Hard to believe it's already time to look back on the year that was. A year of significant personal growth was capped by a month of stagnancy, aimlessness and doubt. Despite an extended period of time away from my main job, it feels like I've spent these past few weeks going backwards, fighting in vain against a mind determined to shut down and shut off the outside world.
Even now, I'm sitting here struggling to come up with words to describe how I feel. Being away from activities that give me purpose for an extended period of time makes me feel guilty, then upon returning I feel like I've lost all progress on them as a result of my inaction, which makes me feel more guilty and causes me to perform worse at them. I should be taking this time to rest up, enjoy seeing people and reflect, recharge my mental faculties and gear up to tackle the next big thing, but something inside won't let me.
I can't really deny that my mood is affected by this end-of-the-year lull. I don't like being cooped up inside, I don't like having to go outside when it's cold because it invariably makes me feel sick the next day, I don't like the ways my routines are constantly disrupted, I don't like the general social pressures of the holidays, I don't like feeling as if people will have another reason to think less of me when I'd rather pass up making an unremarkable appearance at another compulsory get together.
I'm the only person who can fix these problems, and yet here I am, again, determined to go through the same shit I went through last year, and the year before that, and will probably go through again and again until life drastically changes. I know what I can do to fix this, I know how it feels to get over the hump, go do that social activity I've been anticipating off and on for weeks, reach out to that person I've been meaning to talk with, suck it up and get on with the thing, stop overthinking. It's like I'm trapped in an endless loop, I want to believe I am growing and maturing in my thirties, but in so many other ways I'm stuck in the past, or the present, this ever-present immovable status quo.
Deep down, I know most of the reasons I feel like this if I'm being honest with myself. I'm hesitant to expose too many of these personal weaknesses on this web journal if only because I know other people can read it; there's no way to know who those people are, or what they would do with the information. I find value in writing all this stuff down in the moment, but the scope of long-term consequences involving this activity are beyond my complete understanding at this time.
In the spirit of blissfully ignoring such risks, let's take a look at the goals I set for myself at the end of 2023, how I did on them, and maybe set forth about five or so goals for next year. Before looking at last year's list, I can think of at least a couple of items I may have neglected, but still feel relatively satisfied with how far I've come compared to years of recent past. I know these goals don't have to be a strict year by year thing, it just helps me feel better if I can believe I'm actually making progress toward something, whatever it may be.
I kept up the momentum of my creativity, worked on my writing and published some stuff I am proud of. I'm genuinely surprised by what I was able to put into words in 2024, both on my new blog site and the two online zines I participated in. Hopefully whatever I managed to do correctly can be built upon next year. Thumbs up.
While I did explore some music things this year, it wasn't exactly what I had in mind. A schedule of practice definitely did not happen, and it would be nice if I could make time to work on this in the future. There has to be some motivation to do this, time is limited and all that. Still, this is still something I should want to do, something that used to give me purpose for many years. Thumbs down.
As far as computery creative things, not much progress was made. I've used Aseprite off and on for some minor tasks, but I did not make time for learning how to make pixel art from scratch at all. Same goes for games, I have some ideas for potential future endeavors in this department, but nothing doing currently. I'll give myself a slight pass on a lack of using retro Windows programs more often because I still don't really have a dependable go-to setup for this despite some work on it, the rest is a miss. Thumbs down.
I've been going to the gym pretty consistently in 2024. I'm lifting weights at least three times a week and getting about 5 days a week of, at minimum, 30-45 minute activity sessions. I've got a clear head about how to keep this going next year. Progress is slow, but it's happening. I may have avoided the doctor again, but an improved exercise and diet regimen seems to have been a solid counterbalance. Thumbs up.
I actually made some progress on retro games this year, however minor it may have been. Balancing time for all things can be rough for me, as evidenced by certain shortcomings that have already been discussed. Picking up an RG35XXSP has been a great help for working through some of these older titles that I still manage to get enjoyment out of. I don't want to game my life away, but I also know that gaming will always be one of those guilty pleasures that makes me feel at ease. Thumbs up.
I read more books this year than in 2023, though not many more. I finally picked up a decent e-reader and am actually managing to get some use out of it. Setting up RSS feeds also has me engaging more often with focused, longform text via news articles and blog posts. I think getting into a habit of reading before bed more often will do me some good in a few different ways. I guess I can consider this one an ongoing goal for the rest of my life, and I did just enough of it in 2024. Thumbs up.
Last one here, I technically uploaded a video of considerable length to my YouTube account which garnered multiple hundreds of views. I think that may just be my ceiling as a video maker for the foreseeable future—uploading a video about whatever, if and when I feel it's necessary. I don't enjoy the process like I used to, and don't see online videos in general in as positive of a light as I once did. Ultimately, I explored making videos again, I just wasn't sure I liked what I found. Thumbs up.
So, we come down to five out of seven goals completed. It's funny, I thought five goals was a reasonable number to set for next year before looking at this, and it turns out there was a reason for it. Five out of seven equals about 71%, near what I'd typically score on a math test in high school and barely enough to pass. Neat!
Now, here are five personal goals I'd like to achieve in 2025, in addition to whatever ongoing long term thing I find value in continuing. It would be nice to go above and beyond these, consider this a bare minimum list of tasks. Here's to a productive new year!
1. Complete one small original creative project of any kind
2. Learn (or significantly improve) a skill of any kind
3. Fix sleep problems, namely staying up too late and quality of sleep
4. Improve focus, attention span, mindfulness
5. Work on reviving/upgrading old tech