How do you quantify a year? What made a set of 365 (or 366) consecutive days better than the previous set? Was it making more money? Was it increasing your count of material possessions? Was it traveling more? Was it being entertained more? Was it more drinks/dinners with friends/family? Was it finding/losing someone you care about?
I choose my benchmarks on what I put an effort on during the year, on the times I let the wave of events around me carry me, on when I resisted what I believed to be wrong and when I found something beautiful when I least expected to.
That way 2012 has been a landmark year for me. It was a year of rebuilding myself, understanding priorities, weighing relationships, making new friends, shedding inhibitions, earning respect and taking some leaps of faith. In 2012 I did more work(personally and professionally) than I thought I could ever manage and yet had enough time to be lazy :)