded person

Because I did not have a network and important relationships like I said, my thinking and point of view are so limited and I am too naive. I see things as thin and see no possible opportunity besides my own thinking.
For example, when I studied in Tana, I regretted a lot that I could not think outside the box. I could have taken the opportunity that Duke Lemur Center SAVA Conservation had given me. I was very lucky to receive their support for my master’s but I was too naive to think that there is much to do to progress academically and in life. I was blocked by an obstacle but I should not have been discouraged by any setback if I was smart enough to think outside the box and study for my master’s degree. I could have opened many doors thanks to the master’s study. But I decided to go home and drop out.
I was a victim of my own sabotage. I did not know how to take the opportunity. I am very thankful for what Duke Lemur Center has done for me. Even though I took their support for granted, I still owe them gratitude for what they offered me.
I regret missing the opportunity to succeed in my master’s. During the IPS conference in Antananarivo, James Herrera, Duke Lemur coordinator, sometimes introduced us to his friends and important primatologists. He introduced us as follows, for example: this is ... he is doing his doctorate at ..., and this is ... has done a master’s degree. But when it came to me, there was no qualification or title to address me because I did not achieve anything or a master’s. I felt like a very underachiever with low academic success.

3- Not taking care of physical and mental health

I have never been sportive growing up. I was weak and very small. I often easily got sick, even today. I recently got sick and went to the doctor, his recommendation was to do more sport because I had not done enough sports. But against his recommendation, I have not made any progress, I was too lazy to go running or lift any weight. I could have improved my physical health and my well-being as a person. I could have avoided diseases that could catch me at certain moments.
Now we work as research assistants in the forest and we have done a lot of randonnée, and besides that I do not do much. My friends do push-ups and other movements each day but I stay lazy and have not done the same. The only thing I try is to drink “Raha mafaiky.” But experts say it is not good for kidneys, it damages the system.
I am getting older every day. A day like this reminds me that I am getting old every day. So lack of sport accelerates my aging.
A few years ago I wanted to do running but I was not persistent and gave up after a couple of weeks.

Not only has my physical health deteriorated but also I struggle with mental health. I became so forgetful. I easily forget things. I overthink. I stress too much and always have stress. I lack focus. Sometimes when I talk to people I quickly think about something else and lose the topic. This is very embarrassing when talking to people but it is something I struggle with.
I forget things very easily and lack focus, I have a short memory. I learn things and soon forget what I have learned. For example, when I do not take notes during a meeting or class, I lose the essentials and waste my time. Because of lack of focus, I also forget to come back to my notes later. 80% of the time I do not watch my notes after a meeting or class.
I have struggled with short memories since I was a kid. At school, I needed to learn very hard lessons to understand them. And later on, I could not learn lessons without taking notes or writing on paper what I learned. Even today, I can explain things better by writing or drawing than talking. A few years ago, I learned about some conditions such as dyslexia and dyscalculia. And every day it becomes clearer to me that I struggle with certain conditions. As an additional symptom, I have difficulty remembering numbers. My brain hurts from dealing with too many numbers. In fact, I am very bad at Maths. I cannot remember any phone numbers, not even my girlfriend’s phone number. It should have been addressed earlier, I do not know if it is late or not but I better work on it seriously and talk to doctors or specialists about mental health. If not, it will have serious negative impacts on my health in general and future well-being.
My problem also is that I worry too much about the future, even if it would happen in 5 or 10 years. I am very pessimistic about the future, I worry about the bad — the bad future for anything. I tried to change but could not so far.

4- Not taking care of financial planning seriously

I struggled to find a stable job which exaggerated my financial situation. And my financial habit has not improved despite I was warned by my friends about the importance of saving and budgeting. I spent money foolishly, I bought stuff which was not a priority for me. For my daily expenses I never did a budget. Every month I struggle to pay for obligations because sometimes my salary could barely last a month.
I had to borrow money from other people.
My debt has grown. I borrowed from families and friends, I could not repay in time and it nearly ended our relationships and friendships.
I am really bad at financial skills. To be honest, holding a degree does not mean anything for financial management. People who have no degree manage their money better than me. Because they save, they budget and they know where their money goes. For example, there is a woman who lives next to our house, she works as a vanilla laborer at SOMAVA. She could live a better life than us. She eats a better diet every month. I am not trying to compare but to evaluate how far behind my financial behavior is compared to a daily labor worker who may probably earn less than me. I realize that it is not how much you get paid but how you handle what you earn.
There was a time I was very sad and ashamed because my daughter was sick and we rushed to the hospital. The doctor said we must spend 2 days there. She got better but we had to return to the hospital after a few days. I could not pay her medical expenses and had to ask for help from relatives and parents. If I had saved money we could have paid it but we had no savings, life can be difficult. And asking assistance all the time from people is not what I should do because I work but my financial behavior causes me pain.
I pray to God that my daughter would not get sick, because it broke my heart if we end up in the same situation. Of course, no one wants his child to get sick but in our situation, we could not have money left each month.

5- Not humble enough and developing ego

I am not an open-minded person. I am very naive. But I sometimes like too much to disagree with someone. I like to debate too much which is sometimes not necessary. I need to change. I am sometimes direct and controversial. I debate even unimportant things. I do not admit when I am wrong. I do not understand that not all debates are worth being won.
This behavior has severe consequences on me. People do not like me. I become unfriendly and unlikable. I am not good at conversation. Because sometimes there should be a conversation not a debate or an argument. Which means it does not matter who is right or wrong but just a flowing conversation. I do not know that.
After people detest me because of this, I realize that it is very bad.
I wish I could say less and listen more. My mouth is one of the reasons stopping me from developing and growing.

In conclusion

I am glad I have this opportunity to celebrate my birthday and be able to do a self-analysis. Those points are from what I have understood during the course of the year and from the feedback of people around me and colleagues. I want to work on them step by step to address them carefully. I am aware of their consequences on myself and the people who interact with me daily. I will do my best to improve networking and relationships. I would like to track my progress every three months. I start to acquire new skills, I want to learn to welcome new perspectives and vision. Nothing is impossible if the mind is decided. I will do more physical activities and address my mental health. Mental health is as important as physical health.
I will seek help and advice to handle money and will read more books about personal development. As to deal with my ego and character, I am going to truly address and track my progress. I can’t live like this if I want to succeed in life.